Monthly Archives: January 2011
Update for 1/30/11
New review for Smoo #3 by Simon M. It’s roughly 2pm Central time at the moment, so if you want to order comics and get them promptly I recommend ordering in the next 24 hours. Any orders made after that will be filled, obviously, but I’ll be out of town and it will take a bit longer to put an order together when I’m 100 miles away from home. Unless somebody orders 100 comics and it’s financially worth my driving back here, that is. I am not above a bribe.
M., Simon – Smoo #3
Smoo #3
It’s depressing to think that this comic only has a print run of 50 copies. Oh sure, Simon can always make more, and he has plenty of free comics up at his website, so it’s not like his work is barely visible. Still, it’s a sad testament to a lack of any sort of financial reward for doing really exceptional work. Are you kids today even buying comics, or just sticking with the free stuff on websites? As I’m officially in my mid 30’s now and I’ve been saying “you kids” for at least 15 of this years, I think it’s perfectly appropriate of me to ask that question, as a general disconnect with what has been considered popular has been a constant theme in my life. As this isn’t supposed to be about me, it’s a good thing that the first piece in this book deals with Simon’s general annoyance with his cell phone while still understanding that it’s more or less a necessity at this point. Yes, people DO forget that it’s just a tool. It also fits in nicely with the overall theme of this book, which is dealing with anxiety. Simon tells the story of a peaceful time, or at least a time when things were getting more peaceful, before he started getting threatening phone calls. The specifics of this are left out, which is a good thing for Simon and a bad thing for nosy people like me who always want more information. Anyway, the rest of the book deals with Simon trying to get a handle on his fear, how it’s always lurking around him somewhere, how he really doesn’t have it so bad after all and how throwing himself into mindless tasks doesn’t always work as a distraction. I loved it, but I’m pretty much officially biased towards the Smoo series at this point, so what do I know? It’s listed on his site as (if I’m getting the conversion rate right, and I most likely am not) roughly $4, so if you hurry you’ll be able to red it and make up your own mind. If not, he has the first piece of this book up at his site for free, so you should at least go read that.
Update for 1/29/11
OK, I’m literally pulling out the big guns for my random “I’m leaving town for a bit, could use some cash and won’t be around anyway so why not order some comics from me today?” comic ordering beg-a-thon: Big Breasted Vampire Death by Nik Havert & Renatus. Reviewed and newly available for sale!
Havert, Nik & Renatus – Big Breasted Vampire Death
Now Available! $7
Big Breasted Vampire Death
Go ahead, just try to not judge a book by its cover after seeing that. I dare you. As a reviewer, it’s a little tricky to tackle something like this, as reasoned analysis has very little place next to enormous breasts, so I’ll try to simplify this for potential buyers of this book. Is there nudity? Yes, plenty of it, and some sex too. Hm. Come to think of it, that’s probably the only question for a whole lot of people. OK, for whoever is still reading, how about this one: is there a good story? Surprisingly, yes. Well, at least mostly. It isn’t going to win any awards, that’s for sure, but I found myself surprised by a few swerves here and there and loved the ending. Overall, there’s not a whole lot going on. The comic is about four female vampires with very large breasts who are traveling to see a country music band. I know, it ruined some vampire stereotypes for me too. Three brothers are also driving to see the show, and they happen upon a massacre from the ladies along the way. It was a little odd how their constant murdering was met with a general “meh” from the guys once they met, but maybe the giant breasts had something to do with that lenient reaction. Anyway, one of the vampires left a memento from an old lover at the scene, one of the guys picks it up, and a budding romance is born. The rest of the book involves them all getting to the concert, plenty of fights along the way, and the possible death of one of the characters. I say “possible” not to be vague and avoid spoilers but simply because I don’t know. Things didn’t look good for this character, but then there was a distant shot of them all together before the comic ended, so who knows. Overall? Overall I can’t believe anybody is still reading this review, as your mind was probably made up one way or the other pretty early on. It’s occasionally fun and smart, but it’s also occasionally trite and silly, and not necessarily in a good way. It’s a decent book, if you were judging it as a regular book, but nothing that will set the world on fire, even if it is in its second printing already. $7
Update for 1/28/11
New review for Stargazer Volume 1 by Von Allan. I should mention again that orders for comics should be placed by Monday, what with my impending travels and all. That and it’s the end of the month so money is tight and any orders right at this moment would be greatly appreciated. Free original art (and I’ll let you pick from a list of folks who definitely aren’t me) for all who order by Monday!
Allan, Von – Stargazer Volume 1
Anybody who reads this site with any kind of regularity knows my stance on spoilers (short version: I hates ’em), but I have to point that that little hairy man from the cover isn’t in this volume. Well, there are some shadowy figures, so I guess it’s possible that he’s in this volume, but it sure doesn’t look like it. Hm. Anyway, this book deals with a young girl who is very distraught about the recent death of her grandmother. The early moments of the book are all about this and the family dynamic that comes from it, but don’t worry, that title comes into effect before too long. Marni (the main character) eventually has a sleepover with friends, they end up camping in the backyard and eat too much pizza… then things get weird. Marni has inherited an odd artifact from her grandma, and they’re all poking around at it when something flashes and they find themselves in a strange land. Oh, and the artifact is gone. The rest of the book is essentially them trying to get acclimated to this new place, as they find an old statue, a tiny robot guy, a boat and a few other things I probably shouldn’t get into. To top it all off Von has decided to put his notes in the back, so we get to see his thought process for how this would all eventually play out. He did take out the spoilers for future volumes, but I still skipped over most of it because I don’t want anything ruined and I’m a big enough dork to go back and read those notes after the series is finished anyway. I liked it overall, as it has a ton of potential, but this is still very much the early days of this saga. Well, I’m hopeful that it ends up being a saga, but you never know with comic finances the way they are. One quibble is that the characters had a tendency to stutter to convey seemingly any emotion, as the mourners at the funeral were all about stuttering, then the kids were all about it whenever they ran into anything odd in the new world. That can be conveyed just as easily by a facial expression, says the guy who couldn’t draw a realistic person if his life depended on it. Like a said, a mere quibble, and it should in no way be meant to indicate a lack of overall quality. The art is amazing (although I’m thinking future volumes will give Von more of a chance to flex his artistic muscles), the writing was excellent overall and I can’t wait to see what happens next, so that sure sounds like a success to me. $14.95
Update for 1/27/11
New review for Bird Brain #4 by Francois Vigneault. I should also mention that I’ll be heading out of town for a few weeks soon, so if you were planning on ordering any comics, I highly recommend that you do so before Monday. I can ship any orders that I get out Monday, after that it’ll get a little dicey. I won’t be THAT far away from Champaign, so I could head back down if I get enough orders to justify a trip, but ordering comics very soon is your best bet to get them quickly. And yes, I do plan on continuing the reviews when I’m away from home and am trying to scan a bunch of stuff now to make that process easier.
Vigneault, Francois – Bird Brain #4
Bird Brain #4
Hey, all you bird watchers out there! Are there any of you? How many do you figure wandering around this country? Just curious. This here is a book for you, and as it’s already on #4, I’d say you have some catching up to do. Luckily there are a few things of interest to the rest of us too, not to mention the fact that reading about these different birds was vastly more entertaining than I would have figured. That’ll show me not to underestimate a book by this man. The only thing I regret was that it wasn’t in full color, but that would be insanely expensive for a niche project in a niche genre. We do get a color center spread, so at least there’s that. I feel a little silly doing a review, as it’s all about Francois bird watching, but I have to say something, right? In this issue Francois wanders around to different areas and makes astute and occasionally funny observations about the creatures he sees. No, they aren’t all birds. I also thoroughly enjoyed the afterward, as he talked about how happy he was that this project is giving him a reason to get out of city and connect with nature a bit. I had one question about this book, or maybe bird watching in general: in the text piece for the center spread Francois mentioned that he and a friend found this dead bird, so he picked it up, took it home and froze it for “future examination.” That part I could almost get, but they also named the dead bird, and that was downright baffling to me. Anybody care to clue me in on any aspect of that? Overall, yes, you’re still getting a Francois Vigneault comic, and after his “Friends” series you should already know that this will be a good read. Unless you only read violent comics, in which case you probably went to the wrong site to begin with. $3
Update for 1/25/11
New review for Unrequited Monsters by L. Nichols, who is somebody that all the cool people are already aware of, so you should just get on that bandwagon and ride it out.
Nichols, L. – Unrequited Monsters
Unrequited Monsters
It’s tricky enough to review comics that are essentially visual poems, it’s even trickier to try to pick a sample image from the comic. Still, you can get people interested in a certain poem by a line or two, so maybe it works for comics too. This is a series of images of people, couples and not couples, that L. drew at some point and put together to form a story. Well, sort of a story, as it probably depends on your definition. It hits on all the “high” points of relationships and the effort to enter one: fear of rejection and/or solitude, the inevitable distance created, and secrets, but also the potential of making something better than you could on your own. L.’s choice of images, particularly those of couples who didn’t know that they were being observed (or, if they did, she managed to catch them in some candid moments anyway), really makes this comic, as subtle glances can mean everything. If you stick with comics with a linear story, I suppose you can skip this. If you like a little bit of poetry in your stories, this is right up your alley. If you’re somewhere in between, the visuals in this should bring the fence-sitters in. No idea on the price, but my random guess of the day is $4.
Update for 1/24/11
New review for Fear of Triangles #1 by Nik Havert, Jimmy Proctor and Bill Wilkison, and it’s also available in my store. Nik has several books that should have been up months ago (if not for the craptastically malfunctioning store over a period of months), and they’ll be getting the same treatment as J.T.’s books in an effort to make up for lost time. If anybody wants to help me assuage my guilt about letting these comics sit around for so long, you could order a few of their books to help my conscience…
Havert, Nik; Proctor, Jimmy & Wilkison, Bill – Fear of Triangles #1
Now Available! $3
Fear of Triangles #1
In case you were wondering, yes, that odd cover does sum up the contents pretty well. This is the story of a man who hates triangles (seen on the cover trying to kill himself) and how he runs into Sasquatch right before his first suicide attempt. The gun goes off accidentally, he scares off Sasquatch (who can talk, oddly enough) and ends up getting arrested for public drunkenness. This is a persistently depressed man, and he tries to kill himself a few more times, but is stopped by Sasquatch each time. I shouldn’t give a whole lot more away, but I think the fact that he doesn’t successfully kill himself is fairly obvious. Or it isn’t and I just ruined this. Sorry. Anyway, his hatred of triangles seems a little petty and ridiculous, but it had to be hard to come up with a way to justify that excellent title. Frankly, one of the more interesting bits came in the afterward, in which talks about how this comic was basically a test to establish a character (Frank, not the Sasquatch) that could be used in a later comic that they put together. In that case they got off to a good start, and there’s still more than enough mayhem to make this a solid comic in it’s own right. It’s worth a look for lovers of Sasquatch and irrational haters of triangles. $3
Update for 1/22/11
New review for Losers Weepers #1 by J.T. Yost, also newly available in the online store. Yeah, maybe it would be easier to just list them all in the store and be done with it, but I’m enjoying reading them all first, so I’ll stick with that strategy, thank you very much. That offer I made for a free piece of artwork to the first person who tests the new store is still open, by the way. By “testing the new store” I mean ordering at least one of the newly listed comics, and by “artwork” I do not mean something done by me, just one of the many random drawings I get with review copies or on envelopes containing the review copies. I’ll give you a few options of artists once you order the comics and you can pick your favorite. It’s a steal!
Yost, J.T. – Losers Weepers #1
Now Available! $5
Losers Weepers #1
Are you the type of person who picks up random scraps of paper if you see that they have handwriting on them? How about journals or notebooks that you see lying around? I’d answer “yes” to each question, provided that they’re not laying in a puddle of gunk or something equally nasty. J.T. uses a couple of found items as launching pads for a few stories, fitting nicely into the “tragi-comic” theme he mentions in his intro. First up is a journal that he found and decided to keep because only a few pages had been used. But those few pages… hoo boy. He’s also nice enough to reprint the entries in legible writing, and kudos to him for that, or this would have been a whole lot tougher to follow. The gist of it is that a young woman is dating a guy and doesn’t know how to get out of it because the guy is not all there mentally and she’s sure that her leaving will devastate him. Then there’s another entry much later (when she’s much less concerned about what’s going to happen to the guy) and one final entry dealing with her moving to a new town and having a hard time making friends. The story for this one bleeds into both of the other stories, and they involve a set of wildly offensive lyrics and one garbled note about watching a wallet and “borrowing” some coke. All of these elements end up jumbled together and we get a story about a new relationship, running into an ex on the street, an open mic night involving those lyrics, and the potential meaning behind that last note. It’s a combination of stories that could have fallen apart pretty easily, but J.T. makes good use of the material and crafts and pretty compelling piece about it all. There’s at least one more issue in this series, and I’m very interested to see if he can pull this off twice, but this issue was solid. Entertaining, darkly funny at times, and yeah, a little tragic. $5
Update for 1/21/11
New review for Death Deals by Eamon Espey, happy weekend everybody, I’ll have more stuff for the store up over the weekend if all goes well and this scanner keeps clinging to life.
Espey, Eamon – Death Deals
Death Deals
That sample below is the first page of this book, just so you know. Fans of Eamon’s work already know what to expect, but for everybody else “proceed at your own risk” seems like a helpful tip. It’s not the story picked up from there, as I think it was just setting up what’s to come. Things start off in a coherent if disturbing fashion: a man dressed up as Santa Claus charms the owner of a house into letting her guard down, and he then proceeds to pull a gun out and shoot her in the head. After this he enters the house, shooting everyone he sees, even the baby and the cats. Then he heads upstairs, kills a couple having sex, a woman jumps out the window to get away from him… and then things get weird. That’s right, everything up until then, in this context, WASN’T weird. From this point on I’m not even going to try to interpret it (something about being thought a fool if you keep your mouth shut and then opening your mouth and proving it, and yes, I know I garbled that quote in a big way), but I will tell you that it included aliens, a rabbit, bird royalty, a walking vagina creature, more Santa, and plenty of murder. Eamon is one of the more visually inventive folks working in comics today and his comics are always worth a look. Often a re-look after that just to try and piece together what you’ve just read, but the deeper you try to interpret his stuff, the darker it gets. Hey, this one does have “Death” in the title, after all. He’s still an irreplaceable voice and everybody out there who isn’t squeamish should still buy his stuff. $4, but I just saw that this is listed as out of stock on the Secret Acres website, but maybe you can still get a copy if you run into the guy at a convention or something.
Update for 1/20/11
New review for Tales of Good Ol’ Snoop Doggy Dogg by J.T. Yost, and it’s also newly available in the online store. You’ll be seeing J.T.’s name up here quite a bit in the next few weeks, as the store is finally working again, so don’t be alarmed, although I don’t know why you would be, as J.T. seems like a perfectly nice young man.
Yost, J.T. – Tales of Good Ol’ Snoop Doggy Dogg
Now Available! $3
Tale of Good Ol’ Snoop Doggy Dogg
I’ll be honest with you: after seeing that cover and that title, this would have had to be a pretty lousy book to get me to hate it, and this is not a lousy book. Perhaps you could be more objective about this than me, in which case there are always openings in the (not at all) lucrative field of rambling about comics. Make your own website, it’s easy! Anyway, this comic mostly has dreams involving Snoop with a few real bits thrown in. The dream stories include Snoop and J.T. on a trampoline, Snoop walking into J.T.’s store and asking about the music that’s playing and J.T. signing up for a painting class taught by Snoop. The actual story involves J.T. making friends with a tough guy in his high school (?) days after finding out that they both could draw and getting introduced to Snoop’s music at a party. There’s a bit more to it than that, but hey, why give it away? You can tell from that cover if you’re interested, although if you’re not I regret your lack of appreciation in things that are fantastic. $3
Update for 1/19/11
New review for Attic by Whit Taylor, and my scanner seems to be having fits, so don’t be shocked if I miss more days. I’m trying to work with it, as it seems to involve a complicated process of several computer restarts to get it going, but if I can’t make it work for a bit I certainly can’t afford to get a new one for at least a month. Hey, there are still comics out there that have sample images at the creator’s sites, so maybe I can still make it work. Ah, rambling, so refreshing in the afternoon…
Taylor, Whit – Attic
Attic
If you’re going to post comics up at your website, why not make mini comics out of them? Whit clearly has no trouble with that idea, as this is another collection of her website comics. She’s also working on a longer piece, which I’d be curious to see after two issues of shorties. Before I get started, embiggen that sample and read the strip. OK fine, I’m not the boss of you, but the next sentence or two will make more sense if you do. What the hell is an “angel master?” Whit clearly gets that clairvoyants are fraudulent, and hey, if she still wants to go see them, it’s her money. But angel masters? Anybody with a functioning bullshit meter would run screaming out of a room if somebody wanted to charge you for their advice based on their expertise as an angel master. I’ll go with the theory that she made it up, in which case it’s a funny play on just what people are willing to spend their money on. Other strips in here include her homage to her attic, snooty people who loudly proclaim that they watch no television, being caught out watching a crappy movie, an odd yet loving conversation about vomit, how to hide a hickey, the essential vapidity of having hundreds of Facebook friends, how many ads we see in a day, what happens to old soda, what era would be best to live in and how it’s stupid that robots in Pixar movies are given genders. It’s another pile of interesting and/or funny stories, in other words, so you should maybe contact her if you’re interested, as there doesn’t seem to be a price listed here or on her site. My random comic price guess of the day is $2.
