Monthly Archives: October 2016

Update for 10/14/16

New review today for Our Mother by Luke Howard. Also if you’re reading this on the day that I’m posting it and happen to live in or near Columbus, Garry Trudeau is in town for that comic convention I mentioned earlier in the week. Yes, THE Garry Trudeau. And if you miss him today, not to worry, as Raina Telgemeier and Charles Burns (and so, so many others) are here for the rest of the weekend.

Howard, Luke – Our Mother

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Our Mother

Quick show of hands, who suffers from some form of clinical depression? All the technology at our disposal and nobody seems any closer at being able to fix any of that for a sustained period of time. This comic is the story of Luke’s mother and her history of depression… sort of. Things start off with a darkly hilarious bit about her parents meeting a mysterious figure in an alley and trying to come up with the best way to make their daughter’s life miserable. They settle on making it so that she doesn’t even want to eat food any more, and from there we get to see the incredibly awkward explanation given by Luke’s father (while his mother is slumped insensate on the couch) about why he’s leaving them. Still, a comic purely about her depression would be unspeakably, well, depressing, so Luke mixes it up with a science fiction story about giant robots in the future who are looking for living humans to care for, the humans who are seemingly invisible to them, and the fruitless nature of them trying to change anything. We also get peeks into Luke trying to give his mother any kind of happiness or relief, a quest to find and use a mysterious portal, the attempted training of an ape and finally the actual history of her depression and the efforts she’s made to get over it. The ending sort of petered out about, but since Luke actually incorporated that fact into the story I think he gets a pass on it. Plus we get to see a farting hotdog, which I did not think I would be doing when I woke up this morning. If you have any history of depression or know anybody who does (which should cover the entire population at this point), there’s a lot to love in here. And who knows, maybe you’ll even find something in here to help you or your loved one. If not, at least you get 20 minutes or so away from the harsh realities of the world, and isn’t that more or less priceless? $9

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Update for 10/12/16

New review today for the collected Ohio Is For Sale by Jon Allen. What, you haven’t read the series up until now. Boy, are you in for a treat.

Allen, Jon – Ohio Is For Sale

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Ohio Is For Sale

Three cheers for Alternative Comics for putting out books like this for the last, what, 20 years? I’ve been doing this for 15 years and they had already been around awhile when I started. If it wasn’t for them collections like this probably wouldn’t exist, and the world would be a poorer place for it. I already reviewed the first couple of issues in this series (this volume collects #1-5), and I loved them just as much this time around. It’s a little easier to see the quiet desperation of the characters when the story is put in one place like this, although I don’t think any of the characters (and possibly even Jon) would agree with that description. The overall ennui is such a part of their lives that they mostly don’t even notice it anymore, and they do every stupid thing they can to distract themselves from it. Go back and read the reviews of the first two issues for those reviews; the third issue has one of the roommates (Trevor) being incredibly sick from a cold or something and just wanting an icy treat, but having two other roommates who are too self-absorbed to notice. Their nights end up intersecting in a fairly gross and hilarious way. The fourth issue deals with another one of the roommates (Patrick) deciding to just drive in one direction and hope of the best, and his “adventures” along the way. It’s the most overtly introspective of the bunch, but it still has funny bits like the conversation with the maimed deer that I used for the sample image. Finally there’s Leonard’s sister coming over for a visit, but she ends up inviting her boyfriend. Who ends up inviting a bunch of his friends, meaning there ends up being a party that nobody who lives there really wanted. This issue also ties up a lot of the dangling threads from past issues in such a casual way that anybody who didn’t already realize that Jon was a damned good writer would figure it out by the end of the book. These comics are also filled with little asides that I have no interest in spoiling, and the pacing is masterful throughout. Oh, and he’s clearly using a real map of Ohio in that fourth issue, if anybody cares to follow his route who lives here. This is a pretty great book all around, and if you missed the regular issues I’d recommend this collection to anybody. I do miss not seeing the covers to the remaining three issues, as the covers to the first two were fantastic, but maybe he can put them all in some future fancy hardcover collection. Oh, and the series is still ongoing, meaning there really should be more to come. $20

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Update for 10/10/16

I am very much trying to avoid these long breaks between reviews, but life and work are both cuckoo bananas right now, which doesn’t leave much time for me rambling about comics. But there is a big old convention in Columbus this weekend with all kinds of great people attending, so in theory I should have a lot more comics to talk about in the near future. Assuming I can get away from my job long enough to go, that is. Anyway, new review today for A Witch Named Koko #3 by Charles Brubaker.

Brubaker, Charles – A Witch Named Koko #3

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A Witch Named Koko #3

It’s the further adventures of Koko and friends! This time around they try to go camping (which, as with all instances of actually trying to actually go camping, ends up going poorly), gather up some ingredients for potions, and use said ingredients to turn into animals. If I told you what sort of animal then that would ruin the surprise, so I’ll leave that up to you. And for a brief second in here I could have sworn that I saw a Bart Simpson body double, but I must have been mistaken. Charles is basically making comics faster than I can review them these days, so if you’re a fan of the madcap tomfoolery of his characters than you have plenty to choose from at the moment. $2

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