Monthly Archives: October 2012
Update for 10/31/12
New review today for Any Empire by Nate Powell, and happy Halloween for everybody who actually has the free time to enjoy it!
Powell, Nate – Any Empire
I should start this off with a disclaimer: I haven’t read Nate’s “Swallow Me Whole,” and this is listed as a follow-up to that book, so it’s entirely possible that I’m missing a lot of context here. What can I say, the man has put out all kinds of graphic novels over the last ten years and I’ve its own way. Things start off bouncing around between Lee, Purdy and Sarah, three kids who are each doing their own thing. Sarah is trying to figure out which kids have been hurting turtles, Purdy is a budding crazy person who is still looking for something resembling friends, and Lee bounces seamlessly back and forth between reality and his fantasies while playing with his toys. Lee’s bits hit the hardest for me, as this was set around the time that I was a kid and I vividly remember going from bored to totally immersed in the intricate imagined happenings of whatever toys and accessories were around at the time (there were all kinds of G.I. Joe/Transformers/He-Man crossovers when I was playing). School is included as well, but just barely. It’s mainly all about how these kids interacted with each other and how every little thing was crucial and fundamentally meaningless at the same time. A number of years pass quickly to the to the second part of the book (maybe ten years?) and we see snippets of what our heroes have been doing with their lives. (THIS IS THE PART WHERE I SPOIL BITS OF PART 2, IN CASE YOU DON’T WANT TO READ IT) Lee is wandering a bit, Sarah is established in a good job but bored silly, and Purdy is off in the armed services. Sarah and Lee have some catching up to do after losing touch since their childhoods, and things get downright weird when Purdy enters their lives again. Your childhood may play a role in how much you enjoy/can relate to this book, but it triggered all kinds of memories in me. I think you’d still get something out of this even if you were raised in a nunnery away from all other kids, but that’s because it’s a fascinating story that’s expertly told. What can I say, I’m biased towards such things. $19.95
Update for 10/30/12
New review for Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme. And so much for the regular updates, as apparently it’s all overtime this week too. I’ll still try to sneak in reviews when possible…
Debeurme, Ludovic – Lucille
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I doubt that Scott McCloud was the first one to mention it, but his comment about the real action of comics all taking place between the panels really came back to me while I was reading this book. This is the story of two teens who feel completely abandoned by the world. Lucille is anorexic, disgusted by the act of eating and is basically trying to disappear. Arthur (later Vladimir, which would be a spoiler if you already knew all the details of this story) makes himself more important to the other kids by pretending to have a direct line to Satan, giving kids advice and “telling their future” in exchange for their souls. Both have troubled relationships to their parents, with Lucille constantly annoyed by her mother (even though she seems to want the best for her daughter, but what teenage girl ever accepts love like that?) and Arthur trying but failing to develop some kind of love for sailing so that he could be closer to his father. The power in this comic comes from the quiet moments in both of their lives, as Lucille tries to find a reason to keep going or ever take her medicine, while Arthur deals with a life or death decision that he’s forced to make while working alongside his father on a ship. It isn’t until about halfway through this gargantuan book that these two finally make a connection with each other, and it doesn’t take long for them to see each other at their lowest points. What follows is an eerily accurate account of the problems and pitfalls facing two young people who are exploring a relationship for the first time, with things happening later that I’m not even going to touch here. This won all kinds of awards in France before finally being translated and released by Top Shelf, and I can see why. It’s always a good sign when images or pages pop into my head unprompted hours after reading a book, and that’s been happening to me all morning. The structure of the whole book is deceptively loose, as Ludovic doesn’t care for panels, but make no mistake: this book is intricately plotted, with even the seemingly unconnected and brief dream sequences eventually playing a major role. There is also a sequel out in France, but so far it hasn’t been translated into English (as of 10/12). Still, I’m absolutely hooked on this story and will be checking in with Top Shelf every now and then to see if the next book is available. This book, by the way, is damned near flawless. It’s not light reading by any stretch of the imagination, but who wants all of their entertainment to be light and fluffy? This takes on huge life problems in interesting ways and, while not always finding the answers, is going to leave you thinking about them long after you’ve finished the book. Read it, is what I’m saying. $29.95 (or cheaper if you were smart enough to pick it up during Top Shelf’s yearly sale).
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Update for 10/28/12
New review today for Lower Regions by Alex Robinson. Reviews next week will probably be sporadic (I’m still hoping to get five up but am also a realist about my schedule) and the week after that is when the real chaos starts, so it’ll be between slow and dead around here for a couple of weeks after the election. Please plan your reading schedule accordingly!
Robinson, Alex – Lower Regions
Have you enjoyed various RPGs and dungeon crawler type games in your life? Did you, when given the opportunity, play through said dungeon using a warrior woman with large breasts (as that does seem to be the default breast setting of several of these games) of your own creation? If not, congratulations on your rich and successful social and business life! For the rest of you, I don’t see how you could find a thing to complain about here. This is a wordless comic, so it takes a few pages before we get to see the “point” of this adventure (the heroine is out looking for her lumpy captured boyfriend). But who needs a point? Things start off with the heroine fighting a large three-balled monster (which is obvious because the dude isn’t wearing any pants). From there she has to fight off a series of challenges and guardians, all while protecting her companion hobbit (or possibly gnome) whose only purpose seems to be holding a torch so that she can see. That whole character is done to perfection, and should get a good laugh out of anybody who has ever played one of these games while trying to keep an obviously inferior character alive. What happens to this hobbit a couple of pages after the sampled page below is absolutely priceless. Anyway, monsters are fought, limbs are hacked off with increasing abandon, and things finally reach their more or less inevitable conclusion. Like I said, if you’re of the right mindset to like this comic then you’re going to love it. If you’re looking for another tale of somebody in their mid 20’s complaining about the meaninglessness of their existence, you could try about 3/4 of the rest of the small press comics out there to satisfy your need. I checked the Top Shelf page out of curiosity to see if there were more issues of this series, and there’s one that’s “web only,” so screw that. Physical comics only please, says that curmudgeon! Then again, it is $7 for this relatively tiny book, which is probably why the next one hasn’t been printed yet. $7
Update for 10/26/12
New review today for Co Vediamo by Hazel Newlevant, and I should still be able to get a review up at some point over the weekend.
Newlevant, Hazel – Ci Vediamo
Ci Vediamo
I should start this off with a disclaimer: the sample below is technically only half a sample, as the construction of this comic makes it difficult to sample a page fully without giving away the meaning that comes from putting two pages together. That’s probably not going to make sense to you unless you’re holding the book, so I should just start at the beginning. The title is an Italian phrase that means “we’ll see each other” and the book deals with two people who are either entering or leaving a relationship. Or they’re just the two proverbial ships passing in the night, but it’s open to interpretation. Anyway, several of the pages are transparent with images imposed on them, so when you turn one page it causes those images to show up on the previous page. When you put that page over the page sampled below the meaning changes considerably, which is why I was leery about the best way to sample it. It’s a short melancholy tale, and I just now pieced together that last page, which makes it a little less sad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it, which is always a welcome thing in the world of mini comics. She also won a Xeric award for this, proving once again that those folks know what they’re doing. $6
Update for 10/25/12
Hey, I said I’d get five reviews up this week, but I did not say that I’d do them five days in a row. New review today for The Lovely Horrible Stuff by Eddie Campbell!
Campbell, Eddie – The Lovely Horrible Stuff
It’s constantly annoying to me that Eddie Campbell isn’t fabulously wealthy. He seems to get by OK, judging from his comics (it’s not like I’d have any other way to assess his finances), but somebody who has been putting out some of the best comics in the world for 30+ years now should be sleeping on a pile of money. This particular graphic novel, as you may have guessed from that cover, is all about cash, and that title should give you some idea of Eddie’s opinion on the subject. He gives us a tiny peek into how his finances work, why it’s a terrible idea to ever loan money to a father-in-law and why timing in pitching any sort of tv show based on him or his work is everything (anybody else remember that global financial catastrophe that started in 2008? I know that American voters seem uncomfortably hazy on the subject, but I’m hoping the rest of the world has better memory). Eddie wanders around a bit, but the conclusion is the same as always: the man just wants to make art and live a comfortable life. It’s a little disconcerting to see his kids as young adults, as I remember them as the tiny creatures from his earlier books, and it’s even more annoying that he has to worry about their college fund. Anyway, my bitching about the total lack of justice in the world isn’t going to change anything. The second half of the book is a bit more dry, as it’s all about an obscure form of currency from the island of Yap, what’s happened to it over the years and how it’s value was measured obliquely preceded some of the other tricks that are a huge part of the current global finance system. And they’re very large circular rocks with holes drilled in the middle of them, so their construction and how they got from place to place was also covered. This book was a bit of a departure from some of his other graphic novels, as he liberally sprinkled in pictures of people and places to mix with his drawings, which served as a vivid reminder of the almost invisible line between his character of Alec and his real world. It’s another great graphic novel from one of the best comic artists/writers working today, and there’s no reason in the world why you shouldn’t have a copy of it. Unless you hate really great books, in which case you seem to have wandered into the wrong website. $14.95
Update for 10/23/12
New review today for DemonDust #11 by Bernie McGovern. Everybody in Ohio has already done the early voting thing, right? As this seems to be the only state that counts this time around (sorry everybody else!) you might want to get on that. Otherwise it’ll be your fault if that lying scumbag gets elected! You know who I’m talking about…
McGovern, Bernie – DemonDust #11
DemonDust #11
Did I black out and miss a few years of Bernie’s comics? Nope, I just checked the review from his last book and it’s from August 30th of this year. Still, here he is with #11 of the series that supposedly comes after that book. Baffling! Well, whatever he’s doing, it’s working. Normally I’d be at least mildly annoyed that I was only seeing #11 of a series, but this issue is perfectly self-contained.Which doesn’t tell me much about the rest of the series either way, but I’m trusting where this guy is coming from. This comic is all about picking new characters to star in the series, as “writing your self as a protagonist in comics can be a little nerve-racking for an introverted procrastinator” (said by the ambulatory brain from the last issue). We get to meet a wide range of characters, some from other series (who knew that “An Army of Lovers Will Be Beaten” was up to seven issues? Everybody but me? Damn) and some that seem to have come right from his imagination. Or other sources that I couldn’t identify. It’s a damned funny book, which is something that has been missing from most of Bernie’s previous comics, so if you’re just looking for a good cry you may want to go back to some of his previous work. For the rest of you, when exactly is funny ever bad? It’s a good starting point for people who are new to this series, so you could either go with this issue or take a risk and start from the beginning. Based on everything I’ve seen from the man I’d be pretty shocked if the early issues of this series were terrible. $2
Update for 10/22/12
Yes, an actual update! New review today for Delayed Replays by Liz Prince, but I’m a little rusty in talking online in complete sentences, so it’s a little shorter than my usual rambles. This is the “quiet week” between when everything had to be finished at the BOE and the chaos that will come right before and after the election, so maybe I’ll even manage to get five reviews up this week. I live in hope!
Prince, Liz – Delayed Replays
Hey look, it’s a collected edition of her series from a few years back! I reviewed the first issue of this series a little while back and I mostly stand by it: damned adorable at times, but marred by some sloppy line work in the early days. Well, “marred” is too strong a word, as the early work for most people is going to be far from perfect. Anyway, this is 111 pages of these strips, so if you liked them in smaller doses, you’ll love them here! Subjects include cat conversations (her with her cat, not cats with each other, as that would be crazy), boys and their shenanigans, her with her friends (including one that looks like her doppelganger), fudgesicles, and various other observances that fit in three panels. There is also a distinct lack of comics about the difficulties of making comics, which is a nice change in a diary strip. You get quite a bit of comic here for $7, but if you were smarter you would have taken advantage of Top Shelf’s recent sale to get it for $3. But you weren’t, so those extra $4 are your punishment for a lack of planning on the right time to buy a pile of comics. $7
Update Schmupdate 10/14/12
No, it’s not really an update. My hours at work have to go under 70 hours a week for that to happen. But you can still order comics (as a few people have discovered) and there’s a big old archive for you to sift through to kill time at work. Try going into the “Reviews By Author” tab, picking a letter and going through the list. I’ve been doing this for over 11 years, you’re bound to have missed a few along the way.
