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Various Anthologies – Side A: The Music Lover’s Graphic Novel
Side A: The Music Lovers Graphic Novel
Full disclosure time: I’m not a music lover. I mention this because it’s in the subtitle for this book and, as I’m not a music lover, chances are you can disregard my opinions about this entirely. I am a music liker, but it had very little influence on me as a kid and even now I mostly listen to talk radio of some sort. That being said, I did love this book. It has 33 stories in it by a wide variety of folks. I am much too lazy to go through them all one by one, but I will mention highlights. Rebecca Chapnik’s Last Act, about her trying to be punk in high school and still not managing to fit in with the punks, was wonderful and captured the rage of being unable to connect. Matthew Young’s Articles of Faith, about trying to find the exact song that was on when he started writing for the first time as a child, is something anybody can relate to who’s had part of a mystery song stuck in their head. Sarah Shay and Corey Marie Parkhill’s The Day We Got Kicked Out of the Feminist Treehouse wonderfully details some of the absurdities of modern feminism and trying hopelessly to fit in, or at least not be called out by the band. There are many many great stories in here, ranging from how music affects art and how to draw along with the beat (something I was completely unfamiliar with) to the music that influenced them throughout their lives all the way to being willing to break up with somebody if they didn’t like jazz. Genuine music lovers will probably get a bit more out of this than I did, granted, but good storytelling is good storytelling regardless of the subject, or the fact that the reviewer may be less than passionate about said subject. Absolutely a wonderful anthology, and cheap too! $10 Oh, and here’s a website if you wanted to check this out yourself.
Parkhill (Kitley), Corey Marie – My Plan To Save The Earth
My Plan To Save The Earth
In case you were wondering, yes, this is another one of those 15 minute comics, and this has to be the ugliest one yet. Don’t think I’m talking trash here though, as ALL of these comics look like varying degrees of crap. Hey, you try to do a comic in 15 minutes, see how neat it ends up. This one is all one panel per page, so it takes right around 10 seconds to read it. As for the story, you might think from that title that this has something to do with saving the earth from global warming, or natural disasters, or Republicans. Nope! This is a very brief guide on how to fool the aliens that are inevitably going to come here to enslave/kill us all. All in all just an OK comic, but I highly recommend her 24 hour comic up yonder…
Parkhill (Kitley), Corey Marie – Omnibus
Omnibus
This might just be the best 24 hour comic I’ve ever seen. For one thing, if it wasn’t mentioned on the cover that it was a 24 hour comic I never would have noticed, which is an incredible thing. Most of the time with these things the art is so rushed and sloppy (especially by the end, and there are exceptions to that rule, of course) that it hardly seems worth the effort. This one breaks a lot of the rules people set up to make this easier on themselves. Almost every page has multiple panels, there’s a huge cast of characters, and there’s an interesting, if not fascinating, story behind the whole thing. What is it? Well, a bunch of people are riding the bus when it crashes, killing a pedestrian. It turns out that that was a good thing, but the end result is that everybody is trapped on the bus, and everybody has their own story. There’s the crazy lady who thinks it’s a sign of the rapture, the disenfranchised clown, the messenger from the mafia… I don’t want to give too much away because there’s a lot to discover here for yourselves, but let me repeat: I think this is the best 24 hour comic I’ve seen, and it’s certainly the best work I’ve seen from Corey Marie. So is it just Corey Marie or is it Corey Marie Kitley, like the cover says? Anyway, it’s $2, you can find it here, and you should think about checking it out.
Parkhill (Kitley), Corey Marie – Life’s So Rad #7
Life’s So Rad #7
Ah, thank you again, o rainbow scanner. No, the cover doesn’t really look like that. This is a zine, technically, not a comic. The first half is a comic about The Beatles, how great they were, how many references they could fit into a comic about them, etc. Sorry, I’m not that big of a fan (to avoid hate mail, I understand their influence on music and the fact that a lot of the bands I like wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for them, it’s just that their music mostly doesn’t do much for me, OK), so the comic didn’t do much for me. The art was cute though, it looked like it was heavily influenced by anime, and there was a great playful spirit about the whole thing, so don’t think I’m bashing the comic or anything. The other half of the book has interviews with bands, ramen noodle recipes, reviews of music, reports of comic conventions and a few rambles. A pretty solid package overall, considering that I couldn’t relate to half the book. Here’s a website, this one was $2. I should also mention that Corey doesn’t do everything in this book but, as with most zines, it’s hard to tell who does. Corey’s name was the one mentioned the most, so she gets the credit until I hear otherwise…
Parkhill (Kitley), Corey Marie – Life’s So Rad #6
Life’s So Rad #6
The comic in this one reads just like a sitcom, which can be a good or a bad thing, depending on your tastes. Corey’s boyfriend Justin has invited his mother over for dinner, causing Corey no end of stress. Justin agrees to take a cooking class for dinner because Corey has too much other stuff going on, only to break down and take the “How to be a Jedi” class instead. Wacky! Seriously though, it’s not a bad book. I think she must live in a hermetically sealed room, because there are almost no backgrounds to speak of (and I know they take a long time to put in there, but it really helps to flesh out the feel of a book). The rest of the book is zine format, with movie reviews (I still don’t get why so many people didn’t like The Two Towers that much), CD reviews (where I get to feel like an old man because I used to keep up on that stuff), and tips for living cheaply. I’m 29 and have been living cheaply for years, so I already knew the things they were talking about, but there’s all kinds of good tips in here for the young’uns. Oh, and there’s also a “do it yourself” guide to Valentine’s Day. This issue is from last year, but I’m reviewing it at a good time for that to come in handy. $2, contact info is down there…
