Monthly Archives: November 2014
Update for 11/26/14
New reviews today for Mimi and the Wolves Act I by Alabaster and Dark Tomato by Sakura Maku. Happy holiday everybody!
Maku, Sakura – Dark Tomato #1
I know the rules of the small press publishing world by now (more or less), and I know that it’s impossible to publish most of these comics in color. Still, this one is crying out for color, and stuffing this into a black and white world hurt it more than a little bit. Of course, for all I know this is how it was meant to be seen and I’m an idiot, but this story is more (for lack of a better or more accurate word) colorful than all this. Not to mention the fact that the text sometimes gets lost in the various shades of grays, but that’s a technical problem. This is the story of Prince Tamlin Tomato, a woman who runs a subway train. It deals with the people she sees and various aspects of her life, which seems like too simplistic of a way to put it, as there’s a lot going on in every page. There’s her rather one-sided chats with her grandmother about the various odd things that she sees, and of course the things in the dark that she can’t quite make out. This is one of those cases where I bail out in the middle of the review, as I honestly don’t know what to say about it. It’s an utterly unique tale, more of an illustrated poem than anything, but it also defies any sort of conventional analysis. Check through her art on her website to see if it appeals to you, and if the answer is anywhere near yes, then this is very much worth a look. Provided that you can see past the “what might have been” aspect of this potentially existing in full color, that is. $5
Update for 11/24/14
Yep, a review on a Monday. I’m trying to get back into a routine here, even if the holiday week is going to make a mess of things this week. Still, why not get a few reviews in, right? New review today for Bakersfield, Earth #1 by David Quantic & Tamra Bonvillain.
Quantic, David & Bonvillain, Tamra – Bakersfield, Earth #1
Bakersfield, Earth #1
I have one tiny problem with this comic, and I absolutely loved the rest of it. For a change, I’m going to talk about all the good stuff first, just in case anybody wanders off in the middle of the review. This is the story of an alien from Jupiter who has lived on this planet since before the start of recorded human history by taking over the bodies of humans moments after they die. Why did he/she stay for so long? Mostly cheese fries. Which implies that cheese fries were invented thousands of years before anybody thought, which would explain a lot. That timeline David gives of the important events in human history is packed with funny, so don’t just skip over the page. Anyway, life goes on for hey I just realized that we never learned the real name of our hero. Huh. So life goes on for this creature until we finally make it into the 70’s, where it hops into the body of a transgendered man. Some altercations take place before our hero finally stands up for him/herself, at which point he/she decides to start standing up for the little guy on a regular basis. This, unfortunately, attracts the attention of a mercenary whose job is to bring back missing aliens, and things get ugly from there. All of this was compelling as could be, and here is where I’ll put my complaints. Please note that actual complaints are about the quality of the comic itself, and I have no issues there (writing was solid and Tamra did a great job with the art). So, my “complaints”: he left so much out! So many lives that were all glossed over, then the events of the ending (which I don’t want to spoil) that were glossed over so quickly. We never see Jupiter and there is still so much to learn about it. Which I guess means that it’s a good thing that this is marked with a “#1”, right? I mean, it’s not like they could have had a 500 page debut comic to tell all the backstory. Well, I’d read it, but I’m a weirdo when it comes to this stuff. So, a solid first issue that left me wanting much more story than I got. Sounds like a pretty solid recommendation to me. $5
Update for 11/19/14
Wow, has it really been almost a month since the last update? Oof, sorry. Been busier than I thought. Two new reviews today from the Mini Kus pile: Swimming Pool by Anna Vaivare and Magnetism by Roope Eronen. This week might still be a little crazy but here’s hoping that I can at least get one more review up. But either way, no, I am not quitting the website. Just paid for it for another year, actually, so I’m not going anywhere.
Vaivare, Anna – Mini Kus #24: Swimming Pool
Mini Kus #24: Swimming Pool
I’ve long had a fascination with the people who work behind the scenes, the ones who almost nobody notices in their day to day lives. Janitors, customer service people, lifeguards, anybody who is only noticed if they mess up while doing their jobs. This comic is all about a woman who lives at a swimming pool by night and keeps everything about it clean by day. Along the way she talks about the various people she encounters on a daily basis, bits of her life that led up to her taking this job, and the dread she feels at the thought of going back to any part of her old life. It all leads up to a big reveal at the end that I’m not going to get into, as that would be cheating. Still, Anna does an excellent job of planting the seeds for the reveal along the way, and things end on a genuinely sweet moment. The art is gorgeous, as it’s all painted and she does a great job of showing the various types of people who use a pool along with the fact that the water is never completely still from all the activity. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable story and you should give it a look. $6
Eronen, Roope – Mini Kus #25: Magnetism
Mini Kus #25: Magnetism
People who read science fiction stories expecting the science to make total sense, please stop reading now. People who are able to read a science fiction story and think of it as a allegory for other aspects of life without getting too bogged down in the specifics, read on! This one starts off with an obviously sad young woman at a coffee shop. She is unable to get coffee and has to settle for cold water, and the place is practically deserted. Despite this fact a young man asks if he can sit with her, and she reluctantly agrees. This is when we learn that things have gone horribly wrong on this planet and that she’s willing to try almost anything to get away from it. This young man was actually a businessman with a unique product: a magnet that will take you to a different place in the universe. He calculates some basics about the planet to see if it has the basic elements necessary for a human to survive, teleports one magnet to the location, and has the customer swallow the other magnet to get there. Surviving the trip is not explained, but please refer back to the first sentence of this review if you have any qualms about that. Anyway, this somehow manages to be a cute story about utter desperation, and that final image of ____ (thought I was going to slip there, didn’t you?) ended things on a hilarious note. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed. $6
