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Ariel on Facebook

Deep Girl #2

It’s starting to feel like I’m living on memory lane these days, between all these reviews of old minis and my moving back to the town where this website got started (Champaign Illinois, in case I ever start an Optical Sloth trivia game).  Anyway, it’s reminding me of why nostalgia is as popular as it is, as I’m loving being (mostly) back in town and am also thoroughly enjoying these oldies.  That was expected, but you never know when you go back and read/watch something you enjoyed back in the day if it’ll hold up.  Deep Girl holds up.  There are a few stories this time around, including the early days of Ariel and romance (her first time, what total losers she hung around and how she finally figured out that sex wasn’t hard to come by), Lovie Doll (who gets sick of a guy berating her for not knowing about politics and current events), and the joy of hunting for a job (in this case applying at a trendy coffee shop and feeling insulted just from the application).  Again, this looks a bit cruder than her later work, but it still doesn’t look anywhere near bad  and it’s still funny as hell.  Hop in that time machine and grab yourself a copy, or keep hoping that something in this indifferent universe hears your pleas for a collected edition of this stuff…

Ariel on Facebook

Deep Girl #1

It occurred to me while writing these old timey reviews that these artists might not keep their work in print because they think it was completely awful, and I’m ruining something by posting these old minis at all.   Then again, screw that.  This is some funny shit.  The art may look a bit crude compared to her later work, but so what?  Do you lose points for not being as accomplished an artist when you first start out (as this was done in 1993) as opposed to where you are 17 years later?  If anybody out there really hates that I’m posting their older work for all to see, they can let me know and I’ll take it down.  In the meantime, I think it serves as a helpful reminder that a lot of these people are still making comics, just in case you’ve forgotten about that.  This was one of the first minis I ever bought, and it definitely set the tone for what I was looking for.  Here was this woman, putting out her first comic, who fearlessly lays herself bare for all (well, the couple of hundred people who bought this) to see.  There’s probably a dozen or so cartoonists who got me interested in this business and kept me interested with how often they put out comics (back then, at least), and Ariel was definitely a big part of that.  So what was in here?  Pieces about her delusions of grandeur (thinking she is perpetually on the cusp of fame as an artist while working as a waitress), how shopping for a bra has always been a miserable experience, Weepy the Wee-Wee, Smile-O-Matic, and your very own monk.  I’m just shouting into the wind here, but if anybody ever wanted to put these into a collection, I think they could sell some copies.  Just one man’s opinion…