Neely, Brad – Creased Comics #1

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Creased Comics #1 (reviewed by Jason Dupuis)

Let me start off by saying that there is only one thing that I did not like about Creased Comics #1. I will not, however, go into that thing yet. Instead, I will tell a story. Once upon a time, I got married…to a woman. That woman then went to a conference in Houston a couple of weeks ago. From
there, she went to Austin to see bats fly out from under a bridge. In Austin, she went to Funny Papers comic shop (I think that’s what she said) and asked
for any comic from any local artist. The gentleman working the register, sold my wife Creased Comics #1. The wife and the comic then traveled all the way from Austin to Bloomington, IN, non-stop. Reuniting with my wife after being separated for over 5 days was the cake, Creased Comics #1 was the frosting.
I was immediately enamored with Mr. Neely’s drawing style. It is deceptively simple – kind of how John P.’s is. This collection of single-panel one-shots contains a range of subjects – from mushy faced, strangely proportioned monstrosities with ghosts of ill-erased pencil markings haunting them, to beautifully deep, minimalistically rendered scenes drawn from unique perspectives. And all that’s just the looking part. When you get the the reading, it gets even better. These comics made me laugh. They made me cry. They made me feel strange. Well, maybe I didn’t cry, but some of them really have a quiet sense of sadness about them. And if you like weird, Neely’s got that down pat. A lot of these comics are just plain strange, but in an almost poetic way. Great content, hands down.
Now, for the downside. This single, 15 page (plus a front and a back cover), 8.5×11 inch comic cost 5 bucks! Before you point your fingers and shout ‘Cheapskate!’, hear me out. If you need letter sized papers to convey your work, I have no problem with that. If you want to leave some unerased pencil marks or weird xerox blobs in your comics, good for you. If
you want to cut off one or two panels, leaving a gaping hole in a couple of pages, that’s fine too. All of the previous quirks can be found in this comic and all of them are perfectly okay. But why, oh why, would you print every page on card stock and charge my unsuspecting wife 5 dollars for your comic? I know that people live and learn, so I hope that Mr. Neely decided to use card stock for only the front and back covers of his subsequent comics (Creased Comics No.’s 2-5), if he chose to use it at all. Frankly, I would be happy with no card stock. That’s right, I can live with plain old, regular thickness copy paper. How pedestrian of me.
Finally, let me end on a good note. As much as I hate to admit it, this comic is worth 5 bucks. I read it at least 5 times the first week I had it. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve bought quite a few comics in
my life which were only read once or twice. So, if you want to compare price to amount of times read, 5 dollars is quite a deal for this book. Why don’t you e-mail Brad Neely and order one for yourself?

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