Dwyer, Brad
Epic Tales of the Mundane #1
Brad certainly goes with truth and advertising here with that excellent title, although I think he sells himself a bit short with that sample image. Most of the stories in here are a bit more nuanced, although there is a bit of fecal humor if that’s your thing. This starts off a bit awkwardly with one page stories dealing with the tedium of work, brushing too hard, a dead ex and the medical effects of nicotine and caffeine, but Brad quickly builds a rhythm here once he gets to the longer pieces. In those he gets to tell us about the night before an extended period of abstinence (with more than a few of the gory details left to the imagination), crapping in a nasty toilet and having two car accidents happen right in front of him in a matter of days. It’s an interesting read, which is all you can ask for with these sorts of things, and Brad was nice enough to send a few more issues along, so I’ll be making a more informed opinion later. As for now, while there may not be a whole lot to separate it from most other autobio stuff, it’s done well and it’s cheap, with a bit of room for improvement. $1
Epic Tales of the Mundane #2
More mundane tales from Brad, and this time around he’s stuck to mostly longer pieces. He still throws in a few shorties to mix things up, dealing with a drinking problem (and it is a problem, just not what you’re probably thinking), a crazy Jesus freak, and standing in the wrong line at a gun show. The meat of the book is in the longer pieces though, the first one being a continuation of his story from the last issue about how he’s sure to die in a fiery car wreck. More odd coincidences occur but, as the guy is clearly still alive, it’s bound to have a bit of a anticlimactic ending. Not that I wish him ill or anything. The bulk of this issue deals with Brad and a couple of friends jumping a house-sitter, their varying recollections of the event and the revenge that the jumped guy swore on all three men. Brad is nice enough to show what happened when the guy ran across the three assailants later, so all the loose ends are nicely tied up. It’s a pretty interesting read, all told, the only real issue I have with it is that the recollections of the fight get a bit jumbled towards the end, and I’m still not entirely sure how it all “really” went down, assuming it’s a true story and all that. Quite possibly an error in reading comprehension on my end, but thought I should throw in at least one complaint. Still, $1 for this many stories is hard to pass up.
Epic Tales of the Mundane #3
Here it is, that epic tale he was talking about in the title. Only one story this time around, and it is epic, and it is mundane. This is the story of the last night of work for Brad at one of the major box stores (probably Wal-Mart, as it’s always Wal-Mart, but people seem to think that Wal-Mart scans tiny mini comics and never use their actual name). He gets woken up by his alarm at 8pm, gets invited to drink with his friends (as the fun is just starting for most of the waking world at that hour), gets accosted by not one but two homeless drunks on his way to work, and finally figures out what a colossal waste of time the job is. Not that most people don’t figure out that working at a giant box store is a waste of time, but eating and paying bills tends to obscure that fact, longer for some people than for others. It’s a great story, something that everybody who has worked nights (or a really shitty, hopeless job) can easily relate to. From his website it looks like he’s up to #5, and I’m really curious to see what he’s done lately, as he sure seems to be getting better with each issue. $1
Epic Tales of the Mundane #4
If I can put my cynical hat on here for a moment, web comics have been a tremendous boon to the mini comics artist. After all, if they haven’t put a book out for a few months (or, depending on who we’re talking about, a few years), it’s easy enough to take the internet content and cram it into a mini, right? Not that I’m taking Brad to task or anything, the guy already has 5 minis out (#5 will be up here in the near future). And it’s not that I’m saying it’s a bad thing, I often don’t dig around into the online content of the people I like, so the “web comix” books are usually new to me. Actually, I have no idea of the point I was trying to make there, but it’s best to leave all this rambling up to show the world how my brain “works”. This comic is, as indicated, mostly stuff Brad has made for his website. In his letter with the books he says he doesn’t think they work in this format, but I thought they were fine. Granted, I can’t remember seeing two panel comic strips before, and that’s mildly odd, but not a bad thing. It’s more of a diary strip type setup than anything, so instead of one or two mundane days over the course of a comic we’re treated to more like a month of mundane. Brad goes to shows, drinks, hangs out with his girlfriend, tries to work up the energy to go to work, and attends a literature class with a Trekkie. More than a few funny bits in here and the man keeps his books cheap ($1), so it’s definitely worth taking a look.
Epic Tales of the Mundane #5
Brad’s taking a break from telling epic tales of his life and uses this issue to tell the tale of Brandon Huigens. Or, more accurately, Brandon uses this issue to tell that tale, as he is the listed writer. Brandon tells his story from a small child through getting constantly harassed at school to joining the military to get away from everything (and from how he describes it, joining the military wasn’t a bad idea) to quitting the military and ending up back home. Not much in the way or happy endings or life lessons here, which is fine with me, as I hate those damned things. Brandon also uses the extra space to get into a bit of his history with his grandparents, veering almost into adorable territory for a minute, but hey, it’s a true story. Good stuff all around, as it’s an interesting story and Brad does a great job with the art. You can tell Brandon has a lot to learn about this mini comics business though, as the pros can whine about their unhappy childhood for issues and issues before running out of material and Brandon took care of the whole thing in a single issue. Still only $1, still worth checking out.
Epic Tales of the Mundane #6
If I had to pick one thing that I liked about Brad’s comics (other than the fact that the worst stories in them were still at least consistently entertaining) it would be the fact that he seems determined to cram as much comic as possible into each mini container. Between the random shorties and all the strips (taken from his website, and it looks like he puts up another one every few days or so) you’re going to have a hard time finding a mini with more content. That wouldn’t make much difference if the content sucked though, and this time around: no sucking! This starts with a wonderful tale of playing an intimidating biker bar, getting drunk to compensate for feeling out of place, and having the night end with a brawl… but not that brawl you would expect. Next up is a long chunk of mostly three panels strips, and these are distinct from most three panel strips in that the vast majority of them are funny. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. That should ensure that these comics will never be published in a newspaper. Topics include the perfect evening, giving in to the iPod, worrying about life, bitching on the phone, the joys of camping, vomiting cats, raking in the dough from comic sales, the anime cock block, new glasses, drinking to help others and shark attack videos. The rest of the comic starts to tell the Brad Dwyer origin story, as his older brother reads comics to his before he can read for himself, he spends his early years trying to make his art look like comic art, and eventually ditches the glamorous cartoonist life for a band and all the fun of puberty. This is only the first part of the story though, and we all know how it turns out in the end. I’m still curious to see how he gets there though. It’s hard to get more bang for your comic buck (literally, as they’re still $1). Buy his stuff and make him slightly less poor!
Crimson Cloak
It’s times like this that I wish I had some sort of an organized filing system. Or, frankly, an organized way to deal with submitted comics at all. I really should get on that one of these days. See, Brad sent this comic along with #6 of his regular series. I love his regular series, as anybody who scrolls around this page will soon learn. In the letter with the comics he mentioned… something about this comic. I got them months ago, I have no idea what he said, and a dig through all the stuff on and around my desk did not reveal this letter. What that means is that I have to review this comic as if I just found it in a store, or it just came all by itself without a letter, and that’s a shame. Why? Because this issue kind of sucks. Granted, it’s OK for what it is, but a straight up superhero story just isn’t my thing these days. This is the story of a scientist who is trying to develop an enlarging ray to help with world hunger. The scientist’s assistant is actually a villain in disguise and he ratchets the ray up to full power, making a gigantic super pig. After this villain is hilariously dispatched, the friend of the professor (secretly the Crimson Cloak, of course) spends the rest of the issue trying to defeat the pig. It had a funny moment or two, but Brad mostly played it straight, and that included the use of an absolutely ridiculous amount of exclamation points. There’s no reason to crap all over this, as I enjoy his other series and look forward to #7, but there’s not much in this issue that makes me want to recommend it to anybody else. Pick up some of his other issues instead, you’ll love them. As for this one, if you love superhero comics this might be for you. As for price, I have no idea, as it’s not listed on his website, but let’s say $2.
