Fruits and Vegetables

Pretty much the only problem I’ve ever had with Desmond’s comics were that some of them seemed too short, which is pretty much the best “problem” you can have with a comic. Well, even that little thing has been solved with this issue, as Desmond put a dozen short stories in here and each one of them is damned funny. The creatures/food items/utensils involved in these stories usually come to bad ends, but at least it happens for the purpose of causing laughter. My only trouble is explaining these strips in a way that won’t ruin anything for the reader, so prepare to be dazzled by my lack of specificity! Stories in here include a conversation between two Tyrannosaurus Rexes (or is “Rex” still the plural?), three worms and the hygiene behind sharing their dirt, utensils with some alone time, a dog and a hamburger trapped on an island, two eggs talking about how things could have been much worse for them (this is the one that got the biggest laugh out of me), an imaginary imaginary friend, showing up too late for the comic, a cloud trying to get out of a conversation, two monsters knowing that they’re in a comic strip and that their life is as finite as the strip, mugs trying to figure out their purpose and geometric shapes and their inability to return a book in a timely fashion. At least a couple of these stories have previously been released as their own comics, but it’s hard to think of a more perfect collection of his work. Buy this immediately if you like laughing, or if you need a reminder that the original purpose of comics was to make people laugh. $5

Unfortunate Mishaps in Aviation History

Well, you certainly know what to expect with a title like that. Don’t expect any happy endings here, as Emi once again tells a couple of stories about historical events that didn’t go exactly as the participants had planned. If you’ve ever stopped to think about how the parachute was developed, chances are that you can imagine that it wasn’t perfected on the first time out. The first story tells of one version of it and of the man who decided to test his own invention by jumping from the Eiffel Tower, even though he had only tested his parachute using dummies previously. The really tragic thing about this is that another inventor had successfully tested his own parachute two days before in New York. I do wonder if the doomed inventor had word of the successful test or if he thought he still had a chance to be first and that’s why he rushed it. The second story is all about an expedition to the North Pole in 1896. Emi does a fantastic job of showing the various terrible lapses in judgment that the crew committed before and during the trip, but the idea of using a hot air balloon that was able to control its progress by using a series of ropes dragging along the ground was always a little dicey, especially considering the fact that the inventor couldn’t even get it to work consistently in trials. Emi has managed to piece together a pretty detailed account of their trip, although she somehow manages to make it seem a touch less gruesome than it probably was. There’s room in the world for a big old collection of these stories, oh mighty comics publishers, once Emi gets enough of them together. In the meantime, the rest of you should probably buy these comics of hers to show her that it’s a good idea to keep making them. Not that she should give up on Spaz, but I’m always fascinated by historical tragedies that I’ve never heard of. $2

Get Into Comix

Brad mentions in the letter that he sent along with his comic that this contains the whole “Get Into Comix” story, complete with earlier pieces that were first published in his regular series, but that he didn’t feel the need to mention that in the comic because those old minis are out of print anyway. So just in case you did listen to my earlier advice to read Brad’s comics back in the day, this has pieces from “Epic Tales of the Mundane” #6-9 along with a new chapter to finish things off. Just so nobody feels like they’re “cheated” by having the whole story in this damned nice package, because I know how weird some people can get about this stuff. Anyway! I’ve already talked about a good chunk of this in previous reviews, so you can read through those if the mood strikes you. This comic is really a origin story of sorts for Brad, as he talks about learning to draw from comics as a young kid and how he was constantly pushing himself to improve in the hopes of impressing his older brother. Then puberty struck, which diverted his attentions in a big way. It’s also rare that you get a chance to see the exact moment when a shy kid turns into a surly asshole, and Brad does a nice job of documenting that here. His life rolls along until he finds himself by himself at a Denny’s after yet another terrible hangover, where he sees a comics store across the street. He doesn’t have much cash and it’s been years since he’s seen any comics, so he wanders around trying to decide which issue to buy until the guy working there takes him on a little tour. He eventually shows Brad the minis, including a comic that he (the clerk) drew, which ends up being a revelation for Brad, showing him that anybody really could make comics. They don’t get enough recognition, but cheers to all the comic shop workers who have taken the time to point out the good stuff to people. It must get annoying to them, because I’m sure they get dozens of blank stares for every success story like Brad, but they’re essential to the process. This is a really solid story and it’s bound to remind people reading it of their own journeys so yes, you should really check it out. After all, if you’re reading these words there’s a damned good chance that you went through a similar journey yourself… $5

From Beam to Buck

A disclaimer is absolutely necessary here: I don’t have kids, may or may not ever have them, and view the process of giving birth as something that happens thousands of times a day (or millions if you want to take all the animals of the world into account), which makes it anything but a miracle. That’s right, I’m an asshole! Surprise! Eh, I have nothing against kids, but I fully expected a book detailing the home birth of Chris’s latest child to have at least a few moments that completely confused/alarmed me. This one starts off with a positive pregnancy test, and strips from there include subjects like Chris wondering if he should tone down his subject matter while his wife was pregnant (her verdict: no), telling his kid that she was going to have a sibling, telling a friend about the pregnancy and his reaction, getting a new place to live, trying to figure out a name (and sadly not going with Volaticus, which I am officially stealing if I ever do have a kid), trying to guess the gender of the baby, working with the midwives, and Chris wondering how to make telling people that he self-publishes sound cool. Then the scene shifts a bit to a story that seemed to meander to me while I was reading it, but it all fits in by the end. Chris was at work and was thinking of tieing one on (“getting drunk” to you whippersnappers (young readers)), but a woman came into the restaurant that made people uncomfortable. He finally told her to leave, so she stood outside the window knitting and generally freaking people out. He finally (and reluctantly) called the cops, but there wasn’t much they could do because she wasn’t doing anything illegal. They finally left and ignored her, but the end result of it was that he barely drank at all. This ended up being a big deal because his wife gave birth the next day, a couple of weeks earlier than her due date, and it might have been a disaster if he was hung over. The birth itself was graphic, in case you’re freaked out by such things (if you are a little growing up might be in order), but overall it seemed to go smoothly, or maybe Chris shortened the labor for the sake of the comic. Anyway, the whole comic is basically a sweet love letter to his wife and kids, with tips for other people who want to try home births. So yeah, I’d recommend this for people who are thinking about giving that a shot. It was also thoroughly entertaining to a childless heathen like myself, but I do have one big question. Is it really normal for the mother to chop up and eat the placenta? Because that sounded gross as all hell to me (again I have to point out that I NO expertise in this matter). Just curious! $5

Piece Goods

Who likes their mini comics violent and random? How about also in color (mostly)? Hey, you’re in luck! This one has a few pieces that are single page illustrations (that’s you’re better off trying to interpret on your own) and a few short stories that mostly just peter out. Those stories include a creepy skeleton dude in red scattering stars (or jacks, or whatever you think they might be), the adventures of a rat trying to calm a baby, how the author would trace rap album covers as a kid and the general reaction he got from his peers, a couple of strips showing the poetic memories of a murderous lunatic, angry driving (or a race) and the inevitable result, letting a crazy person into the house, and the joy of finding out that your house is covered with snow, giving you time to go through boxes of old personal letters and playing out all kinds of fantasies in your head. Most of these stories are open to interpretation and I almost certainly got a few of them wrong, but hey, that’s the fun of reviewing silent comics! It’s a bit of a mixed bag overall, but there’s enough here to make it worth a look.

Champ 2010

It’s about damned time that somebody broke out of the daily diary strip formula. Jed starts off with the usual four panel strip, two panels above and two below, putting one out daily even when he doesn’t have a thing to say. Eventually he starts throwing in sketchbook pages when he’s too busy for a strip, then he moves to three panels, one on top of the other, and finally just whatever format he needs to tell the story he wants to tell from that day. In a genre that’s become tired as hell it was a nice change of pace. This also means that there are more than a few gaps, so any weirdos who demand 365 strips out of a year’s worth of a daily strip are going to be disappointed. As for the rest of us, enjoy the variety! As it says on the cover, this tells the story of Jed’s year without booze, and he regularly professes annoyance at that fact. It was kind of for health reasons but more than anything he seemed to want the challenge of a daily diary strip to fill the hole left by the lack of drinking. I did a review for the first month of this book, so I won’t mention that stuff (the short version is that I liked it), but the subjects of other strips include being miserable at a few different jobs for different reasons, liking the ladies from afar and then from closer up, trying to make time for his comics while still earning a living, wondering if those weird dimples on his thumb nail are cancer, resisting the urge to punch hipsters, and various shenanigans with his friend Chris Monday (whose books will be reviewed here one of these days too). Then things pick up a bit towards the middle of the book when Jed gets a serious girlfriend. That’s also about the time that he started getting complaints about a dip in quality in his work, to which I say: eh, maybe a bit. Misery is almost always a more interesting topic to read about than happiness, so there’s that, but fuck it, the guy was happy! Relationships being what they are, he might very well end up being miserable again some day, which will make his regular readers what, happy? That makes them assholes! I’m veering off track here, but I chatted with Chris and Jed at the hotel bar during the “open draw” thing for SPACE this year, and they both seem like nice enough guys, and as human beings I’d rather they were happy than not. And it’s not like his strips sucked after his relationship started, it’s just that he talked about more things in a relationship frame of mind, which can also seem like a personal attack to some self-centered single people. This is solid pile of strips and, like I said, he plays around with the format a bit, which is always nice to see. Check it out, why don’t you? $9