Vola, Noemi – Are You Lost, Little Bunny?

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Are You Lost, Little Bunny?

Oh, I’ll bet that title got at least a few people to buy this who didn’t get what they were expecting at all. This is the story of a sad little bunny, mostly, who gets several pieces of advice from an unseen narrator that aren’t at all designed to cheer the little creature up. Still, the narrator is not wrong, and it’s clear that the little bunny needs to hear this stuff. The bunny is sad, you see, but the narrator is a little sick of having to cheer the creature up, and makes the decision to tell the bunny about how others can’t save you (they’re mostly too busy to even notice you have a problem to save you), the narrator is frankly a little sick of having to make a show of trying, it’s maybe your own fault that these things keep happening, and the only thing that won’t abandon you is your tears. I mean, they’re not wrong, but the juxtaposition of all of this advice with the dazzling array of colors and cuteness can make your head spin at times. It really is a gorgeous book, and I’d honestly be curious what a kid who hasn’t learned to read yet would get out of it. Granted, that last one is mostly because I’m a weirdo. Some solid advice in here, and possibly a useful reality check for at least a few people. Does that mean that this is another mini kus winner? Why yes, it certainly does. $7.95 (or cheaper for a bundle of four different comics, always a good deal)

Update for 2/5/24

New review today for Far Tune: Spring by Terry Eisele and Brent Bowman, which wraps up the series (in case you were waiting for me to review the last volume before checking it out, you weirdos).

Eisele, Terry & Bowman, Brent – Far Tune: Spring

Website (Terry)
Website (Brent)

Far Tune: Spring

I’ve read a whole lot of series ending graphic novels over the years, and one thing that really impressed me about this one was how assured it was in wrapping things up. Granted, there’s no magic ring to be tossed into a volcano at the end, just a young woman trying to adjust to life in Ohio schools after living in a refugee camp and then London. Still, you need a conclusion for something like this, and Terry and Brent really landed this sucker. Things start off with a completely silent recap of Fartun’s leaving the refugee camp, and the decision to make it silent was brilliant. All we needed was to focus on her wide-eyed awe at just about everything she was experiencing (often while her father and brother were sleeping), from the little things like power locks in cars to getting on an airplane and actually flying away. From there the bulk of the school portion of the book deals with Fartun (and her friend Bea) getting back from spring break and discovering that they have to do a big project that covers three different classes. They come to the same conclusion separately; Fartun can write and Bea can draw, so why not combine their project to make a comic about Fartun’s time in the camp? They get approval, go to Laughing Ogre to get some resource material (always nice to see a great comic shop get recognized), and we get to read what sure looks like the actual comic that they made reproduced in this volume. There’s also a lot going on here with Fartun’s family, as the conflict between her more traditional father and his children (her and her brother) comes to a head. No sense getting too far into spoilers for the last volume of a series, but let’s just say that arranged marriages and forced relocation for “wayward children” are both things that are perfectly fine in the more antiquated parts of that culture, and neither of those things would go over well with children mostly raised in America. This whole series is another thoroughly impressive achievement, taking a lot of time to tell a story that’s too often glossed over or ignored entirely. It’s absolutely worth checking out, although if you wait a few years and happen to have kids (or grandkids, or nephews/nieces, etc.) I’d have to imagine this series being taught in schools. Anyway, I’m looking to see what he comes up with next, unless he wants to take a few years off to recover… $10

Update for 2/1/24

New review today for Cosmic Gossip by Mark Peters and Will Cardini. You know what just occurred to me?Maybe it would be helpful if I kept track of the number of times I reviewed somebody. You know, then I could say this was review #24 of Will’s books over the years. A constant work in progress, that’s this website…

Peters, Mark & Cardini, Will – Cosmic Gossip

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Cosmic Gossip

Look out, Hyperverse fans: this one isn’t set in that universe. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the vast majority of the comics that Will has put out over the last several years have been set in that universe. Heck, I’ve reviewed most of them here, try to keep up! I also love that his website has a listed, easily followed order of these comics, often with free online versions, so it’s entirely on you if you don’t want to catch up. Anyway, that’s a moot point, because this comic stands alone. There are three stories in here, starting off with the one I sampled below: the big baby that created the universe. As you might expect with a baby, it’s a bit of a chaotic enterprise, which really explains a whole lot about the universe if you think about it. And penguins. Next up is a cosmic eating contest, in which two representatives have to eat as many planets as they can in the allotted time. But when you can eat that much, what’s the one way to ensure your victory? Finally there’s the tale of the space monk (vaguely Buddhist, but alien) who gets quizzed by his master and ends this off with a solid zinger. This comic also answers the question of whether or not space Buddhist masters have a sense of humor, and you’ll be happy and relieved by the answer. I’ve praised Will’s art before, but the coloring deserves mention this time around. For a guy who’s done so much of his work in black and white, this one is gorgeously colored. You can see solid examples of it in the sample image, but that planet eating contest was spectacular, and I don’t know if I could say that if it was in black and white. Give this one a look, free from concerns about where it falls in Hyperverse continuity. Then you go back and catch up on all his other stuff. $8

Update for 1/30/24

New review today for Grocery Bag Grotesques by Bart Wolf, because even though I still have review piles of comics to get through, this website is always welcome to new faces. Well, new to me anyway, this dude seems to have been making comics for awhile now…

Wolf, Bart – Grocery Bag Grotesques

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Grocery Bag Grotesques

Anybody who’s stuck around this website for a period of years (I’ve been around for 22+ years now, but who’s counting) knows that I do love it when an artist that’s new to me sends me a pile of their books. There can be drawbacks, sure, because I always start by reviewing one random example from the pile, which can lead to snap assumptions about everything else in the pile, and… ugh, I can see it, the rambling is clear to me now. Reigning myself in, the point is that I picked this one because it looked recent and it seemed self-contained. That and a few of the other ones had a picture of a literal unflushed toilet on them, and after this many years of reading small press comics, that sort of thing just leaves me tired. But hey, how about this particular comic? This is a series of drawings, mostly what it implies on the cover (“grotesques”), with various horror images and scenes thrown in. These images are accompanied by blocks of text, musings really, about various aspects of life and the world. A little tricky to review, but the man is a solid artist and a few of his thoughts got me stroking my chin thoughtfully, so I’d say it all worked out. Subjects in here include a horrible prank he used to play on a mailbox as a kid, aging and realizing the truth about the time you wasted, not looking at yourself too closely, putting too many fish in an aquarium, and a whole lot of free floating despair. So yes, I’d say this book is worth checking out. As for me, I enjoyed the first book in a new and random review pile. Does this mean that I’m going to go back and review the poop comics? <Sigh> Yeah, I’m probably going to review at least one of the poop comics. $8

Update for 1/26/24

New review today for The Devil’s Grin #1 by Alex Graham. Happy weekend y’all!

Graham, Alex – The Devil’s Grin #1

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The Devil’s Grin #1

What an absolute fucking journey this comic is. Oh hi, do you have no idea what you’re in for here? This is the first issue (out of four, at least as of early 2024) of this series, and the early issues are getting pretty rare, so if you’d like to get in on this ride, Domino Books still has copies available as of this writing. I went into this totally blind, and I think the only comic I’ve seen from Alex before this was Dog Biscuits (from Fantagraphics, it was incredible). This one starts in 1948 with a woman dining alone at an outdoor cafe. We see bits of her history and interests throughout this meal, along with an overheard conversation on top of her experiences. She heads home, has an embarrassing (to her) encounter with a bum on the street, and arrives home to a letter from her fiance breaking up with her. We also meet a couple of her neighbors and learn about her interest in becoming a great artist, so at this point I was pretty sure I had a sense of where the story was heading with a whole cast of characters coming together. I was completely wrong, because after a frenzied all night painting session, she ends up on the toilet with an early Chester Brown-esque page full of struggling. Readers of Ed the Happy Clown, you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, she ends up giving birth to a tiny… baby? It’s talking right away, but let’s go with baby. She doesn’t want the shame of having to explain it and figures it would ruin her life, so she flushes it away. At this point the real story starts up, probably, unless it shifts back to the lady in the next issue. But the rest of this one is the adventure of that baby and yes, you can go ahead an assume it survives. There are the flying creatures of the sewers, a lactating rat, a cage, a desperate rescue attempt, and an accidental murder, but I’ve said too much. This book is gorgeous (it took a supreme act of will to not also include that amazing back cover as a sample image), the story is compelling and all kinds of weird, and I have absolutely no idea where he’s going with all this. So yes, I’m glad that I got the first two issues at the same time, and I’ll be getting the next two as soon as I can. $12

Update for 1/24/24

New review today for The Chosen One by Charles Brubaker, and it looks like I’ll actually have time for three reviews this week. Is it too late to use “Happy New Year” to celebrate this? Yeah, probably…

Brubaker, Charles – The Chosen One

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The Chosen One

It’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed a comic from Charles, so I thought I should put a little disclaimer here before I started rambling: the man puts out mini comics constantly, and graphic novels on a fairly regular basis. It would be pretty much a full time job for me to review all of his books, so I pick and choose. That also means that if you like his stuff, you have a whole lot to choose from, so you should do that. It is odd that his online store is so sparsely populated, but I’m assuming that he could help you out with any books that aren’t listed (like this one) if you ask him about it. Anyway! Our heroes (Dewey and Lauren) go to an egg festival, which honestly sounds pretty great to me. There are a bunch of jokes on the various signs for the observant readers, and Dewey is there under one restriction: no ostrich eggs. Is this a reference to an older joke that I’m forgetting? Maybe! Dewey finds a loophole, sort of, and ends up with an emu egg, which has a rather dramatic reaction to hatching. After a brief conversation Dewey learns that he is destined to defeat a major villain, although the origin of the claim is a little sketchy. The rest of the book deals with their “epic” confrontation, with the conclusion being the kind you’d expect after learning more about the exact type of villain Dewey was meant to challenge. Overall, it’s an OK comic. A few laughs, some meandering, and a solid conclusion. That’s been my general opinion of the last few comics of his that I’ve read, which is why I rarely review them these days. Always and forever, I’m just one unpaid dude with one opinion and, like I said, if you’re a bigger fan of his work in general than I am, you have plenty of options; he puts out more mini comics than just about anybody this side of Brian Canini. Not sure on the price here because it’s not listed, but somewhere between $3-5 sounds about right.

Update for 1/22/24

New review for definitely the biggest book I got at CXC last year, it’s the return of a crowd favorite, Carbon by Justin Madson!

Madson, Justin – Carbon

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Carbon

Technical note: I use a flat scanner, meaning that when I try to scan images from a 600+ page behemoth of a book, the edges end up looking a little smeared. My apologies. Still, plenty of images are available at Justin’s website, if you’re interested…

I’m always delighted when I run into somebody at a convention who’s work I reviewed in the early days of the website but haven’t seen in awhile, and that’s when they have a new mini or two out. Imagine the thrill when I saw that Justin had this brick of a book available! He’s been working on it for a decade, roughly, and he originally released it in 6 different graphic novels (that I completely missed somehow). But hey, that just means that this is all new to me. How to describe this sucker without taking away all the fun bits for the new readers? I’m going to skirt around the edges, that’s how! This is a sprawling epic of a tale, with a huge cast of characters. Justin was smart enough put a dozen of the characters and some brief bios in the front of the book (and yes, I did reference it frequently), and even with that he probably could have done a few more pages with character bios. There’s a lot happening in here, is what I’m saying. This book deals with a society in which psychics (real ones, not the nonsense you see advertised on tv) have been around for decades, so they’ve already dealt with their discovery, the public reaction good and bad, being used, being abused, using their powers for evil, etc., and Justin does a fantastic job of using flashbacks sparingly but effectively. There’s a big, completely thought out world here, and it’s clear that he could go back into any of the material he’s written and answer whatever questions anybody might have. This book starts maybe 20 years into all of this (if he listed an exact time frame I missed it), where the anti-psychic (called Seers) sentiment is running very high, with proposed laws on the way promising all kinds of terrible things. We’re shown this world through the eyes of a Seer and her non-Seer brother (the former wrote a tell-all book about her childhood, which led to all kinds of problems with the latter), their father (a former cop and Seer whose mind has been ravaged by the years of using his powers), a mysterious woman who’s questioning her life choices and hiding a whole bunch of secrets (that play out throughout the book; her brother also pops up a lot), the anti-Seer contingent and the pro-Seer contingent (and how both sides are trying to deal with the other), and a kidnapped little girl and how just about everybody ends up coming together to try to help her. I’ve been writing for a while now and I’ve barely scratched the surface. Taking the time to really establish these characters as people really makes this book something special, so hey, young cartoonists, maybe spend a decade on your books too? OK, maybe that’s not realistic, but the more real your characters seem, the better off your narrative is going to be. There were constant surprises and escalations, a satisfying conclusion, and the general sense that Justin could put out another book about this world of this size or maybe even bigger and still have a lot left to tell about this world. That’s a complete success as a graphic novel as far as I’m concerned. If you’re a long time reader of this website and have also been wondering what he’s been up to, you won’t be disappointed if you check this out. If you’ve never heard of him until now, I was going to suggest maybe starting with some of his older minis for financial purposes, but it looks like all of those are all out of print. You’ll have to try your luck with a graphic novel, and you could do a whole lot worse than making it this one. $40

Update for 1/18/24

New review today for Grapefruit by Ana Margarida Matos, as the mini kus reviews continue.

Matos, Ana Margarida – Grapefruit

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Grapefruit

And lo, there comes a time in every review pile of mini kus comics where it ends up being so abstract/hard to put into words that I end up fumbling even more than usual, often ending up saying nothing at all. If you enjoy these awkward moments, stick along for the ride! The sampled page was the only one that wasn’t a two page spread, so do me a favor and read it. Gets your attention, am I right? The reader is instantly curious about the lack of existence previously, and the idea of 1000 randomly selected people all putting their comics together to make the whole is inspired. What follows is a complicated journey dealing with the images telling the story, making your own reality, instructions on how to make your own comic, defining yourself down to a single thought, a goddamn beautiful sentiment about the benefits of non-existence, seeing how the world goes on without you and the importance of narration. It’s also about none of those things and is instead a poetry collection with a trapped narrator. Or I’m wrong on all counts? Look, these types of minis are up to you to interpret. Get thee to The Comic’s Journal if you want smarter people than me to analyze this thing to death and squeeze every bit of your own discovery out of it. As for me, it’s a mini kus book. Haven’t they earned the benefit of the doubt by now? $7.95 (or the bundle of four comics is always available)

Update for 1/16/24

New review today for World on Fire by Cooklin, and yes, I’m still trying to get through my CXC pile in the new year. As always, eccentric millionaires, I’m always accepting donations to hire more reviewers/get me out of the workaday rat race. I don’t care how shady you are!

Cooklin – World on Fire

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Substack

World on Fire

Note: as has been the case for all of Cooklin’s books that I reviewed from CXC this year, they’re not technically listed under available comics at their website. But since I bought the comics a few months ago, and since Cooklin didn’t seem to be running all that low, I’m thinking that if you check in with them then you can probably get your own copies.

Hey everybody, it’s the review after the disclaimer! Ugh, this is why I so rarely use paragraphs here and prefer to just ramble. Trying to make blog posts “formally correct” is a job for a fool. In case this is the first comic of Cooklin’s that you’re reading about here, a quick explainer: they conducted many interviews with people who have clinical depression and/or other forms of mental illness and then released these comics to raise awareness. The interviews were anonymous, so don’t worry about spotting anybody you know. Honestly, I saved this one for last because of that title, as it’s something I’ve always wondered about: how do you treat/deal with your depression when the world is, objectively, terrible? The story here is familiar, in that they had a relatively uneventful upbringing, right up until the point (in high school) that they started being more aware of the events of the outside world, which naturally led to more depression. They tried talking to their parents or just hoping for a better world, but people didn’t take their concerns all that seriously. As has been the case for all of these minis that I’ve read, there’s not much here about tips to help deal with this kind of depression, but that’s probably tricky in its own right. Treatment is complicated, and it’s possible that offering a few quick bits of advice in a mini comic is maybe as problematic as offering bad advice. I’m still hoping for a collected edition or maybe a regular old book with all of their interviews and the conclusions Cooklin drew from them, but who knows. I’ll find out at CXC next year maybe? This one is somewhere between $5-8, so check with the creator for details…

Update for 1/11/24

New review today for Piggy Fire by Darin Shuler, and you know that it’s also a mini kus book. Am I doing weekly reviews of their stuff again until I run out? Eh, maybe. We’ll see!

Shuler, Darin – Piggy Fire

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Piggy Fire

Long time readers of this here website will know that I’ll often dance around in a review of a comic when something is so wonderfully shocking that I don’t want to spoil even a hint of it, and that is rarely more true than it is this time around. I’ll just say that that title? It means a whole lot, and almost certainly not in the way that you might be thinking, no matter what way that is. So, what can I say about the comic? Things start off with our hero in bed with his wife, who’s being attacked by their two children. Well, they just want to snuggle, but our hero sure makes it seem like an attack. We see a few pages of their (rather stifling, to my childless eyes) domestic life, and our hero heads out for a planned trip with a friend. We see them enjoying some loud music on the road (I recognized Smashing Pumpkins, but not the other song), and on a whim they decide to get something at a gas station that’s meant to liven up their campfire, i.e. give the flames some color. They set up their campfire, tell a few stories, and finally decide to use the “Funny Fire” on the campfire. This is where we get our first glimpse of full color, and it’s also where things start to get really weird, and it’s ALSO also the part where I have to stop talking about the comic. Will the payoff here be as perfect for you as it was for me? I can’t guarantee a thing, and maybe if you’re in your early 20’s or so it won’t hit as hard. But anything past that (and possibly any age), you’re going to agree with me that the last page of this comic is the most solid ending of a mini kus book in awhile, and they often nail their endings. Look, I’ve been rambling about comics for almost 23 years now. Trust me on this one, OK? $7.95 (or cheaper if you get a bundle of four different comics, which you should always do)

Update for 1/9/24

New review today for Insomnia Funnies by James Collier, which may of may not be available, depending on when you’re reading this. But come on, I’m sure you can at least see big chunks of it online if you look around. Right?