Monthly Archives: April 2011
Update for 4/29/11
New review for Herman the Manatee Volume 2 by Jason Viola. Ah, I’ll bet you thought I missed another day, didn’t you? Well, now that the hockey is all done (for me at least) that’s one less excuse to do the daily updates. Will that translate into a better schedule from now on? I remain cautiously optimistic…
Viola, Jason – Herman the Manatee #2
Herman the Manatee Volume 2
In the cliffhanger of a review for the last issue I was left wondering if the set-up for this strip (Herman hits his head on a boat when he tries to surface in a variety of hilarious ways) would wear thin by the second issue. The verdict: well, it’s not like Jason had to keep that as the story for the whole run, now did he? This starts off with us learning a bit more about Herman’s early days (along with what a disappointment he was from a very young age) before he moves on to write reviews for his head-bumping experiences, goes to a party (or not. You choose!), sings a bit, takes a personality test, votes, bores his dad on his deathbed, fails to save Christmas and then goes all Samuel Beckett on us. That’s about half of the book, and I was already impressed with Jason’s ability to keep this thing fresh and funny. But then things shift suddenly when Herman notices a distinct lack of head bumpings. It turns out that a deal has been struck to keep the boats out of the area in exchange for the manatees being willing to be kissed and ridden by tourists. Herman goes along with this for a bit but soon grows to miss his daily concussions and goes into activist mode, but I’ve probably said too much already. If you thought the first book was funny or just happened to go to Jason’s website and chuckled at a few of the strips, you’ll be happy to know that he does manage to keep up the pace for another issue. He’s pretty much fully won me over too, although I suppose things could still fall apart in the next couple of issues. Nah, he already got past the hard part. $3
Update for 4/28/11
New review today for Buster Monster and the Roughage of July by Chris Davis. And yes, it’s the same Chris Davis who has a bunch of stuff in the store, just so you know…
Davis, Chris – Buster Monster and the Roughage of July
Buster Monster and the Roughage of July
Holy crap, it’s THAT Chris Davis! Long time readers may remember Chris and the many comics he sent my way in 2004-2005, plenty of which are still available in the online store here. I don’t think I’ve heard a thing from him since, but it looks like he’s spent that time honing his craft. This is a collection of daily strips from July 2010, as Chris saw a copy of “Ten Thousand Things To Do” by Jesse Reklaw and got inspired to try and do a strip a day. He made it a month and, honestly, he might have hit the perfect amount of time for one of these books. A year can drag in major ways (seriously, nobody’s life is that interesting), but confining it to a month lets the reader see the basic beats of the average month while also getting a pile of great comics. Well, that’s what happens if the comics are great, anyway, and these rise to right up around that level. The panels themselves can be pulled apart aesthetically, as he makes the reader follow the words on a journey through each page (it’ll make more sense when you see it). The stories themselves are a mix between dreams, happenings from his catering job/regular course of the day and oddities he sees while swimming. As it’s a journal comic there are also plenty of ruminations on various subjects, with me particularly enjoying him cutting himself off during a political conversation when he realized that there was no point to it. If you’re read his older comics and wondered what happened to the guy (assuming that you lost track of him too) I think you’ll be pleased with his current work. If you never heard of him, well, if this is the kind of work he’s putting out there days I think maybe you should get on the ball about that, don’t you? No price, but it’s hefty… $6?
Update for 4/26/11
New review for Inside the Slow Spiral by Jon Allen. Let’s go Hawks and Sabres! Keep my interest in the NHL playoffs going for a bit longer please…
Allen, Jon – Inside the Slow Spiral
Inside the Slow Spiral
OK fine, there are probably too many stories out there already dealing with alienation and isolation upon entering college, but isn’t a good one always a welcome thing? This one deals with Jon’s entry into film school and his propensity for spending his entire day in the film lab watching strange independent films while smoking pot (and hastily clearing the air). The woman who works down there starts up a friendship with him and he doesn’t seem like a total social misfit when he does go out, it’s just that he prefers digging up and going through old student films. He eventually watches a film called “Inside the Slow Spiral III,” which sends him digging to find other films from the man and trying to figure out who the guy was. Jon readily admits that the films are boring, but thinks that that was why he loved them. The title also tracks up nicely with Jon’s own progress, and I loved how his activities during his drunken blackout were referred to (I got the impression that they weren’t his finest moments) but that it was mostly left up to the imagination of the reader. The fictional peek into the mind of the filmmaker of the “Inside the Slow Spiral” series at the end was brilliant too, but I’m not allowed to divulge too much about that. I’m not sure if this is the same Jon Allen I’ve seen in various anthologies (the website isn’t particularly helpful on that front), but if he is I’d say he’s gone a long way to mastering his craft. If it’s an entirely new Jon Allen then he’s way too good at this stuff to be brand new. Either way you, gentle reader, should probably give this a shot if you’re here for unique and interesting comics, and why else would you be here? No price, but my gut says $4.
Update for 4/23/11
New review for an older comic, Crass Sophisticate #16 by John Reinwald & Justin Rosenberg. Hey, if you haven’t read it it’s new to you, right?
Reinwald, Josh & Rosenberg, Justin – Crass Sophisticate #16
Crass Sophisticate #16
I know I occasionally bitch about unerased pencil lines in comics, but this one deserves a prize for that horrible habit. I’d say less then half of the pages DON’T have sloppy pencil writing in the word balloons. I know this is an earlier issue for these two, but come on, they had done 15 issues before this one. Anyway, if you can get past that (and even I did eventually) then this is another great issue. This is the story of one of our heroes (I’m not sure which one and damned if I can remember which one of these characters is which at the moment) who gets to a party too early. For anybody who has had this happen to them, you know what a calamity this can be. So he wanders around, trying to strike up a conversation with a few girls who obviously have no interest in him anyway, and things are generally awkward until the actual party kicks in. Once that happens our hero is standing over the keg, meaning that he gets to chat to anybody he likes. He almost gets a compliment but, upon later review, the girl in question was just calling him ugly. Anyway, the party gets busted and our hero somehow ends up in the house all by himself with a keg of beer. Hilarity (or immense sadness, I never can tell) ensues. It’s another funny book, which tells me that they’ve at the very least been keeping this funny for dozens of issues now. It took them an awfully long time to figure out to erase the pencilled in dialogue first, but they did get there eventually in the series. If you think that complaint is a minor quibble then you should have no trouble with this at all. Oh, and I enjoyed the picture of the drunken girls on the back cover. The eyes were blacked out to protect the innocent, but it did help the story to see what exactly they were talking about… $2
Update for 4/21/11
New review for Dodo Comics #1 by Grant Thomas. Sorry about the lack of reviews this week, I’ve been feeling generally crappy so I haven’t been writing much. Wouldn’t feeling generally crappy lead to more free time and more time to write reviews? Well, sure, but um…
Thomas, Grant – Dodo Comics #1
Dodo Comics #1
I go back and forth on the idea of comic creators explaining their work either before or after the comics part of the comic, but it’s probably a good thing Grant did that in this issue. It showed me exactly what he was going for, and I probably would have missed large swaths of if if he didn’t. For example, there’s a single page strip called “The Duel” which is just a bunch of frantic lines. Still, this looked vaguely familiar and, sure enough, Grant explained that it was a page from “Lone Wolf and Cub” with the character removed. With that piece of information you can almost put the characters back onto the page and your head and it transforms it into a significantly more worthwhile piece of art than just a bunch of lines. Other stories include a long (and funny) piece on where ideas come from, visions of fire, the tower of Babel and another piece with just unrelated images (this time for a page from “Akira”). I’m not going to explain what he was going for in every story (I do think his explanations worked better after reading the story instead of before it), but hey, check out the samples on his site to see for yourself. He’s clearly interested in the crafting end of comics and is looking for new ways to go about it. Kudos and more power to him, and he’s certainly off to a diverse and worthy start. $3
Nowacki, Piotr – Moe
Moe
So is Moe the dog or the black blob thing? Or is it even a dog? I guess it doesn’t really matter. This is the silent tale of that creature and its inadvertent adventures with the black blob. It starts off innocently enough. but then the black blob offers and rescinds a bone (ah, that’s why I thought it was a dog), which causes the dog to run into a cartoon villain carrying a dead body, which naturally leads to a mix-up that lands the dog in jail. But hey, what’s to stop an amorphous black blob from getting through some bars? From there we’re treated to some drug use, a mosquito on the attack (oddly and hilariously wearing the same cartoon villain mask from earlier), an underwater adventure and even a budding romance. I can’t say much more without giving away the ending, so hey, I won’t. Piotr lives in Poland and his website is in Polish (as would be the case), so it’s possible that this is silent to avoid any language barriers. If so, it was a great choice, and if it’s just a coincidence, well, it all worked out for the best. This has scenes that made me laugh out loud, always a welcome (and sadly rare) development. I have no idea of a price, although I recommend going to his website and clicking on the “Kontact” link to ask the guy. I think it’s funny and charming enough to deserve a look.
Update for 4/14/11
New review for Monty #1 by Kayla Escobedo. See how much easier this regular reviewing thing is with a working scanner?
Escobedo, Kayla A. – Monty #1
Monty #1
That was one profoundly strange and rewarding comic. Regular readers of the site probably already know that “profoundly strange” comics are always welcome around here, but this one came in the guise of a coherent, linear story. That’s tricky to pull off and Kayla did it beautifully. This is the story of a girl or boy (ah, the website references a “Whalegirl,” so there you go) with the head and arms of a whale who is trying to take the train to school. Some youths harass her and shove the creature out at the next stop. It’s here that our heroine sees a young girl getting an even worse treatment, but because of her terror nothing is done to help this girl. More is going on behind the surface here, as these two events match up too neatly to be a coincidence. When the lead character gets back on the train our hero gets stuck sitting next to a very loud and greasy man (the type you so often see on trains), and that’s as far as I go in the descriptions. Kayla was nice enough to send the next couple of issues along as well, and I’m looking forward to reading them after this one. Generally speaking first issues of a series are where the experimenting takes place, where the artist gets the stupid mistakes out of the way. Granted, there was a printing error that mixed up the middle pages, but she made that point very clear in a note on the inside cover and the actual content was fantastic. She’s also only 22, so I recommend against going to her website and reading her accomplishments if you’re the type of person who is easily threatened by such things. You should still check out the various paintings, drawings and samples regardless, as she does have a sizable chunk of this issue up for free. I’ll hold off until I read the next too issues to get too silly with the praise, but I sense some serious potential in this one. $4
Update for 4/13/11
New review for Monsters of MMA by Bryan G. Brown. It might technically not be out quite yet, but it will be soon, so don’t you want to read all about it?
Brown, Bryan G. – Monsters of MMA
Monsters of MMA
Who out there remembers Bryan’s first comic? It was called “First Fight” and it featured the real life account of Bryan’s first mixed martial arts fight. It had drama, tension and a perspective that us small press comics folks don’t see very often. This comic has little or nothing to do with all of that. It’s set at an undetermined point in the future and, as you can see from that cover, the fighters aren’t all that human. Whether or not you’ll enjoy this comic hinges on a simple question: are you looking for something resembling a sequel to “First Fight,” or are you just looking for some violent mayhem? If it’s mayhem you’re after, this one has it in spades. The guy on the left of that cover is a zombie that can regenerate after eating some brains. The guy on the right is covered in spikes and can apparently produce even more spikes at will. Who do you pick to win that one? Whichever one it is, again, if you’re looking for carnage you’ve come to the right place. The art is fantastic, as the violence is depicted as real and brutal stuff (if mildly cartoonish because of the nature of the fighters). The writing is good too, but this does mostly cover a fight, so there’s nothing all that fancy about it. I liked it, although I am genuinely curious to see how the rest of his actual time in MMA went and wouldn’t mind a follow-up to “First Fight.” It’s not for the squeamish, but it’s worth a look if you’re a fan of the MMA stuff and want to see how it would theoretically look in the distant future. $4
Update for 4/12/11
New review for Window #8 by Dave Lapp. My project for tomorrow is to get this mound of review comics into more a pile shape and yeah, it is that bad. Just a little peek into the magical goings-on at the Optical Sloth office…
Lapp, Dave – Window #8
Window #8
I’m not sure if Dave ever bothers with any sort of a theme on an issue by issue basis, but if so this would have to be the “unfortunate touching/yelling” issue. No, nothing is remotely inappropriate, but it does rise to the level of icky on occasion. The main piece deals with a group of kids who go to Dave’s art class in a, well, shithole. Possible literally, as he has to plug up some drains to deal with some of the more offensive odors. He teaches them a few tricks, has his heart broken by a kid that only says “hot dog” and draws in repetitive scribbles (although he probably gets his heart broken on a semi-regular basis, what with all the teaching he did for low income students), and meets up with a remarkably clingy kid who has no clue about where she should be grabbing on the guy to get his attention. This story sums up why I’ve been enjoying these issues so much, as we see some of the only happy moments of these kids’ lives, but it’s very clear that a lot of them are just horribly damaged. Not that Dave hits us in the face with this information, but bags under the eyes of a kid and some dirty clothes go a long way to making that point. Other stories include a conversation with a guy whose two front teeth are worth $1,000, the shape of his Mom’s teeth and what that means for his own future, an incident from Dave’s childhood and a story simply called “penis.” This one is hysterically funny and I’m not going to say another thing about it, other than to reiterate that it was a harmlessly funny story and that Dave is a saint among men for many, many reasons. Well, at least in regards to his treatment of children, and that’s supposed to tell a lot about a guy, right? $1 or 2, check with the man for details.
Update for 4/11/11
New review for A Working City by Nick Soucek and let’s see if I can put together five reviews this week. It’s been a while with all the scanner drama…
Soucek, Nick – A Working City
A Working City
It’s possible that Nick has cornered the market on bleak yet oddly adorable characters. Look at that sample and feel free to say that I’m crazy, but the deceptive simplicity of the appearance of his characters is a big reason why these stories work so well. This comic is set in a either the near future, an alternate universe or this has already started happening in Bristol and we just haven’t heard about it yet. Things start off with our hero giving a presentation at his job and getting a long ovation from the other people in the meeting. He’s a little shocked, as he had his original plans for the subject of the meeting stolen and he lost months worth of work. He scrambled to put something together… and nobody could tell the difference. This has a profound effect on our hero (his name is Arthur and I’ll just start using that, OK?), as it calls into question his entire existence. What’s the point of putting in months of work for something that can apparently be done just as well in a few days? In that case, why bother to show up at work at all? What about the whole nature of life, of being in a relationship, of being bombarded with advertisements every waking hour? Can you see why I’m not clear if this is a fantasy or something that’s already happening? Anyway, the interactions with his wife (?) are pricelessly depressing, and there are no happy endings to be found. If there are any art snobs who would turn their nose up at something like this because they don’t like how the characters look, you’re missing the big picture and a damned fine story. No price, naturally, but go to that website of his and ask him for a price. I’m guessing around $4.
