Monthly Archives: February 2014
Update for 2/25/14
New review today for Blunderbuss by Aaron Norhanian and Jason Ciaccia. Keep those review comics coming! If you’re going to be at SPACE in a couple of months, I’m talking to you. Also to the people who aren’t going to be there, but mostly you. Specifically!
Norhanian, Aaron – Blunderbuss
Blunderbuss
I really hope the $10 price tag doesn’t scare people away, as this is one hell of a comic. Actually it’s more like three mini comics bundled together (or four, but then the fourth would just be a regular old short story, which would be an odd format for a mini comic). See, there’s your value right there! Things start off with a table of contents that is brilliant because the comments in it can be appreciated before and after reading the stories in entirely different ways. Granted, you probably have to see that to know what I’m talking about, but that only places you at fault for not having the comic yet. The first story is about an awkward conversation on a bus, a misunderstanding of what constitutes a disability and the odd expectation that strangers on a bus will care what you’re talking about. It’s a little grotesque, and I mean that in the best possible sense. The next story answers the question of the origin of the universe, along with many of the questions that go along with it. Will everyone be satisfied? That is an impossibility, but I’m thinking about starting a religion based on this theory, purely so I can be tax-exempt too. The final comic story is a literal interpretation of the “square pegs can’t fit in a round hole” theory, and how the pegs that don’t fit can still make things better. I’m glossing over all the wonderfulness in those stories because only jerks reveal everything about stories where you’d be better off figuring them out for yourselves, but I thoroughly enjoyed all three of them, with the story about the origins of the universe winning the prize for best in the bunch, if such a prize existed. Finally there’s a short story about a beard growing a face by Jason Ciaccia. I go back and forth on short stories in comics, usually coming to the conclusion that they’d be better in zines or books, but there was a lot to love about this one. The central idea is sentient beards, so it’s hard to go wrong when you start with that premise. Check it out, there’s a lot to love here. $10
Update for 2/24/14
New review today for Perpetual Motion by Pam Bliss. Anybody else having any more problems than usual connecting to the website or is it just me? Conversely, anybody know a good web hosting service/web design guru who is able to drag this website into at least the last decade, technologically speaking?
Bliss, Pam – Perpetual Motion
Perpetual Motion
Quick, I’m looking for a solution to an unsolvable problem. Bear with me, it does relate to this comic. Pam puts out these minis at a fairly rapid pace. They’re usually 8 pages, maybe a bit less if the cover doesn’t bleed over into the actual comic, or if the back cover doesn’t conclude the story. Pam also has a fairly vast collection of characters. Now, my memory could charitably be described as “hot garbage” on recognizing characters (and, more importantly, their relationships to other characters) under those conditions, and because I tend to read her books every 3-6 months. So how can this problem be solved? Obviously Pam can’t put a full list of characters (and how they relate to the other characters) in every comic, as she just doesn’t have enough room. But I know I remember that one character from that one mini, and it’s driving me nuts that I can’t place him. Somebody solve this please! As for the comic itself, it’s delightful. Things start off with a train conductor getting some tea at a coffee shop. I love the fact that the server has four arms; that he can both aimlessly scrub the counter and cross his arms with barely-concealed contempt for all customers, just like a real coffee shop worker! The conductor then sees a giant trophy and goes to congratulate the young man who has won it, but things aren’t as they seem, and once again there isn’t enough comic for me to walk you through the whole thing while still leaving enough for you to enjoy. But it involves science!
Update for 2/20/14
New review today for Dusty-isms by Matt Reints. Anybody else getting up early and/or skipping work to watch these Olympic hockey games or is it just me?
Reints, Matt – Dusty-isms
Dusty-isms
One tiny complaint to get things off on the wrong foot, as I liked the actual comic: more Dusty-isms, please! Dusty Rhodes was (and probably still is) a quote machine, and you can’t use a title like that and then only include three quotes. Oh, and if you don’t know who Dusty Rhodes is (old school wrestling legend) and are thinking that Matt draws him like a monster, well, the guy kind of looks like a monster. Which he played up back in the day by wearing a skin tight black and yellow polka dot outfit, and the guy wasn’t exactly svelte. Anyway, the three quotes are golden, so I’ll just leave those for you to discover. Other stories include a very long trip in a very short period of time (featuring much drinking, and as a guy who is careening through his late 30’s I would have loved to have seen an age group that pulled off the drinking feats depicted here), how an office environment compares to the world of pro wrestling (it’s closer than you’d think), and a surprisingly insightful tale of how little and how much things have changed over the last 60 years or so. It’s a little heavy on the wrestling references, but that shouldn’t be enough to scare you away, as Matt went to great lengths to make them relatable to everyday life. Give it a look, eh?
Update for 2/18/14
New review today for Sunnyville Stories #7 by Max West. Anybody else figure out a good way to watch these Olympic hockey games without getting up at 3am to do so?
West, Max – Sunnyville Stories #7
Sunnyville Stories #7
OK, this one is going to be a little tricky to review. Kids, do you know who Abbot and Costello were? No? Hm. Well, they had this joke about baseball players with different names and the comedic possibilities that came from those names. Their names were things like what, who, why, that sort of thing. So when somebody asked “Who’s on first?”, the joke was something like the fact that “Who” was the second basemen, while “What” was the first basemen, and this is a perfect representation of why anybody who attempts to describe humor is a fool. Objectively, as somebody who grew up in the 80’s, the skit didn’t do a lot for me, although it did help to see the original sketch, as their comedic performances saved the bit (to my modern day tastes, anyway). So what’s the point of my bringing all this up? This comic deals with a celebration at the house of a very rich lady, but it was put together at short notice and all of the servants have the day off. A trio of brothers (Who, What and Why) overhear this and offer to help out. The rest of the comic deals with guests having all kinds of trouble figuring out what exactly is happening and the names of these servants. Max ends up making it funnier than I expected, although your tolerance for this kind of humor is going to make or break whether or not you want to give this a shot. I liked how he tied it all together with the thieves who were attempting to rob this celebration, as all that information probably would stop anybody dead in their tracks. So maybe check it out, depending on your sense of humor and/or willingness to expose yourself to a new version of “funny” if you think this might not be for you.
Update for 2/14/13
New review today for Blink Volume 2: To Go With This Doorknob by Max Ink. It’s the rough cut edition, just in case you were curious. Happy weekend everybody, and happy ignoring Valentine’s Day, fellow single people!
Ink, Max – Blink Volume 2: To Go With This Doorknob
Blink Volume 2: To Go With This Doorknob
Note for everybody who isn’t living in the past: this is a rough cut edition of the second volume of the Blink saga. Can I call it a saga or is that word reserved for things in the fantasy/science fiction genre? Anyway, the official version of this is out, but here I am, reviewing the rough cut, because it’s the version that I have available. This is all to say that any complaints/comments/praise I make about this book could be completely wrong, as what I liked/disliked could have changed by the time the final edition came out. So doesn’t that make this review essentially meaningless? Eh, let’s not get too far bogged down in philosophical questions. At the very least this will serve to remind fans of this series that there’s a new volume out there. So! I’ll start with a complaint from me as a fanboy and not a hypothetically impartial reviewer: you just cannot put out an entire volume of this series and not include Sam in it. Granted, the series is called “Blink” and not “Blink and Sam,” but come on now. Sam is gold whenever she’s on the page, and even if she didn’t fit in this story, at least have a flashback to an older conversation of theirs or something. Oh crap, I just solved my own problem, didn’t I? Sam isn’t in this story because she doesn’t fit into THIS story. Dammit! OK, enough rambling, by now you’re probably wondering what’s in this volume. This is essentially a long conversation between Blink and a number of new people that she meets. It starts off with her drawing in a park when a large, smiling man walks up to her. She’s a little confused, but seems to get that there’s no real threat there, and she gradually meets this guy and the two guys that he’s with, all of whom seem to be homeless but getting by through shelters and free meals. This leads Blink to a free potluck dinner at a “hidden gem” in Columbus, where she runs into an older friend, a few other people and a creepy piano player. I always get the feeling that I’m not properly conveying the joy of these books in my reviews, as “lady talks to other people for about 40 pages about all sorts of things” might not be something that gets people to rush out and buy all his collections, but I have to again emphasize that you really should get all of his collections. The man is building a world, based on the actual world of Columbus Ohio, and he’s doing a hell of a job with it. This volume was a little lacking in Columbus landmarks compared to other volumes, probably because it starts in a park and ends at a dinner (after a walk from the park to the dinner), but he has 11 more volumes to include more landmarks. Check it out, but start from the beginning. Hey, just go SPACE in Columbus in April, that’ll make it easy to get caught up on his series. $7
Update for 2/13/14
Ugh, my apologies once again. Believe it or not, a Board of Elections can get busy in February. New reviews today for Red Right Hand #1 by Ryan Crawford, Eric Margolis & James Heimer and DemonGunz by Bernie McGovern. More reviews tomorrow if I can find any comics that I still haven’t reviewed, otherwise I’ll dig through my comics to find ones that I missed the first time around and I should have plenty to review next week.
Crawford, Ryan; Margolis, Eric; Heimer, James – Red Right Hand #1
Red Right Hand #1
Quick, a show of hands: how many of you know who David Yow is? OK, I can’t see you through the screen, so the show of hands isn’t going to help me. I’m guessing the number is shockingly low. Would it help if I told you he was the lead singer for The Jesus Lizard? Unless you’re roughly my age, that’s probably not much help either. The man is a force of nature, and I’ll just leave it at that. Anyway, this comic starts off with a couple of people sitting at a bar, listening to the inane chatter all around them and getting increasingly upset at the general state of humanity. One of them recognizes David Yow (shirtless, as always), but is surprised to see the guy wearing an eye patch. This is because this David Yow is from the future, and he’s come back to the past to kill the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Oh, if only this comic was based on a true story. Anyway, mayhem ensues, a master plan is hinted at, and we’re well set up for the rest of this series. My only complaint was that (spoiler alert, I suppose) that awful band gets taken care of off-panel, which is a horrible punishment to the right thinking people of the world who would have liked to have seen them get taken apart in graphic detail. Other than that this is a solid first issue with a great premise, and I can’t wait to see who they go after next. $3
McGovern, Bernie – DemonGunz
If you’re keeping track of the chronology of the life of Bernie, read DemonTears before this one. And hey, a little bit of trivia: DemonDust was initially called DemonGun, for reasons that he explains in this collection. This collection contains issues #1-11 of that series (the name change happened with #8), which nicely coincides with when I started reviewing this series at #11. I missed quite a bit of backstory coming in at that point, but now I’m caught up and know the whole story. Well, I know the parts he chose to put in his comics, as he’s pretty open about the fact that there are plenty of details of his life that he’s not going to be sharing with the readers. Which is fine! Anyway, this one starts at a time when Bernie’s recovery from alcoholism was still a new and shaky thing, and the early issues of his series very much reflect on this state, as he wonders whether his no longer drinking is what’s contributing to his writer’s block on his other series (An Army of Lovers Will Be Beaten, and don’t make me tell you to read that one again). This is very much a book where you’re rewarded for keeping up with his other projects, as characters from current and future series show up with a bit of regularity. He mentions who they are each time, but you’d get more out of it if you’ve also read their stories in their proper series. Other subjects in here include splitting himself in two over and over again, getting to know his addiction, the slow death of his grandmother, keeping up with his puppets, zen buddhism, bacon, coming to terms with the reality of his sobriety, dreams, and everything else that came with this time in his life. This collection includes everything from those comics, covers and epilogues and everything, so don’t worry if you missed them while they were coming out. This book along with DemonTears will tell you lots about these years of Bernie’s life. Not everything, and lots of it is dreamy and abstract enough to be left open to interpretation, but this is a fantastic collection of his thoughts over about a year and a half. $10
Update for 2/7/14
Yeah, the week got away from me again, sorry about that. What can I say, this crappy weather takes everything right out of me. New review for Lost Kisses #25 by Brian John Mitchell, and if you’d like me to review your comics, feel free to send them my way, as the review pile is getting a little thin. Happy weekend everybody!
Mitchell, Brian John – Lost Kisses #25
Lost Kisses #25
Hm, that is one scattered listing of reviews for this series. I reviewed #5-10, #21 and now this one. The good news is that you don’t necessarily have to read this entire series to get plenty out of individual issues, although I’m guessing that it wouldn’t hurt to have the whole picture. Ah well, maybe I can get caught up at SPACE this year. So this one is all about fictional Brian waking up next to a dead girl that he doesn’t recognize and eventually realizing this is because he has taken a drug to release himself from linear time. The sad part comes in when he realizes that he can’t change the future any more than he could change the past, so this girl will always be dead and will always have died. Other topics include his feelings on anonymous sex, whether or not it would be worth it to save the world (which is a question that doesn’t get asked in popular culture nearly enough), and how living forever would be fine if he didn’t have to feel anything. For most of his series I’d highly recommend getting the issues in order, but for this one it sure seems like you’d be OK grabbing whichever random issues he has available when you see him at a con. Or you could go nuts and throw a pile of money at him, as I don’t think anybody else is offering as many comics for your dollars as he is. $1
Update for 2/3/14
New review today for QU33R, an anthology edited by Rob Kirby. And considering the fact that February is generally a miserable and snowy month too, it’s a good brick of a book to read while hiding from the elements.
