Monthly Archives: November 2013
Update for 11/21/13
New review today for An Afternoon in Ueno by Graeme McNee. I may or may not get time to put up a review tomorrow, so don’t be terribly offended if I miss it. Oh, and since it’s impossible to leave the house without being reminded of it, the holiday season is basically already here. Why not buy some comics for your friends and loved ones? Why not buy them from me because I have plenty of them? Just a thought. I’m going to go through and remove the comics that are out of stock this weekend, so in theory everything will then be up to date. Still, it’s always a good idea to pick a few alternates just in case…
McNee, Graeme – An Afternoon in Ueno
An Afternoon in Ueno
It’s hard for a story to get much more charming than this. It starts off simply enough, with a young boy eating a meal with his family and his father pestering him about various duties that the boy should have performed. All of these questions are answered in the affirmative, but the boy tries telling his father that he has a stomach ache to avoid getting out of band practice. The father doesn’t even dignify this with a response, and he drops his child off at band practice. Once the kid gets inside, however, he learns that band practice is actually next week, and his family is not answering the phone at his house, leaving the boy with an afternoon to kill. He starts off looking a little concerned about this eventuality, but soon realizes what this means for his afternoon and is overjoyed. I’m in danger of telling the whole story again, so I’ll just leave the description there, but again, this whole thing is damned near too charming for words. Graeme has already shown an uncanny knack for the quiet moments with his last book, but this one just cements that reputation in my mind. This isn’t a silent comic, but large chunks of it go without words, as they’re simply not necessary at times. Picking out my favorite moment would be difficult. The hat store? The birds? The jam session on the street? I’ll just go with “all of it” and leave it at that. Check this out, everybody. You won’t be disappointed. But hurry, will you? This only has a print run of 200, and this is one of those cases where I don’t think number will end up being high enough.
Update for 11/20/13
New review today for Wuzzgutt by Jon Lawrence. Still getting back in the routine here, but hey, first time I’ve had two reviews in two days in awhile…
Lawrence, Jon – Wuzzgutt
Wuzzgutt
You know how sometimes a silent comic ends up, um (how do I put this politely), not making a lot of sense? I’m usually not clear in those situations whether I’m too dense to follow the story or if the author just wasn’t clear in what they were trying to convey. In this case I’m pretty sure that the reader isn’t given enough information to begin with. This comic isn’t entirely silent, so it gets a little clearer in the second and third stories (out of three). But that first story… woo boy. I should point out that this book is stunning visually, with plenty of genuinely weird and alien imagery. Anyway, the first story is entitled “Cosmic Pilgrimage.” The Wuzzgutt is that creature on the cover, just so you’re clear. I have very little idea of what happens in this story. Wuzzgutt meets a baby bird creature, who spews out some noise of some kind towards Wuzzgutt? Or maybe he/it is directing this noise towards the bird? Then Wuzzgutt sees a vision of a naked lady with a bird mask of some kind (and hey, if you’re just looking for boobs in your comic, this one has plenty of them), then Wuzzgutt either is transported to or sees a female singer (fully clothed this time), then it’s back to pure madness, and Wuzzgutt finally ends up seeing a female (?) Wuzzgutt near another lady. Or a Wuzzgutt statue? I feel confident in about 25% of that summary. The second story starts off fairly incomprehensively too, but once the talking starts we learn that some lady wants the Wuzzgutt captured, and the Wuzzgutt starts a ritual of some kind. Finally the third story deals with the ritual and the guy who tries to capture it, along with any ancillary damage that this guy does in the capture attempt. Maybe future issues would help this make some sense, but it sure feels like this is meant to tell the whole story, and if that’s the case the story it tells is a bit of a mess. I really like his art, and he sent along another comic so I’ll see how that one goes, but as a story I have to say that this made very little sense to me. $4
Update for 11/18/13
New review for Open Bar by Trevor Waurechen, and this site should be back to normal now, or whatever that usually means around here. As to my idea last week about some kind of a Xeric Grant substitute that I could put together, well, the silence was deafening, so I don’t think that will be happening. Not sure what I was expecting there. “Sure, I have thousands of dollars to give away for grants to people to publish books that I don’t even know!” Eh, in a perfect world. But if you’re a rich person who likes comics, this means that it’s on you to find some way to replace that grant. Make it happen!
Waurechen, Trevor – Open Bar
Open Bar
Ah, good old 24 hour comic failures. Which is an odd way to refer to a comic that ended up being a pretty great story, but hey, it wasn’t completed in 24 hours. I do sometimes wonder what the honest number of comics actually produced in 24 hours would be, as it seems like damned near everybody can’t resist the urge to at least go back and “touch up” the book a little. But I’m wandering all over the place here instead of talking about this comic. The story is about as simple as possible, which is something of a requirement for 24 hour books: a night bartending at an open bar. Our hero doesn’t get to say a whole lot for large chunks of the comic, as he’s mostly there to listen to other people tell their stories and observe some of their behaviors, but at least he gets something in the end. Anyway, stories in here include a smarty pants and the lady he’s with (briefly, as she seems to be the drunken life of the party) talking about religion, another guy telling the bartender all of his theories about that ladies after she wanders off, an absolute weirdo with a cell phone fixation, a union organizer and a lady on the prowl. The union organizer has one of the oddest noses I’ve seen in comics, as the profile for it sometimes comes right up over his skull, but this has absolutely no bearing on the story and probably isn’t worth mentioning. But I did it anyway, and you can’t stop me! Overall this is a solid comic, and it’s always a win for 24 hour comics when they get me wondering what the creator is capable of when they’re not operating under time constraints (not that he technically was, as he finished this in about six months, but that was the original idea behind the story). Luckily Trevor sent along a few other books, so I’ll have the answer to that mystery in a week or so when I review another one of his books. And so will you!
“Update” for 11/14/13
Remember when I mentioned that work might make reviews sporadic for a few weeks? Well, it is, and it’s even more sporadic than I thought. Things should be back to normal next week, and I may or may not manage to get a review up tomorrow (but probably not). But hey, this gives me a chance to ask all of you about something that’s been buzzing in the back of my head. Remember the Xeric grants? Remember how those ended last year? Or, if you haven’t heard about it: those ended last year. Anyway, I’ve been trying to come up with some way to put together at least a partial replacement for them. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to come close to replacing the dollar amount, but was kind of wondering if getting $20,000-30,000 a year from Kickstarter and maybe a few fundraisers would be possible. This would mean grants to 4-6 people instead of double digits like Xeric usually did, but at least it’s a start. So my question to you guys is: ya wanna? I could contact the groups who gave money to Xeric on a regular basis, maybe find a few (hundred) more people willing to donate a little cash, and at least there would be one avenue open for people who need financial help getting their book published. I’m mostly just looking for opinions now. Who out there thinks this is plausible? Utterly ridiculous? Write me and tell me why either way. Did you get a Xeric grant in the past? If so, write me and tell me about the experience. How much money you got, whether it was enough or too much (not that I’m expecting many responses in that last regard), what could have been improved, your general impressions, everything. I’d probably have to take a month or two off work to put this together and run it, so I’d have to ask for a donation for those months too. I work at a place where my taking a month or two off wouldn’t be that big of a deal (provided they weren’t months with electi0ns in them), but the idea of asking donations to cover my life for that time might be off-putting to people, and maybe a tacky thing to even ask. This is where your opinions come in! Finally, I guess there’s the chance that I’d just take the pile of money and move to a tropical island or something, so this is where I’d have to hope that my 12+ years of doing this have built up at least a little credibility for me. So yeah, send me your thoughts. If this strikes too many of you as ridiculous/fantastical/impossible, I’ll give up before I get started. If it seems remotely plausible, well, my understanding is that Kickstarter donations only really count if you meet your goal, and if that’s true I don’t see any reason not to at least give it a shot. Write me!
