Monthly Archives: February 2012
Update for 2/29/12
New review today for SF Supplementary File #2C by Ryan Cecil Smith. Yes, you’re reading that right, I’m reviewing #2B the day after #2C, throwing years of website tradition out the window. What can I say, I wanted to see how it ended. Besides, 2/29 is sort of a fake extra day anyway, so the usual rules don’t apply.
Smith, Ryan Cecil – SF Supplementary Files #2C
SF Supplementary File #2C
It occurred to me today that I have only been giving you half of the covers of these books even though the comics are the perfect size for me to scan two pages at once, so this is what the scanner for the final issue of this series should look like. Can you even call it a series? I guess you could more accurately call it an adaptation of the Queen Esmeraldas story from Matsumoto Leiji in 1979 that somehow became known as a supplementary file for an ongoing series from Ryan that doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with that series, but that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. In this issue Esmeraldas follows Boundless Ocean Boy (also known as Boy Zero) down to the planet where she left him at the end of the last issue, but eventually discovers that the entire world is basically one gigantic drop of water that’s surrounding a metallic core. This core has sentience and doesn’t react kindly to being invaded, but Esmeraldas has more than a few tricks up her sleeve and she’s determined to get Boy Zero back. So if you were also worrying about the lack of action in the last issue, it’s all made up for here. The ending was fantastic, including the last line that I desperately want to quote here but won’t because of spoilers. It had the perfect pitch of vaguely nonsensical yet still vastly important verbiage that’s in so many manga comics and was exactly the right way to end things. I also thoroughly enjoyed the way that Ryan alternated colors from page to page, as I’d swear that it added to the feeling that these people were deep in the vastness of space. Probably reading too much into pages of different colors, but that was the impression I got. From here I’m hoping that Ryan keeps this series going, and by that I mean the “SF” series. There are also vast libraries of old manga comics that are crying out for an American adaptation, and an American who’s fluent in Japanese like Ryan would be perfect to adapt them. What I’m basically saying is that the man should keep making comics in whatever form he’d like. Please and thank you. I was listing these individually as $4 each buy Ryan has the set listed at $16 on his website, so I was obviously a little off.
Update for 2/28/12
New review today for SF Supplementary File #2B by Ryan Cecil Smith. Hey, if you live in Michigan, go and vote for the frothy guy. You know the one. Might as well make this election all about the crazies.
Smith, Ryan Cecil – SF Supplementary File #2B
SF Supplementary File #2B
I mentioned in the review for the first issue of this series that one of the joys of manga comics was the fact that the action was allowed room to breathe, that the readers never felt all that rushed on their journey through the story. Well, the obvious negative to that is the fact that not a whole lot happens in this issue. Which, in case you need reminding or for some reason aren’t reading this series, is the second of three issues, which Ryan did manage to finish on a monthly publishing schedule. Granted, the ability to maintain a monthly publishing schedule for three issues shouldn’t be considered a huge accomplishment, but in the small press world of today it’s pretty rare. Anyway, this issue deals with the two main characters of Esmereldas and Boundless Ocean Boy. They’re both traveling on her ship and she discovers his I.D. card, which is a wonderful excuse to tell the readers all about him. He declares that he can’t travel with her and wants to make it on his own, she points out that his I.D. card makes that problematic and she eventually finds a suitable planet and drops him off. Well, she thought it was a suitable planet anyway, but that turns out not to be the case, and we have the set-up for the final issue of the series. I skimmed over some of the details of the series here (read my review of the first issue if you’re curious or would like this review to make sense), but I have every confidence that this issue is going to fit in just fine in the long run. In the reviewing scheme of things this is a lousy issue to get if you just want to try this guy out, but it’s pretty much always been a bad idea to buy just the second issue of a three issue limited series. The only real problem with this one was a minor printing error that repeated a few pages. It’s hard enough to overcome a lifetime of habit and read this back to front and right to left instead of the other way around, so something like that printing error can be especially jarring. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll be corrected in the collected edition, because that is happening, right? $4
Update for 2/27/12
New review for Pete Moss Summer 2011 by Tim Rocks. Anybody with review comics that they’ve been holding off on sending, I should be heading back to Champaign by the end of the weekend at the latest, so plan your shipping schedule accordingly.
Rocks, Tim – Pete Moss Summer 2011
Pete Moss Summer 2011
I have no idea if that is the actual name for the writer/artist, but if that is his name then he’s lucked into a fantastic name for a comic guy. Or just about any profession outside of a doctor, really, as nobody wants to think of their doctor as rocking. Random observations aside, how was the comic? Pretty consistently funny, which makes it a winner to me. Moving on to the next comic… oh, you want actual thoughts? Well, this is the story of a young boy (he says he’s between his tween and teen years) who finds out that he’s “terminal.” His parents get the message, it’s brought up to Pete as tactlessly as possible, and he gets shoved into a hospital room to wait to die. His thoughts turn to getting laid before he dies (so I guess puberty has hit the young lad) and he invites his girlfriend over to have that scene that I sampled below. Poor guy couldn’t even get the girl to change her rules when he was near death. From there we get Pete scamming two different “Make a Wish” type places, hiring a horrific prostitute, chancing into a legitimate massage center instead of a shady one that offers “happy endings,” and finally taking drastic action in the hopes of landing near a brothel while parachuting. Along the way he meets another terminal kid with a ridiculous speech impediment (I think I got the gist of most of what he was trying to say, but just barely) and degenerates into a bit of a mess. It’s not easy to make a comic about a terminal 12 (?) year old kid this funny, but Tim has pulled it off. This comic is already a little bit old (as is obvious from the title, which really needs a number instead of a date in it), but here’s hoping that there are more adventures of this kid to come. Which might constitute a minor spoiler, as that tells you that he didn’t die at the end of this issue, but you’ll just have to live with it. $3
Update for 2/23/12
New review today for The Wonder City: The Great Whale of Coney Island by Justin Rivers and Courtney Zell. The general consensus on the update posts seems to be to keep them up, so that’s what I’ll do. In theory it’s a good place to ramble so I can concentrate better during the actual reviews, but anybody who’s actually read a review of mine knows that that rarely works.
Rivers, Justin & Zell, Courtney – The Wonder City: The Great Whale of Coney Island
The Wonder City: The Great Whale of Coney Island
I’ll give them this much: this series sure is ambitious. This is the first volume of the Wonder City saga, although I’m not sure if I can say that because I don’t know how long this is projected to be. As far as I can see from the website they don’t give any indication, and that sort of thing is important to know in a long term project. Combine that with the fact that this graphic novel was kind of dull and it’s hard to work up any serious enthusiasm for it. Probably best to start at the beginning though, right? We start off looking at an average morning in the life of a working class Brooklyn family in 1942. The father is away at war, the young son is trying to be the man of the house, the mother is just trying to get by and the young girl is mostly just an average young girl. A mysterious woman comes along and inquires about a necklace that was handed down through the generations to the young girl (she’s 6, which is a little important later). The girl considers selling it, but hijinx ensue and it doesn’t happen. The mysterious woman overhears them saying where they’ll be the next day so she follows them to Coney Island. There’s an incident with a whale (it’s in both the title and the synopsis on the back cover, so this isn’t spoiling anything yet) and the rest of the graphic novel deals with the fallout from that event. We also get a few more hints about why this mysterious lady is looking for that necklace, how the young boy is dealing with his dreams, and several other general hints of things to come. The trouble is that there’s nothing overly compelling about any of this yet, and that kind of thing really needs to be established in a first graphic novel. What does the charm do? It’s OK to leave that general if it’s early in the story, but the hints given fail to tantalize the reader. The back cover also says that this “re-imagines the entire history of New York City,” which is intriguing, but not a single thing in this book would really imply that. The writing is decent enough, as the characters are reasonably compelling and I’m fine with a glacial pace as long as it’s going somewhere. Same with the art, even if certain panels look more rushed than others. The main problem here is the basic reality of the small press publishing business. They say that Kickstarter helped them get the funding together for this comic, but are people who read this going to still be that excited to donate for a second volume? You really need to hit the ground running these days to have a hope of finishing an extended series like this, and the first volume really didn’t accomplish that. By the way, I’d love to be wrong about this and find out in a few years (and a few volumes) that readers are fine with supporting a slow burn of a story. I really, really would. No price listed, which is also silly (although I could find out if I wanted to post a payment through Amazon, which I do not), but there is a link to get a digital copy on their website if you’re interested in such a thing.
Update for 2/22/12
New review today for Carl Finds Love #2 by Sara Lindo, and I’m still looking for comments on my update yesterday (the update part, not the review part), but so far I’m not hearing anything, so either it doesn’t matter to people at all (my guess) or… nope, I’m going with that one.
Lindo, Sara – Carl Finds Love #2
Carl Finds Love #2
Wait a minute, this is a comic for little kids? It had honestly never occurred to me before, but Sara puts a few cut-outs towards the back of the book and suggests that kids “ask the closest responsible adult” to help them out. Granted, there’s no cursing, nudity or anything else that would prevent kids from reading this, but it is all about the quest for love of one man, and I’m thinking that pretty much everybody is cleared to use their own scissors before they care about such things. Unless she was kidding, in which case please don’t mind my denseness. Anyway, this time around our hero decides to get some ladies to like him by himself, which leads to the fantastic scene that I sampled with him giving away flowers to random ladies. This page also really showcases Sara’s visual inventiveness, and that along with several background scenes really help the book feel… meatier? Thicker? More substantive, that’s what I was looking for. Any work that you can go back in and pick up several things you missed the first time around is OK in my book. After our hero passes out flowers he gets some advice on this tactic from his friends (who basically tell him that people in cities aren’t used to such things) before getting him to agree to going on a few blind dates. He gets a bit more advice (and a lucky coin) from a pizza man, then the issue wraps up. So apparently there is going to be at least one more issue if that title is going to end up being literally true. I’m enjoying it and am curious to see what happens next, and once you’ve won me over on those two fronts I’m generally good for the long haul. Granted, the haul is rarely very long in small press comics (the Cerebus epic notwithstanding), but I’m still in. Even if the story hits a sour patch there are still all the random “people” populating the landscape to look forward to… $3
Update for 2/21/12
New review for Battlefield #2 by John Yeo Jr. Say, does anybody out there think that I should stop doing these “Update” posts? After all, you can see the new review for yourself directly beneath this, and in theory I’m only doing them so I have a place to ramble outside of the reviews, although that clearly isn’t working. I also know that some of you get these posts via RSS feed. I have no idea how that works, internet luddite that I am, but perhaps it’s annoying to be notified for these extra tiny posts. Just curious…
Yeo Jr., John – Battlefield #2
Battlefield #2
Oh small press comic collaborations, you are adorable. Last time around John was writing and Dru Daily was illustrating, and you’d think that they’d be able to figure out a schedule to make that work for a five issue mini series. Alas, you’d be wrong, as Dru has already become too busy with other things, and now it’s John illustrating and writing. Am I naive in thinking that it would be best to have at least a couple of issues completed before starting a project like this, which I’ll again point out is a small, finite series? It makes no sense, and the shift in art is going to be glaring by the time the collected edition comes out, assuming that John doesn’t also find himself with other obligations. Dru’s work was in more of an anime style, and it seems like John is trying to copy that style a bit (which he admits in his afterword), which probably isn’t the best solution. From samples on his website it looks like John already has his own style and maybe he should stick with that for the rest of the series. In terms of the story things pick up considerably this time around, as we get to learn a lot more about the various characters and their motivations (and the shadowy people behind the whole tournament and THEIR motivations), but I do have to say that it seems like a bad idea to kill off the character that we get to know the best by the end of the book. Surprising, yes, but this is a finite series and that time might have been better spent learning more about the six remaining survivors. As we’ve already learned that only one of these people can survive, this looks to be leading to a bloodbath in the final issues. Still, complaints aside, I am getting interested in the overarching story and exactly what’s going on. What can I say, when I see vaguely nefarious people stealing the eyeballs of the dead tournament contestants, I want to see where that’s leading. So if you liked the first issue this one builds on that nicely, but be prepared for a jarring shift in the artwork. $3
Update for 2/20/12
New review for Epic Tales of the Mundane #8 by Brad Dwyer. Anybody know any good tricks to get a reluctant dog back into the house at midnight? I probably should have asked for advice on this one weeks ago…
Dwyer, Brad – Epic Tales of the Mundane #8
Epic Tales of the Mundane #8
Since I generally write glowing reviews of Brad’s comics, I thought it best to start this one off with a complaint about mini comics in general and this comic in particular. Yes, this is nit picking, so skip ahead a few lines if you don’t care for such things. Why do some comics folk repeat the cover as the first inside page of the story? Or is it vice versa, where they use first page of the story as the cover? Either way it’s a little ridiculous and seems like a waste of a perfectly good page. I’m talking about the comic now, just in case you skipped ahead, and this issue continues the “origin” story of Brad Dwyer. Is it really considered an origin story if the lead character doesn’t end up with any super powers? The story isn’t over yet, so maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Anyway, the rambling bug clearly has taken me over today, and this comic has two big stories that continue his comics history although, oddly enough, no comics history has been mentioned yet in the actual comics. First up is the story of Brad’s early days in various punk bands and how the lot of them eventually found a place in the desert where they could play without being hassled by the cops. For a while, anyway, as cops do have a tendency to ruin good things like playing music under the stars, far away from the noise of a city. Next is Brad’s slow descent into alcoholism (and almost sleeping pill abuse), as he’s able to marvel from a distance of years at his behavior, both towards himself and towards the ladies he dated. He’s also able to get some comfort from the fact that his friends were even crazier/more destructive than he was, so at least there’s that. I’m eagerly awaiting the first mention of comics in a story called “Get Into Comix!”, but it’s most likely a slow build with some payoff to come. Right? $3
Update for 2/17/12
New review for It’s a Man’s Life in the Ice Cream Business #2 by Rob Jackson, happy weekend everybody!
Jackson, Rob – It’s a Man’s Life in the Ice Cream Business #2
It’s a Man’s Life in the Ice Cream Business #2
Technically, this comic should probably be called “It’s a Man’s Life in the Ice Cream, Cheese, Sorbet, Soup, and Black Pea Business,” but I don’t want to give Rob any ideas, as that title is more than long enough as it is. As for the comic, it continues directly from the last issue (as is usually the case in any numbered series, obviously), so here’s hoping that you picked it up so that you’ll have a clue what’s happening. If not, Rob throws you in right in the middle of his quest to earn a living by selling ice cream and various other items (depending on the season and the crowd) at various markets. It was fascinating to see him trying to start things up in the last issue and navigate all of the various challenges of making it work, but this time around his business has more or less settled down. He seems to know the market circuit pretty well and he knows (more or less) what will sell to which crowds. We also get to see him making various new dishes (I’d love to try the elderflower sorbet) and dealing with some direct competition this time around from people who were selling his same dishes. In some cases they were cheaper or looked more professional than his stuff, which makes me wonder how anybody could plan to make a long-term living off of this, but I suppose we’ll find out the answer to that in the next issue. Which may be awhile, as he ends with a note that he’ll pick the series up again “once I’ve had a break from endlessly drawing gazebos.” This covers markets #25-52, just in case you were curious. I’m hoping this series is finite, as this would get more than a little dull if it went on forever, but so far it’s still a fascinating look into making a living through markets and the various people you see at them. Not sure on the price, so I’ll guess $3.
Update for 2/15/12
New review today for Alligator Milk #1 by Max Clotfelter, which we can only hope is a continuing series.
Clotfelter, Max – Alligator Milk #1
Alligator Milk #1
Now that is one hell of a cover. Anybody looking at it is either going to be compelled to pick this up or run screaming in the opposite direction. The cowards will miss a thoroughly entertaining show while the rest of us will almost certainly have at least one of Max’s hauntingly extravagant drawings pop up in our dreams. On the first page this is called FEMA Camp 2012, which is based on the fever dreams of professional carnival barker and gold shiller Glenn Beck, so it’s instantly fertile ground for some extra insanity. Two guys are in line, trying to decide what they should wish for (the reader is not immediately told what this is all about), when one of them gets too happy at the prospect of a sandwich and gets admonished by a guard. The smiling persists, so the admonishment gets much worse, leaving only one of the guys to try and make it to the end of the line. As for what’s waiting for him at the end of the line, I’ll refer you to the title and leave it at that. I will say that it’s impossible not to love that last page but will offer no further hints. That would be a perfectly fine mini comic for a measly dollar, but that’s not all that’s in here. In the middle of the book the action stops to show two larger illustrations. One of them covers two pages of the story (we even get a “continued on third page following” warning like in old comic books) and the other images folds out from the center pages. The smaller drawing (and keep in mind that describing these drawings without you seeing them is a bit of a hopeless task) has two monstrosities that are tentatively trying to tongue kiss each other while clinging to a ceiling and towing along a bucket of horribleness respectively, while the larger drawing will take your breath away. It shows a man (ish) dragging along an incredibly heavy burden of melted bits of all sorts of creatures (or at least they seem mildly melted to me, and again I must point out the pointlessness of describing something that is almost certainly is its own unique thing) while another man, his dog and a snake creature all look on. At first I thought that this large picture was showing what happened to the people in that camp, now I’m not so sure and think they may just be two images that are completely disconnected from the main story. Either way, if you’re a fan of Max’s work they’re not to be missed. $1
Update for 2/14/12
New review for Takilma by James Stanton, and I shall now return to the defensive crouch that is necessary for all single people on this crappy day.
Stanton, James – Takilma
Takilma
Ah, dream comics. They’re damned near review-proof, at least in terms of the story, because what are you supposed to criticize? I can say that it now makes sense to me that James rarely uses humans, as the few unobscured human faces in this one were flat and their mouths never opened, but even that is a petty point to make, especially when it’s always possible that the faces were drawn without much detail based on the dream. So what is the dream about? Ah, this part is always fun. Two girls are out in the dark following a trail only by the soles of their feet, but when they reach a fork in the path a comet comes by to briefly light their way. They find the house that they were looking for, but after knocking on the door a large cluster of ghost crows emerge and light the forest on fire. The girls wonder if they should move away from the flames, but out of the forest emerges what appears to be a badger wearing a cloak and with two human legs. Or is it one large beast leg later on? Again, it’s a dream. This almost excuses me from my pledge not to do spoilers, but not quite, so I’ll leave it there. James has a nice afterword explaining the point in his life when he was inspired to do this comic (the dream wasn’t his, so he couldn’t explain it to the reader anyway) and a few more drawings from that time in his life. If I come across as hating this book, that really wasn’t the case. I loved the wisps from the house welcoming the girls, the transformation of the crows, and more than a few other little touches. As to whether or not you should buy it, that depends purely on your opinion of dream comics. It’s a worthy addition to that field, but clearly this wouldn’t be your best bet if you were looking for a definitively coherent story. $5
