Buechler, Adam – A Hippopotamus Reverie and Other Tales

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A Hippopotamus Reverie And Other Tales

Three cheers for somebody who can accurately draw (and spell) a hippopotamus! Yes, I really am that easy to impress. This is a fairly standard collection of short stories, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. First up is the author being berated at home by a picture of fat Elvis and a fish lamp about not being productive, which is a pretty funny piece mostly because of the characters. Other than that this story has been done by everybody who’s ever done mini comics at one point. Next up is a dream piece about a hippopotamus and a hunter, gorgeous except for one panel I just noticed where it looks like a couple of guys in a costume, but one bad panel in this story is impressive. Then there’s a conversational piece about a man saying goodbye to a friend on the night before she leaves town. Not much is said about the past of these two, just a farewell conversation about the past and having the courage to leave. Finally there’s the real winner of the bunch, Baxter Charles, Teenage Cyclops. It’s the story of an awkward teenage boy, finally getting the courage to ask a girl out and having the date end up disastrously… with no mention anywhere of the fact that he’s a cyclops. It’s a solid book overall, and it looks from the brief ads inside that he has a couple of other series in the works. And the spinning wheel of guessing the price for this lands on… $3!?