Blog Archives

Mackey, Jim – Air Mail

Website (for a DVD, with contact info)

Air Mail

Quick, everybody check that cover out and tell me what the title of this book is. I have no idea at all (and no, the inside doesn’t help), so instead of writing everything on the title I’m going with “air mail”. It’s not on the website either, but this might be new for SPACE, so maybe it’ll be up there soon. Anyway, the comic. It’s only about four pages, so there’s not much to say (apparently I got a lot of tiny comics at SPACE, which wasn’t the intention). What there is to say isn’t good, unless this is an experiment in minimalism, in which case I still don’t get it. It’s a dry-as-a-bone rundown of the trip described in the telegram on the inside cover, no frills at all. You can see for yourself with the sample about the art. Looking at the website it seems like there’s some interesting stuff there, so I guess I just picked up the wrong one at the con, but I didn’t get much of anything out of this one. Let’s call it $1 and leave it at that…

Feazell, Matt – Junior Librarians #1 (with Jim Mackey)

Website

librarians11

Junior Librarians #1 (with Jim Mackey)

Well, that was dumb.   Let me explain: I’ve long wanted more Matt Feazell stuff on my site, as I’ve been vastly entertained at his stick figure adventures for years.  This year at SPACE, once again, I got to his table when I was almost broke and could only afford to get one thing, so I randomly grabbed this one.  That makes it at least partially my fault, as few people in comics are more prolific than Matt, and I’m sure many other things on that table would have amused me greatly.  This one, however, did not.  It’s not a bad story: junior librarians are given a challenge to reshelve a huge pile of books in the correct order.  Then a hulking bully comes by and kicks the ladder down… and then apparently the ladder disappears, as they are forced to come up with another solution to their problem.  It’s a mildly cute ending, but that’s what it is, after only three pages: an ending.  The next two pages name all the characters, an utterly worthless exercise, and the back cover contains original sketches for the characters, which is also at least slightly worthless.  Unless this all turns into a much bigger series and all of this is important in the long run, which is quite possibly the case.  And why were two people needed to write/draw this?  OK, enough bashing of the guy.  He’s one of the stalwarts of the small press world and I have nothing but good things to say about him as a human being and about the vast majority of his work.  I just wasn’t impressed with this particular comic.  $.50

librarians12