Blog Archives
Wilson, Sean Michael & Stromberg, Hanna – Once Upon a Time in Morningside
Once Upon a Time in Morningside
How much would you get out of returning to your childhood home 25 years after you left? Or did you ever leave? Let’s assume for the sake of this theoretical conversation that you did. What would pop back into your mind when you returned? This comic deals with Sean going back to his childhood home (I assume it’s Sean, as it’s described as being “his most intimate book so far,” but I don’t know whether or not every single thing in here really happened to him) and immediately getting looked at suspiciously because he lingered too long outside of his childhood home (the new owner seems like the suspicious sort). From there Sean goes to a quiet place and lets his mind wander, where he remembers about a half dozen things that happened to/around him as a kid. Nothing terribly traumatic, just little snippets of his life that stuck with him over the years. There’s his chance encounter with a kid from the local boy’s home, coming across a pretty great hut in the woods and smashing it to bits (and what came from that), being so proud of building a small brick wall and the reaction of his grandfather, scaring himself with a friend in the woods after watching a movie about Bigfoot (I think?) and the consequences of running face first into barbed wire, getting an unfortunate present at their fort and how little it did to ruin their day, and trying to hang with the big kids on a rope swing. Each of these tales is punctuated by his current thoughts about it, what he learned from it and questions about whatever happened to the other kids in the story, whether or not any of them still thought about that day. There’s also a pretty great outro that ties the whole story together, but I’ll leave that one a complete mystery. Hanna does a fantastic job conveying subtle emotions, meaning that Sean doesn’t have to write a point into the ground when Hanna can show the same point without a word. I’m curious to see more from both of them now, and this is yet another amazing comic from the Big Ugly Robot people. $6.50
Jarvis, Mulele – Elbis and the Orphan Daughter of Time
Elbis and the Orphan Daughter of Time
Note: all images have been taken from the Big Ugly Robot website due to my broken scanner. Please buy some of their comics to alleviate my guilt. Also because they have a ridiculously impressive record of publishing quality comics, so you could literally just blindly buy a few comics and be in for a treat. I’m a dummy so I started reading this book backwards (or forwards to America readers; at least you can see how I made that mistake), so I saw the dedication of this book before I started the story. It’s dedicated to suicidal people, both the ones who recovered and the ones who went through with it. Mulele himself was suicidal for years, and he’s clearly speaking from experience in here. Also connected to that story is the cat pictured on the cover, how it has been reincarnated and the human that it’s supposed to be helping. Along the way we get to see snippets of its former life, what it loved and how it managed to save its humans from a house fire. Personally, I’d be thrilled to see an entire comic dedicated to the philosophical discussion that the dead cats had in between lives, but I’m a weirdo like that. This is a heartfelt and moving comic, and we should all be so lucky as to have a reincarnated cat watching over us at our lowest moments. Or hell, maybe those of us with cats already do. I’ve always had the impression that my cat would start eating my face about three minutes after I died, but then again she is awfully comforting for those low moments. Anyway, if you’ve ever had any dark moments where suicide seemed like a genuine possibility, for one thing ALWAYS give it some time (there’s no taking back suicide), and this comic may genuinely do you some good. #6
Tomomi, Mooney – Cocosoco
Here’s a sometimes surreal collection of stories by Mooney, translated into English by her husband (who did a really solid job, especially on the baby talk, as it’s often hard to tell what they’re trying to convey in comics form). Things start off with a silent piece about a young girl who looks to be exploring the things that make her a girl, starting with an open porn magazine and leading her to a covered bed, where she sees a pine cone that is actually a tiny fairy in hiding. The perspective shifts down to the fairy, who is stripped by the young girl, out of curiosity I guess? From there the fairy does some self-renovation, a fisherman finds the results of this experiment and has a good laugh with his wife about it later in the day. Next up is a shorter piece about racing to or from the past, how dreams as a child can reappear to you as an adult with no warning, and what can be seen and what’s just assumed about time passing. Yeah, maybe I’m making it sound lofty, but there are some big ideas in that story and I didn’t want to gloss over them. Finally there’s some whimsy, as we see a two hour stretch of a Monday morning shown basically from the perspective of a 2 year old (ish; still in diapers anyway) child. This is where her husband nails the dialogue, or maybe she’s familiar enough with the baby talk to do it herself, but either way it’s dead on. The little terrors, the little joys, the pooping and peeing in inappropriate places, and the joy that’s taken from damned near everything in the world from that perspective is on clear display. It’s an eclectic mix of stories, but they all come together to form a compelling comic. $5
Reyes, Brian – The Longest Sentence
Once I’m again I sit here with a comic that is very difficult to talk about without spoiling too much of the contents, and once again I’m going to dance around it as best I can. But to make it easy for you, if you find that cover and title intriguing, the inside of the book is equally intriguing and I was fascinated by the journey all the way through. With that being said, unintentional spoilers ahead! This one starts off with a shackled man being dragged along by two guards wearing helmets that completely obscure their faces. He’s dragged through a gigantic open area, filled with doors and stairs, before coming out into the open on a long bridge. The group then stops for water and our hero makes the mistake of asking how far he has to go (he’s on his way to receive judgment from a king that he has heard isn’t particularly fair, meaning he doesn’t like his chances regardless), but he’s just getting started. There are all kinds of hazards and areas that are difficult if not impossible to traverse without help, and this is where you’re losing me as reviewer because I don’t want to tell you the nature of all of these hazards. I was thoroughly engaged for the whole journey, I’ll say that much, and we do eventually learn a bit more about the guards and the nature of this kingdom. If that’s enough to intrigue you, it’s well worth checking out so you should probably do that. If you need more, the internet exists so there are always more samples out there. $5
