Monthly Archives: July 2013
Update for 7/30/13
New review for Men’s Feelings by Ted May. Yay Ted May! Wait, I’m supposed to be unbiased here, right? Eh, it happens.
May, Ted – Men’s Feelings
Just to take away the suspense up front: when I see a new comic by Ted May, I’m instantly happy. It’s like getting a new King Cat in the mail (but in an entirely different sense, if you can work your head around that). This is a series of short and longish pieces about a variety of topics, which would have been the definition of a mini comic back in the day, but at least a few of Ted’s rejected titles (helpfully provided at the back of the book) refer to this as a graphic novels, so what do I know? Stories in here include an awkward conversation in a bathroom, a crowd gathering because of a house without its blinds drawn, the best day of a young man’s life turning ugly in a hurry, the hilarity and terror of openly cheating, two older married men telling the truth at a wedding, a young man who is perhaps overexcited by football ordering a pizza, a man with the unfortunate habit of choking on his food testing his luck, and a conversation at a cancelled meeting (the people in the meeting were not told that it was cancelled) thinking back to a quiet moment where he opened a window and smelled the fresh air. Less madcap hilarity that I may have been expecting, but that’s on me, not Ted, and there’s still plenty of funny stuff in here. The sheer banality of the last story of the office meeting was damned funny if you have any experience at all in that sort of setting, and the herd-like American quality of gathering in front of a window just because other people were gathering there was pretty damned funny too. Above all nobody does facial expressions like Ted, as you can probably tell at least a little by that cover if you’ve never read his other comics. And why would you have not read any of his other comics? Do you just hate comics? Baffling. Anyway, as always, this is well worth checking out, whether it’s a comic or a graphic novel or some entirely new thing that we’re now calling comics. $5
Update for 7/29/13
New review today for Look Straight Ahead by Elaine M. Will. I’m having some general trouble finding time to get back in the swing of things around here, but let’s see how this week goes. Yep, that’s pretty far from promises of a guaranteed five reviews a week. Eh, the weather is nice, it’s summer and everybody else is either not working or slacking at their job, so it does make sense if you think about it…
Will, Elaine M. – Look Straight Ahead
Look Straight Ahead
Somewhere out there is a human with no attention span who started reading this and gave up on it because they assumed that it would end up being another in a long line of graphic novels about a loser trying to get together with the girl of his dreams in high school. Which would be their loss, as this book has only the barest relationship to those very early pages. This is instead a story of madness, the attempts to deal with it and/or avoid it, and trying to come up with a good definition for mental illness. Jeremy is a kid in high school with few friends, but overall he’s made fun of and has very little luck with the ladies. Well, one lady in particular, who happens to be dating one of his few friends. Jeremy escapes a bit into his dreams and art, but these dreams gradually permeate his waking life until he finally ends up smashing a bunch of glass beakers during his chemistry class. It’s always best if you have your freak-out in high school behind closed doors, but Jeremy does not have that luxury, and he ends up getting sent to a facility where they try to get him back to normal. This is where I get into tricky territory in regards to potential spoilers, so I’ll just say that the rest of the graphic novel deals with his conversations with his demons (literally), the ups and downs of trying to regulate his moods and, above all, the world from his perspective. This is where the book really shines, as we’re immersed in his world and his view of what’s happening to him, along with his own internal logic about his conversations with God and his destiny. He also has to complete this destiny before he dies, because “they” have given him cancer and bugs crawling on his brain. It’s some genuinely terrifying and unnerving stuff, and the arc of it is beautifully done. This is damned near required reading for anybody who has had a friend/relative/acquaintance suffer through mental illness, as you see exactly what Jeremy was going through every step of the way. For a first graphic novel it’s damned near perfect, and I’m intrigued to see what else Elaine comes up with. This was published with help from the Xeric Grant, which is now gone, so I’m curious/nervous to see what replaces it. What, aren’t there any rich and famous people who want to help out with this sort of thing? Didn’t I see a quote from Jenna Fischer (from The Office) on an old Renee French graphic novel? Somebody who knows her should see if she wants to help out with a grant like this, as she definitely has a pile of money from that show. But I’ve wandered very far from the subject. Check out this book, that’s what I was getting at before I derailed myself. It should not be missed.
Update for 7/24/13
The website connection is spotty enough where I don’t even know if this will get through, but the review today is for First Fight #4 by Bryan G. Brown. And boy howdy am I sick of the connection to this site being so consistently spotty, but I have no idea how to make it any better. Anybody?
Brown, Bryan G. – First Fight #4
First Fight #4
I don’t look at things like the Diamond pre-order catalog (assuming that’s even still a thing), and I don’t know if Bryan’s comics would even be listed in such a thing. But for whatever reason I couldn’t help but think of this being described as “a grown man trains for an MMA fight while losing to everybody but a 15 year old kid.” Accurate, but not at all the whole story. For those of you who haven’t been following this series, Bryan lost his first match, was out of it for three years and decided to get back into fighting. This issue deals with Bryan taking some family members to an MMA event to show them what he was getting into and training with both adults and kids to get himself into fighting shape. I have to say that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me not to check around online to see how this story ends (or at least how it’s progressed if he’s still fighting), mostly because we live in a culture of instant gratification and the production time involved in making and distributing comics is bound to keep him behind real life. With that in mind, it would be helpful if he maybe included a timeline somewhere along the line, although with the events he hasn’t covered yet left out so we can avoid “spoilers.” Of his real life. Maybe “spoilers” is not the right word in this case. Anyway, Bryan is doing the right thing here and taking his time, showing his training and what he’s going through every step of the way. It would be easy for him to put the equivalent of a training montage in here and then just showing his fights, but it’s important to see exactly what goes into an undertaking like this. As a man who’s perpetually not in great shape with periodic bursts of trying to get INTO better shape, I really appreciated his panel when he realized that he couldn’t move the next morning after a particularly tough day of training. I do have one minor quibble: in a story showing how easy it is to do damage to your hand if you hit somebody with your fist, he used the example of Homer Simpson hitting Barney in a bar while Moe stands by. As somebody who’s been watching The Simpsons for the better part of 23 years, I can’t remember such a thing happening. Unless it did, in which case I hope somebody is good enough to remind me of the episode. OK, fine, that isn’t an actual complaint at all, and Bryan probably just wanted to draw some Simpsons characters, which isn’t a crime. This series is still well worth checking out, even if you’re not a fan of fighting and feel squeamish about the whole concept. Believe it or not, the things you’re most squeamish about are also the things that the professional fighters try not to do. Read and be amazed!
Update for 7/23/13
New review today for The Index #4: Diogenes by Caitlin Cass. It seems like I’ve asked this here before, but just in case: does anybody out there have a good working plan for how they organize their comics? I’m talking the mini comics that come in all shapes and sizes. My current plan of shoving everything into a drawer when my desk gets too cluttered is not working, even though I have been using that plan for years. Regular long comic boxes are useless for these things. Any ideas?
Cass, Caitlin – The Index #4: Diogenes
The Index #4: Diogenes
Did the comics community as a whole ever get a ruling on the merits of putting a book out in mini comics form vs. putting it all out at once in a graphic novel? Maybe it’s not a problem that can ever be definitively solved. This series, for example, is a series of philosophical discussions that I’m thinking would flow beautifully as a graphic novel. However, Caitlin hasn’t done a lot of comics before this, so maybe this series will get her the recognition/acclaim/$$$ necessary to get a graphic novel together, while if she had just released this all at once as a graphic novel that wouldn’t have given people several issues to get to love this series. There is no answer! Which is a fine way to attempt to start to review this comic. Segue! Caitlin puts a recap at the start of this one, which is absolutely necessary for anybody who picks this up starting with the fourth issue. John and Susan start off in the burning Library of Alexandria with Otlet taking over the index cards. The two of them instantly start feeling useless, but they deal with it in different ways. Susan wants to go for a walk, John wants to take back control of the situation. We learn about Diogenes and it’s not like anything I said here about the guy would constitute a spoiler, but it’s still better to read all about him and his ways yourself. It’s another madcap adventure into the efficacy of constantly categorizing everything, in this case literally as the library burns down around them. This is one of the smarter series you’re going to see, and if you don’t understand it, yes, that is a personal failing on your part. Nah, kidding, she manages to keep it accessible to everyone. Well, everyone who has a natural sense of curiosity and a desire to understand everything. If that’s you, you’re in luck!
Update for 7/22/13
New review today for The Outliers #1 by Erik T. Johnson. I actually had this done over the weekend but waited to post it because I know that a good chunk of you use this website to kill time at work (on your breaks, I’m sure) and I think this comic needs to be seen by as many humans as possible. Um, spoiler alert…
Johnson, Erik T. – The Outliers #1
The Outliers #1
It’s worth taking a minute right away to mention how gorgeous the covers to this book are. Yes, “covers,” as there’s a dust jacket type thing that slips over a silver wraparound cover of what are eventually going to be the Outliers. Which is not a spoiler, as that’s what he says up front, but in this issue we only get to see one of these creatures. Oh hey, I’m jumping ahead of myself. This one opens up with a young boy being forced to get on the “short bus” when his bus has a mechanical problem. He’s riding with another kid who never talks (Tsu), they eventually get into an argument and the bus driver is forced to pull over… but not before he almost runs into the giant leg of a creature that we barely see. The bus crashes, the driver and the talking kid make it out, but Tsu is nowhere to be seen. They make it back to the street to find a giant creature placing the bus back on the road and Tsu chanting some words that seem to be controlling the creature. That would all be alarming enough, but those two are not the only ones who see Tsu’s performance, and these new characters seem to have some decidedly violent ideas for the giant creature and Tsu. From there we get a couple of confrontations, the barest glimpses of what may be going on in the big picture, and a solid setup for what’s still to come. In other words, a damned near perfect first issue. This is one of those times where I’m selfishly happy that small press comics have such a tiny audience, as I have a suspicion that anybody in Hollywood with a brain would snatch this story up in a heartbeat if they knew about it. Instead of getting a compromised big budget version of this story, instead we get the pure story in comic form! Eventually. Unless I’m wrong about somebody in Hollywood finding out about this. Eh, enjoy it while you can, as it’s a genuine blast of a comic. $5
Update for 7/18/13
Yesterday got away from me, but there’s a new review today for 3-D Pete’s Star Babe Invasion Comics #4 by Mike Fisher.
Fisher, Mike – 3-D Pete’s Star Babe Invasions Comics #4
3-D Pete’s Star Babe Invasion Comics #4
Oh Star Babe Invasion comics, never change. It’s always refreshing to see these retro ladies and read about some of these classic science fiction movies from back in the times when special effects took serious effort to complete (not that the computer stuff is easy on the programmers, but it’s different than the insane amount of time that went into producing stop-motion animation). And for a comic that could easily take one short turn into lewd and creepy, Mike always manages to keep things tasteful and seems to genuinely appreciate the work that these women put into their roles. This one is mostly about Carolyn Munro, who starred in an Italian ripoff of Star Wars called Starcrash (that sounds fantastically cheesy and includes a young David Hasselhoff of all actors), a Sinbad movie and a James Bond movie, among other things. This gives Mike a solid chance to dig into Starcrash, and he joyfully picks apart some of the production problems and ways in which it was obviously lacking in comparison to Star Wars. Hardcore nerds can try and name the characters depicted in the next section to the villains that she played against, but all I could manage was “Jaws” from the James Bond movie, so good luck with that one. Other stories include how quickly computers are going to surpass humans in terms of independent thought, the painstaking process of the special effects of that previously mentioned Sinbad movie, a brief history of Sarah Douglass (the female villain Kryptonian from Superman II) and several full page spreads of either regular pin-ups or what actresses might have looked like in different roles. These comics are always so good-natured that they’re impossible not to like, and this one is no exception. Old and medium-timers, this will give you some serious nostalgia for the good old days (whichever time period applies to you, as we all know that our own preferred period is the best). Young-timers, back in the day they made special effects using actual objects painstakingly placed into position over a period of months or even years just for the sake of one movie. You should look into it! $5
Update for 7/16/13
New review today for DemonDust #15 by Bernie McGovern. Chances are that the recent issues I missed are around here somehow, so chances are I’ll end up reviewing them out of order later on, so don’t be alarmed. If anybody is alarmed, which really shouldn’t happen over such a thing.
McGovern, Bernie – DemonDust #15
DemonDust #15
Bernie is on a serious roll lately with his comics. Hell, maybe with the rest of his life too, but I have no way of knowing about that. But he’s putting these DemonDust books out just about monthly, still working on his ridiculously impressive “An Army of Lovers Will Be Beaten” series, AND building a universe for another mini comic series that he’s starting up. Most comics creators would be content with keeping just one of those things going, and Bernie is out there making the rest of you look bad. The only way to make up that ground is to get to work on a series or two yourselves, other comics artists! Anyway, this issue deals with the troubles inherent in trying to create a comic by staring at a blank piece of paper and hoping for inspiration. This leads to a piece of paper that is able to breathe and talk, although seemingly only to ape whatever somebody near it is saying. We see the process by which this paper is made, reflect on the mantra of the paper, and finally get a character revolt about the content of the story. Bernie always ends these books with a text piece on the state of his life/projects/month, just in case you insist that a mini comic that looks this good that still manages to come out monthly is not enough for you. It’s another solid issue, but if you insist on a continuing story I’d recommend his other series. I haven’t read his new one, “The Cosmouse,” but his other series should be read by all humans and you know what? I’m going to recommend his new series without even seeing it. Eventually it’s possible to recognize when somebody just does good work, and I think Bernie has more than crossed that bar.
Update for 7/15/13
Hey look, I’m still alive! The cable box came at my new place without the cable modem, and it was a holiday week, so that took forever. Then I was out sick most of last week, which put me not at all in the mood to write comic reviews, or eat, or exist. But now things are back to normal, and if all goes well I should be able to get the usual 4-5 reviews up this week, assuming that I can find all of the comics I had yet to review, as that’s still a problem with the new place. But enough about me, the new review today is for The Unusual Death of Gregory Biggs by Emi Gennis.
Gennis, Emi – The Unusual Death of Gregory Biggs
The Unusual Death of Gregory Biggs
You ever have one of those days where you’re not even sure if you’re the same species as other humans? Well, if you’re having one of those today, I advise you to stop reading about this comic now, because the casual inhumanity here is stunning. I actually remember reading about either this guy or a very similar story years ago, but the gist of it is that a young woman and her friend were out on the town and they drank a bit and did a few drugs. One of the women tried to drive home, a man was walking along the interstate very late and night, and she ended up hitting him. That would be bad enough, but it’s the kind of thing that probably literally happens every day. But hey, that would mean that the “unusual death” title was incorrect, and that is not the case. Gregory ended up stuck in the windshield, as a very unfortunate human dart. The first reaction of the driver was to try and pull him out of the windshield and then drive away, which is horrific enough, but at least then the guy might have lived through it. As it was he was too heavy for her to lift, so she just drove home with him stuck in the windshield, parked the car in her garage and had sex with her boyfriend. As this guy was pleading for help and slowly bleeding to death! She eventually told her boyfriend, they got him out of the windshield (this was the next morning and Gregory was dead) and they dumped his body in a field, as they wanted his family to find him so that they could bury him. I’ve probably said too much already, but this is such a macabre story that I couldn’t help it. The rest of the comic deals with the events after they dumped his body, how they were eventually discovered and what ended up happening to the people involved. I can be an ultra liberal squish on sentencing for crimes, but this lady is as clear of an example of a sociopath as I’ve ever seen and it would be absolutely insane if she was ever allowed to be a free woman again. Emi really seems to have found her niche with these types of stories (and the occasional Spaz, of course), and there are certainly more than enough out there to keep her busy for years, lucky for us. But hey, if you do find yourself walking home along an interstate at 3 in the morning one day, do what I do: if at all possible, walk on the other side of the guard rail. That way they at least have to really want to hit you…
