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Various Artists – Baltic Comics Magazine #11: Artventurous
Baltic Comics Magazine #11
Huzzah for international anthologies! Getting a comic from Latvia is a sure way to keep me fired up to write more reviews for another six months or so (international artists take note). One note right off the bat: it would probably be a good idea for them to put the title of their book on the cover. In this case “Artventurous” refers to art both being made and not made and the various adventures surrounding different types of art. Don’t get me wrong, that cover is going to grab your attention sitting on a shelf anyway, but that one descriptive word might have helped them pick up another reader or two who was too lazy to open the cover. Anyway, for me a 2/3 success rate is more than enough to recommend an anthology, and this one is closer to 4/5 fantastic/provocative/fascinating, which covers that spread quite nicely. Please note that I’m not going to talk about every single story in here (because then what would be left for you to discover?), but a full list of artists is down there in the tags below the review. My favorites from this boo include the closed loop story by Martins Zutis dealing with The Odyssey, the silent piece by KJ Martinet called “Ideal Form” (I don’t want to give away a bit more than that), the fantastically creepy “Leda” by Betty Liang, the mind-boggling amount of detail in “Necropolis” by Jean de Wet, Jen Rickert’s “The Loon” and its shifts between what is happening in the moment and the flashbacks from its murderous protagonist, Konig Lu Q’s simple (but not simplistic) extra commandments, Roman Muradov’s story that disintegrates into little pieces in the middle, the sheer adventurousness (and never discount the value of a giant robot yeti) of the Mikus Duncis story, the social horror of Olive Booger’s piece, the gleeful mayhem of Elina Braslina’s story, and the plausible paranoia of Dilraj Mann’s story. And this is all without me even mentioning Simon Moreton’s story (who, if you read this website at all, you know is a favorite of mine), which should tell you something about the overall quality of this anthology. Honestly, I should maybe even bump up that 4/5 quality estimate, as even the (many) stories I didn’t mention here usually had something going from them, between the vibrant splashes of color and the various social anxieties based on growing up around art or just trying to produce something of value when so much incredible stuff has already been produced. Pick it up if you get the chance, that’s what I’m saying, as it’s impressive that they’ve made it to #11 and they should shoot for many more. $13
Baltic Comics Magazine – Baltic Comics Magazine #5: After Snowfall
Baltic Comics Magazine #5 – After Snowfall
Enough of all those stupid Various pages on this site. From now on everybody gets their own page! This is a collection of stories from 18 different artists (about half from Latvia, the rest from Germany, Sweden, Russia, Switzerland, Finland, Spain, and Lithuania), all dealing with stories set, obviously, after snowfall. These stories go all over the place, as stories from every good anthology should do, with all sorts of artistic styles. There’s Kolbeinn Karlsson telling the story of Dracula’s last days on earth (and how he bit a woman just so he wouldn’t be alone when he died), Ruta Briede with a silent piece about a lonely man in a snowglobe, Ines Christine Geisser showing the tragic consequences of stealing giant blocks of ice from a frozen lake, Hironori Kikuchi (the sampled piece) with a deceptively adorable story about stuffed animals and a human noticing that pieces of their story haven’t had the snow filled in, Yoshi cluing us all in as to how to know which way to dig if you’re trapped in an avalanche, Johan Klungel shows a suicide that didn’t work exactly as intended, Ernests Klavins with a brilliant Lord of the Rings parody where the snow is very useful in tracking the invisible Gollum, and Aisha Franz has a great piece about how an underground child (Americans, think Cabbage Patch Kids) comes up a little too early. That’s roughly half of the people involved, anyway, and just about everything in here has something to recommend it. About 2/3 of this is in color, and I mean vibrant, strong colors. All that and this is still only a measly $6 (U.S., cheaper with places with a functioning economy), while still being the size of a mini comic (although fatter). If you’re sick of the same old stuff, this is a perfect place to start expanding your horizons. $6
