Monthly Archives: December 2014
Alabaster – Mimi and the Wolves Act I
Mimi and the Wolves Act I
All of these years reading comics and I think my favorite thing about them is still having my expectations utterly subverted. This one briefly shows all the characters before the action gets started, and most of them look cute or possibly even a little wacky. But, as you may have guessed, that’s not the direction this one ended up in at all. Things start off with a slow build, as we see a mysterious figure in the forest before finally meeting our heroine (Mimi) and her mate (Bobo). We see them going about the daily lives, happy as can be, before they go to bed for the night. Mimi has been having dreams her entire life, and they make her profoundly uncomfortable to think about, apparently because they involve some horrific creatures/images and seem to end with her quite enjoying something sexual (it’s all still a little vague). Mimi arranges to have a lucid dream so she can confront the woman she keeps seeing in this dream, and that conversation leads to her hanging up icons around the forest. These icons bring the attention of the wolves that are mentioned on the cover, and their intentions seem good, but it’s probably too early to say for sure. The rest of the comic deals with stuff I shouldn’t be talking about, so I won’t. See how easy that was? It’s a solid start to a series that I am very much looking forward to. The art is tremendous and evocative, the writing fits the images perfectly, and it was a blast to read. So maybe you should too! $12
Kirby, Rob (editor) – QU33R
Damn, now that’s how you put together a fantastic anthology. The stories in here are of various lengths, but it gets going with a 20 page story by Eric Orner dealing with his coming to terms with his sexuality, dating a woman in college, having a right wing nut of a father and generally not having much of a source to educate himself about being gay. The social progress this country has gone through in the last five years on this front has been staggering (it’s like the majority of the country realized all at once that they were being homophobic assholes and all decided to stop and pretend like it never happened), but it’s stories like Eric’s that remind the youngsters that there were very few options when you were growing up gay in the 70’s and 80’s. The closet was a lifesaver back in those days. Anyway, I’m rambling, and I haven’t even gotten to the other 32 (!) creators in here. Highlights include (and I don’t think there’s a single actively bad story in here, for the record) Annie Murphy’s story about her elderly closeted relatives and wondering what their lives were like, Marinaomi’s first time being an awkward threesome, Ed Nuce and the rules of survival at death metal shows, Dylan Edwards and his childhood friend who referred to his Transformers toys with headlights in robot form as women to try to even out the gender imbalance, Justin Hall’s story about dating a man with (unbeknownst to him) serious mental issues while Justin just thought the guy was trying to work out his life, Jennifer Camper’s hardboiled detective story, Terrance Griep’s most painful wrestling injury, Edie Fake’s hilarious two pages of jokes told by somebody trying to pay to get into a sex show, Steve MacIsaac’s coming face to face with his childhood bully and the unlikely way the conversation ended up going, Andy Hartzell’s story of Pvt. Manning (in his own words) talking about his potential gender reassignment surgery on top of trying to come to terms with his conscience about all of the awful things he knew that the U.S. was doing around the world, Carrie McNinch’s first summer love, and Sasha Steinberg’s triumphant tale of a drag queen buying panty hose. That’s right, I somehow didn’t mention Howard Cruse (who’s been at this for decades and who at least partially started gay comics in general), Craig Bostick, L. Nichols or Rob Kirby, all favorites of mine. So that should tell you the level of quality you’re going to be getting here, right? Oh, and since I’ve been cranky about it in past anthologies, I should mention that Rob does everything right in editing this thing. Creator names at the top of every page? Brilliant! Check it out and enjoy, but set aside an afternoon for it, as this here is a hefty pile of stories. $29.99
It’s “Best of the Year” Week!
With the gigantic caveat of “best of the year of graphic novels that I’ve read.” Which, looking over the past year, is a pretty short list. I seem to be slipping in the quantity of reviews, so I’m either running out of steam completely or last year was just abnormally busy for me. We’ll find out which theory is correct together next year which! Anyway, I’ll be re-posting reviews from the past year at of some of the best graphic novels of the year. Please note that this is not a “Top 10” list, that the books are in no particular order and that it is possible to love very different book equally. And as I’m only posting graphic novel reviews, I should at least mention some of my favorite series/creators of the past year, so in no particular order: Sam Spina’s TARN (Sam Spina in general can do no wrong), Brian John Mitchell and his countless great series, Ohio is For Sale by Jon Allen, Slaves of the Megapode by Rob Jackson, Towerkind by Kat Verhoeven and Ryan Cecil Smith and his sprawling, ongoing SF series. Granted, that list looks short, but there also aren’t all that many ongoing series that I read. I think Dave Sim’s record of 300 issues of a single series is safe forever. OK, happy New Year week everybody, regular posting will resume on Monday or Tuesday of next week!
Mucha, Corinne – Get Over It
It seems incredibly reductive to call this a break-up comic but, well, it is a graphic novel that goes through Corinne’s break-up with a serious boyfriend in detail. If you hate such things I guess you should avoid this, but that can only be the case if you’ve solved the mysteries of all relationships and have no use for such things any more. And if you’ve done that, please share your wisdom with the rest of us! Ahem. This one starts off with Corinne setting the stage, explaining how she moved across the country to be with her boyfriend and how there’s nothing neat about a break-up and that the very term should probably be changed. From there we see her pinpoint the exact moment when things started going bad, and it’s a doozy. She asked him where he saw the relationship going (this was after three years of dating) and he made it perfectly clear that he could never see them getting married, and that even though he definitely wanted kids he could not see them having kids together. Unsolicited relationship advice for the youngsters: this right here is the moment that you run. Three years is a long time to be dating, and if this is still the perspective of your significant other while you think this is the person that you’re going to be spending the rest of your life with, run for it! He/she can’t lay it out for you any clearer than her boyfriend did here. Still, that would be a very short comic, and she already explained that break-ups are never as neat as the term implies, so after breaking up a few months later she spent the next few years pining over him, pestering her friends with stories about it, and trying to break things down so that the whole relationship made some kind of sense. This is where the comic really shines, as she goes to great lengths to show that reason is often not to be found in a situation like this, no matter how hard she tried. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but she seems like a much more grounded person these days, and that’s one of the few benefits of getting your heart broken. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of this, cringing at a few bits that struck too close to home while laughing at others for the very same reason. If you know someone who has recently been dumped and they’re going through something like this, buy them a copy (or go to a local library, you cheap bastard) and they will thank you for it. Reading this might not make the pain go away, but it will make a break-up easier to live through. $15
Costa, Ben – Pang The Wandering Shaolin Monk Volume 2: Winter Worm, Summer Grass
Pang The Wandering Shaolin Monk Volume 2: Winter Worm, Summer Grass
I made it clear in the last review for this series that unless you an utterly joyless human being that you should be reading this, but it looks like that last review was from a few years ago, so just to make it perfectly clear: if you have any interest in the history of shaolin monks in China in the 1600’s, or martial arts, or Chinese history, or just good story-telling, you should be reading this series. I’ll get my only complaint out of the way early: this could have used a brief recap of the last book. A little “previously on” would have done wonders, but Ben does a good job of getting the reader caught up to speed pretty quickly. This one starts off with Pang remembering the very early days of his training (which comes up in a big way later on), and from there we spend a little time with Pang wandering around the countryside, trying to find a sign of a temple that he knows is nearby. The next scene is something that is probably going to haunt me, and something that was unexpected (to Pang and to me as a reader): a fight with a tiger. Pang stumbles across a couple of tiger cubs, the mother attacks to defend them, and Pang has to decide whether he is like a true Buddha, somebody who is willing to give his life to feed the tigress and her cubs, or whether he is willing to fight dirty to survive. You can probably guess which way he decides based on the fact that his name is in the title and this fight happens early on, and in hindsight what he does is probably the only way that anybody could have a hope of surviving a tiger attack, but I wasn’t prepared for the brutality of it, or the way that Pang is essentially consigning three tigers to death with his act. This act also breaks Pang, leaving him utterly unsure of the rightness of his actions for a long time afterward. From there Pang meets up with a drunken monk, hears the story of how another temple was destroyed, learns some pieces as to why all of this is happening to the monks, and meets a very skilled bounty hunter on the road. Yeah, that’s all vague, because it’s fantastic and you should just read it for yourself. Ben says on his website that he taking a break before starting the third and final volume of this series, and although “taking a break” always makes me nervous with comics, he does seem dedicated to finishing the story. I really hope he does, as this could end up being on the list of great comics achievements when it’s finished. Which, again, is why you should be reading this now. $19.95
Udpate for 12/23/14
New review today for True Stories Volume One by Derf Backderf. Is this the last review until after Christmas? Um, possibly. If so, happy holidays everybody! If not, please disregard until tomorrow.
Backderf, Derf – True Stories Volume One
If you’re one of those people who get offended when others (rightly) make fun of white trash folks, or of hopeless (though real) stereotypes of human behavior, you might want to move on. If, on the other hand, you have a sense of humor and understand that it’s a miracle that society is still functioning, you are going to love damned near every page of this one. Derf did a series of single page strips for 24 years, and this is the first volume covering that run. The order in which he is releasing them is a bit erratic, but this one covers 2002-2008. Still, almost any one of them could appear in the newspaper today and it wouldn’t look a bit out of place. My only question is what happened to the rest of the strips, as there’s no way this covers every strip he did for those years, but maybe the world isn’t ready for a complete collection of the strip. Anyway, subjects in here include many different happenings at the big box stores, the assorted homeless folks on the streets and their behaviors, a businessman with a counter-intuitive tattoo, Americans of all stripes at their most American, fighting off a burglar with a teddy bear, a cross on a wheel, people making a ridiculous stop on a charity run, an inspiring guy who refused to get off the wrong way walkway at the airport, and the assistant principal who is forced to direct traffic away from students who are too busy on their phones to look either way before crossing the street. The common theme throughout is the proud, willful ignorance of Americans, and I don’t see many signs that that has gotten any better in the years since these strips first appeared. It’s hilarious while also hurting your heart, and those are the best kind of comics. $6
Update for 12/18/14
New reviews today for Sugar Booger #2 by Kevin Scalzo and Ultimate Lost Kisses #15 by Brian John Mitchell & David Branstetter. More tomorrow if I get any free time, if not I’ll get at least a couple of reviews up next week before I leave town for the holiday.
Scalzo, Kevin – Sugar Booger #2
The horrific but somehow kid-friendly adventures of Sugar Booger continue! In case you missed the last issue, the premise is simple enough: Sugar Booger eats sweets and pours out a better version of the candy through his nostrils. At least I assume that it’s a better version, as it doesn’t make much sense otherwise. Hah, there I go, trying to make sense of this idea. Anyway, this issue starts off with Sugar (if you’re OK with me calling him by his first (?) name) realizing that all of the candy that he’s made is causing a problem, as it’s not possible for the residents of this land to eat it as quickly as he makes it. Luckily a Gloomy Globby monster comes along and is ravenously hungry, so it looks like both of their problems will be solved. But Sugar isn’t counting on the hunger of this monster being insatiable, so steps must be taken to reign in the problem. The art in this is ridiculously joyous, but the hints of the horror of this creature do seep through here and there. Or maybe it’s just me, who knows? But in a world where Adventure Time can take over cartoons, I see no reason why this couldn’t be a fantastic cartoon in its own right. Assuming Kevin would even want to go in that direction, that is. His use of color is also damned near unparalleled, as so many small press color comics are content to just throw in a few colors and call it a day. Kevin uses every color of the rainbow, often not in places that you would not expect, and the results are utterly unique. And don’t even get me started on the various smaller creatures that inhabit this land, because those walking brains that also serve as bouncy shoes are the tip of the iceberg. Get this comic, is what I’m trying to say. I can say this and have it be literally true: you’ve never seen anything like it. $5.95
Mitchell, Brian John & Branstetter, David – Ultimate Lost Kisses #15
Ultimate Lost Kisses #15
Did you ever have some completely happy news on your end torn apart by the person that you’re relaying the news to? That’s the subject of this comic in a big way, as the star of the story is a young married woman in her 20’s who calls her mother to tell her that she’s having a baby. This is almost universally a cause for celebration (at least to somebody in a stable relationship and living situation), but her mother immediately tells her to get rid of it, that it will destroy her life and her figure. It’s impossible to ignore the obvious implication: her mother feels like having her 20+ years ago ruined HER life. The rest of the comic is a tour through the childhood of the pregnant woman, her feelings about that and the reaction, and how she decides to go forward from there. It’s an intriguing story, and a good reminder that relaying news to loved ones can often uncover some unpleasant truths. $1 as usual, and as usual you should go nuts and get at least a handful of these comics when you’re ordering, as they are tiny.
Update for 12/16/14
New review today for Short and Merciless Stories by Marco Taddei & Simone Angelini. Speaking of that, I’m thinking of putting up some older posts of some of my favorite books of the year, probably in the last week of the year when everybody else is doing them. As this was a sparse year for reviews (by my standards), we’ll see what I can come up with, but a top 5 is easy, maybe even a top 10. Sure, it’s technically “reruns,” but at least you’ll have something else to look at while you’re stuck at work for that stupid week between Christmas and New Year’s where everybody would be off if the world was a just place.
Irene Comics Anthology – Irene #5
Irene #5
Does it really matter if you review anthologies out of order? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, but if it turns out that there are continuing stories from #4 of this series (which was also sent my way) then I apologize. Anyway, this is a pile of stories and drawings by a little over a dozen artists. As always, some of them were more compelling to me than others and, as always, your opinions on which stories are more compelling probably varies wildly from mine. This does seem to be a regularly published anthology series, and the packaging does look gorgeous, so if you’re looking for that sort of thing, maybe check in with them from time to time? Anyway, highlights include the story of how he used to give story ideas to his father every night before he went to sleep and how he couldn’t sleep without the ensuing story by Andy Warner, a trip into (and discussion of) Mexico by Dave Ortega, Luke Healy’s story of following a woman up onto a mountain to see what happened to her (there’s more to it than that, but I’m certainly not going to give it away here), James the Stanton and the search for a Guru, Pat Barrett’s tale of the last days of a space explorer as she tries to save an alien (or are they really the last days?), Jon Chad and the best way to get intergalactically pwned, and Dakota McFadzean’s memories of being a kid, flying, and creating life (sort of). I should also mention the various single pages by Lindsay Watson, as they appeared between the stories and brought a life to the whole anthology that might not have been there otherwise. My absolute highlight for the stories was the piece by The FDZ (writer) and Fouad Mezher (artist). It starts off as a fairly simple story of a man living his last night in Lebanon and an unfortunate encounter with a guard dog, but things take an absolutely brutal turn from there and, once again, I shouldn’t really be talking about it. All kinds of good stuff in here, and it’s 160 or so pages, so you’ll be getting value for your $15.
Update for 12/10/14
New review today for Bixtone Productions 24 Hour Comic Madness Extravaganza by Kevin and Arthur Bixby. Oh, and if you’re reading this you’re probably already aware that I moved roughly six months ago, and that you should always check the address at the sidebar so that any comics sent actually make it to me. I mention this because my old apartment complex just called and they have maybe half a dozen packages waiting for me. Which, come to think of it, is probably true for many of my old apartments, they’re just the only ones nice enough to let me know about it…
Bixby, Kevin & Arthur – Bixtone Productions 24 Hour Comic Madness Extravaganza
Website (for Kevin’s Facebook page)
Bixtone Productions 24 Hour Comic Madness Extravaganza
Ah, the 24 hour comic. When successful, it’s usually obvious to tell that it was done quickly, as the art is a step below the usual output of the artist. But when it’s not successful (meaning only that it wasn’t finished in 24 hours, not a knock on the quality) there’s a substantial amount of guesswork going on with the reader. Is this the way it looked on the day of the challenge or has the art/writing been touched up since then? I’m going to guess that at least the art has been touched up, but as Kevin makes it clear that these are three stories that didn’t quite meet the challenge of 24 hours, I think that’s still allowed. The stories in this one include a zombie outbreak (which I think is legally mandated material for all comics artists on 24 hour challenges to try at least once), the revenge of a villain who is currently posing as a hero after “foiling” a kidnapping plot, and Kevin giving up the reins of another challenge to a 6 year old nephew so he can plot out a story. Not really, of course, but it made for a good excuse on the art for that one. Let’s go through them in order! The zombie outbreak was a lot of fun. Not much new ground was broken, but I’m always up for scenes of human-on-zombie violence. The Devilman story was by far the most plot-heavy of the stories, but it also ends on a cliffhanger with no sign of the story ever being finished. Still, another fun read with some solid action. Finally there’s the utterly random story, which somehow managed to be the most enjoyable of them all. There’s no real way to summarize it, but I will say that it involves Pokeman eating Thor (and becoming Pokemon Thor) and a giant Batman robot fighting Godzilla through “yo mama” jokes. See? Random. My only minor quibble was that I could often see the pencils of the text bubbles, as they weren’t erased thoroughly in spots, but that kind of thing is far from a dealbreaker. It’s good clean fun and the three stories makes for a hefty book, so give it a look why don’t you?
Update for 12/8/14
Since I seem to have no end of trouble with weeks getting away from me, why not put a bunch of reviews up early in the week instead of hoping for the best at the end of the week? I’m trying that out this week, so two new reviews today: Trepanation by Emi Gennis and Colossal: Before Curious Machines by Jason Ludtke. I do plan on doing regular reviews the rest of the week too, but if that turns out to be wrong then at least I got a couple of great comics up this week, right?
Gennis, Emi – Trepanation
Trepanation
Trepanation! Who out there has thought about doing it? I’m guessing the total is right around zero for those of you who know what it is. If you don’t know what it is, that’s probably because it hasn’t been used with any kind of regularity for at least a hundred years. Basically it involves having someone drill a hole in your hear to either relieve pressure from headaches/stress or release the demon inside you, depending on whether there was even a little bit of science involved with it. Makes it pretty obvious why this has fallen out of favor, right? Anyway, this is the story of the handful of people who have had this done and/or are advocating for more people to get it done to themselves. It is illegal to do this in the United States (which makes sense until you think about some of the plastic surgeries that are still somehow legal), but the “movement” to get it legalized isn’t much to speak of. The people quoted in this comic universally have good things to say about the procedure, but at least one of them still has the presence of mind necessary to know that he is also unable to compare it to anything else, as it’s not exactly a process that you can get undone. Doctors have come to their own conclusion, and you might not be at all surprised to learn that any benefits people experience are due to it being a placebo effect. Meaning that they were so convinced that good things would come from this process that they ended up having good things happen come from this process. Also included in this comic are some examples of when it was used in the past and how the process has become less obviously barbaric in the intervening years. Sure, it’s still drilling a hole into the head of another human, but you should see some of the tools they used in the past. And you will see them if you read this comic, which you should do. It’s a fascinating subject, and whether or not you knew about it before reading this review there’s no way that you aren’t curious about it now. Read it and enjoy, and if you end up converted there’s contact info for some of these lunatics included in the comic… $4
Ludtke, Jason – Colossal: Before Curious Machines
Colossal: Before Curious Machines
Regular readers of the website may remember this comic, as I praised the pants off of it for the last issue that I’d read. It also seems like I may have missed an issue or two, or maybe it’s just the fact that I haven’t read the last issue for a couple of years and my memory is a garbage pile. One or the other! Anyway, the basic gist is that a giant robot wakes up in a desolate world with very little idea of what it is or what’s going on. In this issue the robot and his bird friend are looking for clues and run across a group of deer (herd?). There’s a fantastic philosophical discussion on whether or not the robot is alive or has consciousness, then they tell the robot where it should next go to get more clues. We also get to see a regular dream of this bird (which shows some great hints about its place in the universe) and we see more and more clues about what is left of this world. For example, at this point they’re in what used to be Milwaukee. No humans are to be seen, but the bird has seen a few in its past, and we also see the first (?) genuinely hostile act against the robot, but I shouldn’t get into what that was all about. My only complaint is that there were a few typos (all of the dialogue is typed), which is the sort of thing that you really should work past after a couple of issues. Nothing that broke the story, and possibly nothing that nobody else noticed, but the typos, they do stick in my craw. I remain fascinated in this story and very much wonder where it’s all heading, which is all that you can ask out of an ongoing book like this.
Update for 12/2/14
Two new reviews today, for Smallbug Comics #2 by Charles Brubaker and Short Run: On Your Marks by about a half dozen Seattle artists. Maybe I’ll manage to get a regular weeks worth of reviewing up finally? It’s possible!
Brubaker, Charles – Smallbug Comics #2
Smallbug Comics #2
13 years into me running this website, do you think it’s too late for me to put some of these comics into categories? Yeah, I figured it was too late too. Anyway, this comic would be considered “all ages,” and I tend to review those a little differently than other comics, as I no longer have the mind of a child <insert obvious joke about my mind here>. I think kids would probably enjoy this quite a bit. The basic story involves a king who is so unremarkable in every way that he finally comes up with an idea to get people to remember him: he has a special crown made of a golden cat. It’s such a ridiculous crown, the theory goes, that people are bound to remember it. And it works, but it doesn’t exactly cast him in the best light, for obvious reasons. As this is going on a young brother and sister are arguing, as the younger one wishes more people would pay attention to him. Things happen and, as this is a comic, the crown ends up falling on the head of the younger brother. Soon people are paying attention to him, but it ends up being unwelcome attention in some cases, and the king is also soon on the lookout for his missing crown. Hilarity ensues! I liked the attention to detail on some of the panels, especially the one full page panel of an outdoor market. All kinds of stuff going on there if you look for the little things. And it looks like Charles has done a good job of building up a credible world with interesting characters in it, or at least a wide variety of people. So there, it has been established that kids would probably like this just fine. What about adults? Um, probably? It might be considered a little cutesy by some people, as some people are very cynical, but I consider myself pretty cynical and I liked it. I even laughed a few times, which is always welcome. So yeah, I’d say it’s worth a shot for everybody. For $2, why not?
