Monthly Archives: December 2015
Update for 12/18/15
New reviews today for Pyramid Scheme #2 by Josh Burggraf & Victor Kerlow and Kuzu by Mitzi Akaha. Probably a short week of reviews next week with the holidays and all, so happy weekend everybody!
Akaha, Mitzi – Kuzu
Where does all the bird crap go? That’s right, this week I’m apparently fixated on starting reviews with hypothetical questions. Most of it is washed away by rain, but what about all the places with minimal rainfall, or places like California that have been in a drought for years? I have no idea what happens in the real world and am frightened of the Google search that would answer that question for me, but in this comic, on a tiny island called Bomei, a man called Card Keeler deals with all of the bird shit. That involves cleaning it up, sure, but there’s also a lot of city planning that goes into where and how often birds shit on things, like gutter placement and the slope of roofs. Card liked his life, and he eventually met a woman on a boat ride that he later married. Their life was good; he did his thing and she was happy to stay at home. At first, anyway. She was reluctant to tell her friends what her husband did (it is a ridiculous job to say out loud) and he was out a lot, so they naturally started to drift apart. And that’s when a giant storm hit their island, bringing with it the mysterious vine that you see on the cover, which changed everything. Yep, that’s as far as I go in recapping the story, but I have to imagine that’s plenty. It’s a nicely understated tale of how the little things get in the way of a good life, how other little things can crop up to change things again, and how shouting into the void can cement a marriage. $5
Burggraf, Josh & Kerlow, Victor – Pyramid Scheme #2
Nude beach! Have you ever wanted to watch a talking dog, a golem (or maybe a Cyclops; the back of the book calls him Robot) and Kid Space Heater (who is able to cook hot dogs or play music) frolic about the beach, all seemingly indifferent to the seas of nudity surrounding them? If so, you’re in luck! Everybody has some fun, which seems to be the entire point of this comic. If that’s not enough of a comic for you, or if you’re looking for more substance, I guess the meaning of life was not uncovered in this comic. But there was hijinx, and dancing, and a very short fight. I’m fine with calling that a successful comic and had a blast reading it. Talking about it, on the other hand, is impossible much past this point, so… enjoy! Or don’t, I’m not the boss of you. But I have a hard time imagining somebody reading this without enjoying it.
Update for 12/16/15
New reviews today for Supercar #1 by Brandon Berry and Butter and Blood by Steven Weissman. Double reviews for the rest of the week if all goes well, and this thing about not starting reviews until Wednesday is not a habit I plan on sticking with. In case anybody was curious!
Berry, Brandon – Supercar #1
Supercar #1
OK, this comic looks gorgeous. That loopy art style, the shifting angles, the attention to little details on the characters, all damned solid. I want to emphasize that up front, because this comic really does have enough to get by on looks alone. As far the story goes, however, you really don’t get much more in this issue than you see in the title. It would make a great first chapter of a longer story (and I’m assuming that’s the plan), but as a stand-alone story there’s just not a whole lot of meat to this. The story here is about our hero as he gets a new upgrade for his vehicle. From there we see him speeding away, then we see him catch the attention of the local law enforcement. And that’s it, really. This would make a ridiculously compelling cartoon, and may very well make up a genuinely great graphic novel down the line, but as a single issue it doesn’t add up to a whole bunch. That little bit of negativity aside, I do still recommend that people buy this comic. Sounds crazy, right? But if people don’t support stories like this when they’re getting started, sometimes the creator thinks there’s no interest, and this joins the endless piles of comics series that starts and stops at #1. Don’t let that happen with Supercar!
Weissman, Steven – Butter and Blood
Full disclosure time: there are comics where I feel like I have no business talking about them. Mostly from people like Eddie Campbell, Dan Clowes, Chester Brown, or the Hernandez Brothers, people who influenced my comic tastes so completely that it feels silly to even pretend that I have anything of value to add to the conversation. Then again, if I start thinking of reviewing comics in those terms I’m doomed, so it’s best to ignore that impulse. Still, Steve Weissman is not far removed from that list, with his L’il Tykes books being read to pieces (literally, in one case) by me and various friends back in the 90’s when they came out. I’d kept track of his work in fits and starts, but Butter and Blood has made finding out what happened in those missing years an instant priority. This is a collection of short stories and also a bit of a sketchbook, but the single page images here are past the level you find in lots of sketchbook comics, so maybe it would make more sense to call them “uncategorized.” Sounds gross, but also more accurate than sketchbook. Anyway, his style has changed over the years, but there’s still lots of little things tying him to his roots. Lots fewer little kids running around and more adults (and assorted odd creatures), but there are still some kids, mostly in his “trading card” pages. I could do the whole review on those pages alone, but it’s best for you if they stay a mystery, so I’ll just say that they’re single pages with nine images of cats in clothing, or babies, or a cat and a rat becoming friends, or a baseball team made up of snacks found at a ballpark, and I already feel like I’ve given too much of the mystery away. Stories in here are all over the place, but some subjects include a haunting lightning storm/frightened horse beatdown, a recurring gag of Slash and some other members of Guns and Roses working at a diner, the rabbits from Watership Down all grown up and wearing clothes, the embarrassing origin story of Eagle Man and Hatboy, and a literal condiment fight. If you’ve read any of Steven’s other comics over the years, you are in for a real treat here. If you’ve somehow made it this far into your life without ever hearing of the man, maybe start with Champs first or one of his more linear comics/collections, but really this would be a fine introduction to his work too. $13
Update for 12/11/15
New reviews today for Legion of Peace House by Luke Herr & Joseph Tenney and Ninja Bunny Assassin #1 by Lorenzo Ross. Yep, finally got back to the forsaken SPACE pile, and I’m hoping to clear that out next week. Unless work goes nuts again. Hey, I work for the local Board of Elections, things are bound to get crazy soon. Happy weekend everybody!
Ross, Lorenzo – Ninja Bunny Assassin #1
Ninja Bunny Assassin #1
You know what’s instantly odd about this comic? The writer and artist (if they’re even different people) are nowhere to be found. I’m sure there will be something on the website, but for a comic that’s this professionally put together, that is just strange. But hey, it’s only weirdos like me who care about things like that, so how about the quality of the actual comic? It’s good, mostly. It depends entirely on your tastes. See that title? Yeah, that gives you the gist of it for sure. This comic is about a ninja bunny assassin who goes around fighting other ninjas (and sometimes regular people). He meets another lady who helps him, and she leads him to a sensei he already knew and their hideout. From there it looks like they’re going to set up shop to fight crime, but the specifics are still a bit vague. That might have something to do with the fact that this comes from a web comic that was apparently put out page by page, so telling a long term story maybe wasn’t the highest priority. Following the action was also sometimes difficult, which is crucial in a book with this much fighting. There was an early scene where a big bad guy apparently got cut around the eyes, or possibly had something thrown in his eyes, but the previous panel just had him fighting the bunny with no indication of a sword going anywhere near him. Still, if you enjoy ninja fights mixed in with a healthy dose of slapstick, you could do a lot worse than this. If you don’t like those things, like I said, there are an awful lot of other comics out there for you to choose from.$6
Herr, Luke & Tenney, Joseph – Legion of Peace House
Legion of Peace House
Here’s a problem I’ve never encountered in all my years blathering about comics: how do I review a kegger? Because this comic is basically an illustrated kegger, featuring characters I don’t know but who mostly resemble more famous comic characters. There’s the guy who talks really fast and must be the Flash analogue, the guy who’s Clark Kent but as a teen… and I guess that’s it. There’s also a walking keg, but it isn’t mentioned if he dreads keggers (because wouldn’t they kill him?) or love them, but I’m guessing from the tone of the comic that he loves them. Then there’s the lady hero, who becomes gigantic to more quickly take down a keg. And that’s about it, really. There’s also mention that them doing this has broken the time stream, which might make sense if I knew more about these characters, but I don’t, so it doesn’t. Six pages doesn’t do a lot to introduce a team, but that’s mostly my fault for not having the money to buy all the books from all the tables at SPACE this year. Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Anyway, this comic was fine. I can see it being funny and clever in a stretched out setting, or I could also see this being about as good as it gets. No way of knowing without more information, so check it out at your own risk I guess?
Update for 12/10/15
Two new reviews again today, this time for Jason Part 3 by Bonesteel and Poseur by Adam Pasion. If my luck holds, two more reviews tomorrow!
Pasion, Adam – Poseur
Oh high school, will you ever run out of story subjects? Granted, it is a rich area for telling all kinds of stories, as so much of what seemed so crucial back then looks rightfully ridiculous and overwrought with the benefit of hindsight. The cover ends up being a solid indication of what to expect here (with the evolution of a student), but there’s a lot more to unpack here. Things start off with a young boyfriend and girlfriend going through the records of her Dad and opening up her boyfriend to bands he hasn’t heard before. Jethro Tull comes up, which naturally leads to them deciding to try weed, but they make a pact that they can only try it for the first time together. Boyfriend “knows a guy” (he works at a fast food place), so he makes the arrangement to get some weed. As anybody who has ever bought weed knows, it’s pretty much impossible to get out of that transaction without smoking yourself, so boyfriend ends up in the awkward position of giving a speech in Spanish class while high. This is immediately obvious to everybody in the room, which wouldn’t necessarily be so bad, but his girlfriend is outside his classroom and notices the same thing. This leads to a talk that remains awkward throughout your life, but especially so in high school: the breakup. I’ve probably already said too much, but that’s what I do here. Other subjects include latching onto various personas in an effort to find out who you really are, getting called out on the superficiality of those positions, and learning a valuable lesson about stereotyping a guy based on his record collection. There’s a lot of recognize here from your own high school days, unless you were that mythical creature who always knew exactly who you were (“I was listening to Fugazi when I was 10!”). Check it out, travel back to those awkward/exhilarating/excruciating days. $5
Bonesteel – Jason Part 3
Jason Part 3
I’ve never figured out if it’s a better idea to put my major criticism at the start of a review (implying that my overall opinion of a book is negative for readers with short attention spans) or at the end (where said people with short attention spans never see it). Instead of deciding, I’ll keep up with my current policy of changing it up every time, pleasing no one. This book has way too many spelling errors. Yes, for many people that’s a minor thing, and if you’re one of those people, feel free to skip ahead a few sentences, because I loved this comic other than those errors. But for a book like this, that was funded through Kickstarter, to have so many spelling errors just baffles me. Sometimes it’s things like the wrong usage for “their,” which is annoying but understandable. But putting “hapry” instead of “happy” implies a complete lack of any sort of proofreading, and I don’t get that mindset. Grumpy rant over, so how about that story? If you haven’t read any of these Jason comics from Bonesteel before, they’re the product of a delightfully demented mind. Jason from the “Friday the 13th” movies is real, and lives in the same section of town as Freddy, Pinhead, and Michael Myers from the “Halloween” movies, among many other guests. Honestly, half the fun is figuring out which horror movie bad guy that is in the background who goes unnamed; I must say that I do alarmingly well in this regard. Anyway, this comic covers Tuesday through Saturday in the life of Jason, starting off with his taking questions at a horror convention that really helps us get into his mindset (for example, he has a “spidey sense” that lets him know if anybody anywhere near him is having sex). From there we see Jason working out at the gym (including what he listens to while he works out, which you’d never guess), having a chat with Satan, answering his fan mail, going on a spending spree at a hardware store, chatting with his roommates and taking his dog for a walk. It’s hilarious, especially if you’ve seen the movies involving these characters, but I think it would even hold up if you only had a slight idea of who these “people” were. Oh, and I’m offering a free service where I read pages from comics creators before they publish them and tell them which spelling errors to fix. Any takers?
Update for 12/9/15
Making up for lost time a bit today with two new reviews from the mini kus pile: Mathematical Solutions for a Global Crisis by Jesse Jacobs and Remember This? by Disa Wallander. If all goes well I should have time to double up on the reviews for the rest of the week, then next week it gets back to being dicey again. My apologies, but work has been a little brutal lately.
Jacobs, Jesse – Mathematical Solutions for a Global Crisis
Mathematical Solutions for a Global Crisis
There have been many, many times when I’ve wanted to post a simple “this comic speaks for itself” as a comic review, and I’ve probably cheated a few times and come pretty close to it. But damn, that title really does say it all. Jesse has come up with a scientific way to solve basically all of the problems of humanity. Granted, he doesn’t know the actual science of it, or if he does he’s keeping it a secret, but he has still figured out how to fix everything. And it’s so simple! Ready? Your life will be changed forever, and if you’re a scientist or an eccentric billionaire, get on this: every human born from this point on will be roughly the size of its parent. Then the kids eventually born from that child will be half its size, on and on forever. Jesse does a fantastic job of going through the implications of such a program, with a single drop of oil powering whole cities, the need for war disappearing as territory opens up for everybody, eventually even shrinking so much that all of the possible predators wouldn’t even notice us. Sure, the science part of it a pretty big stumbling block, but it sure looks like this would genuinely solve all of the problems of humanity sooner or later. It’s a damned intriguing comic, so if you’ve ever wondered how humanity could be saved you should very much give this a look. If you’re a total nihilist and don’t care either way, well, maybe this will cure you of some of that.
Wallander, Disa – Remember This?
Have you ever stopped to think about how much of your life you’ve forgotten? How does your brain know which memories to retain and which ones to let slip away? Does you brain really work that way or are your memories just random snippets of your life and not actually the most important or relevant moments? If that’s the case, how do you even know who you are? Welcome to Remember This, a comic that will mess with your head in significant ways. Or, as part of the back of the comic says in its synopsis, “Disa Wallender’s story will confuse you, perhaps it’s best not to think about it?” I don’t subscribe to that, as thinking about this kind of stuff it’s what makes life worth living to me, but if that’s not the case for you then perhaps the back of this comic has a point. Subjects introduced in this comic are how smells can conjure memories (or something only the fact that you know a memory is associated with this smell but can’t place it, leaving you in a worse spot than before you detected said smell), and how this is basically Disa’s note to her future self and that she wonders who that person will be. It’s another genuinely great and intriguing addition to the mini kus pile, which still has a remarkable success rate as far as I’m concerned.
