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Desperate #15

See? This is why I’ve been waiting for a longer story from this guy. This is the biggest issue yet and, while it’s not an obviously continuing story, everything comes together wonderfully by the end. Or maybe it is obviously connected and I’m just slow, I don’t know. What you have here are a few main people. There’s a slut, a stupid man who’s just trying to have fun, and a few other people who have no interest in staying faithful to their significant others. Lots of stuff left unsaid here, which is the best way to deal with something like this. Justin’s not afraid to have a fair amount in his book either, so kudos to him. Well, there is now officially a “if you want to check out one issue, check this one out” issue for this guy. This is probably a couple of bucks and I can unreservedly recommend this to anybody. Lots of layers to go through here, a fully rewarding reading experience. My only complaint is that I wish he’d work on his spelling, but it’s not so hard to take when characters who are remarkably stupid are having a lot of trouble with grammar. Buy this book!

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Desperate #14

I missed a few issues of this, mostly because I stopped getting them in the mail and haven’t seen them in comic stores (sorry, there are just way too many books that I’m trying to keep up with). Good to see that it’s still getting better, and it was pretty good a couple of issues ago. This one has two main stories. The first is about some bunnies in and out of love, with a few of the side-effects. The second is about a man on a beach who meets a strange woman. That’s all you get from me on that one, as it’s too short to say much more about without ruining it. The art’s better, the writing is better and the book is a little bigger than before. All that means you should check it out, and it looks like there’s finally a website to go with that old e-mail address. $1

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Desperate #11

This one is absolutely my favorite of the bunch so far. It’s the story of a woman who’s occasionally a prostitute and the one man and one alien who watch her door to make sure that nobody tries to hurt her. It’s a funny issue, sure, but it’s also thoughtful. Add that to the fact that his art just keeps getting better and you have the best issue yet. This issue also has 16 pages instead of 12, so either I’m making an impact (ego alert) here or Justin just decided to give the stories a little more room to grow. Whatever the case, buy it. Contact info keeps getting further and further up the page, but it’s still there…

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Desperate #10

You know, if I put the whole stack of comics together that I’ve gotten from this guy and read them all in a row, I don’t think it would take me longer than 5 minutes to finish them. This one, for example. probably took me about 30 seconds to read. Maybe he should think about putting out longer comics, but what do I know? If the point he’s trying to make only needs 12 pages per issue or so, who am I to tell him how to do his job? This one is about sex, mostly. A strange comparison between his mother and his girlfriend, and Mr. Bunny getting lucky, as they say. Solid art, it made me think (which says a lot in a tiny book), what more can you ask for? Contact info is still above, and his body of work just keeps getting bigger.

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Desperate #9

Could it be? Is this issue really that much worse than his other ones, or am I just exhausted from moving boxes all day? Well, I liked his other stuff, I know that much. Didn’t get much at all out of this one. A pet peeve of mine is when artists address themselves in their comics, whether it’s about story ideas, their drawing style, or even just making fun of themselves. It’s hard to pull it off to make it look like something other than a self-indulgent page filler, and that’s the impression that I got with this. Again, I’m exhausted, but he makes such tiny issues that they really have to grab you right away or it’s over before you know it, and this one didn’t grab me. the two page story at the end with the bunnies was ridiculous, but at least it made me smile. Ah, one bad issue out of four isn’t bad at all. At least he’s still trying new stuff. Contact info is still above and I still think that you should check out some of his other stuff…

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Desperate #8

Note to all comic people who send me their stuff randomly: chances are that I haven’t seen the other issues of your comic unless they’re already up here, so it’s not the best idea in the world to send me Part 2 of a dream issue. Unless the previous dream issue had nothing to do with this dream issue, in which case I apologize, but I kind of have to base my review on what’s here and not on what might or might not be in the other issue. Another short mini, this one is about a man who has to kill his girlfriend (?) if he can’t convince her to stop going insane. In his dream. The way to do this is apparently by yelling at her a lot. Not a bad issue. It’s kind of creepy at times, actually, and it works better than a 10 page mini probably should. Hell, I don’t know, send him a couple of bucks and find out for yourself. You have to at least give him credit for getting to #8 of a series, that’s hard enough on its own these days… Check the other issue for contact info because I’m the laziest man alive.

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Desperate #7

Man, are these things tiny. Honestly, I’d have to say that your best bet would either be to wait until he has a collection available to read his work or buy a bunch of issues at once, as they literally take less than a minute to read. This one is the best of the bunch though, at least out of the three I’ve seen. Various short stories on sex and relationships. Definitely worth a look. Add that to the fact that he appears to be prolific (at least in the small press world; he already has two comics out this year) and this is a name you should try to remember. Contact info is above…

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Desperate #6

I’d bet money that I’ve seen this art before. Probably some anthology somewhere along the line. Ah yes, I remember when I had a memory. Those were the days… Anyway, this was another one that was sent to me randomly in the mail. I try desperately to love these, I really do. This one is far from bad, it’s just not all that great either. There are two stories here. The Temptation, about Jesus being tempted by Satan while fasting in the desert, goes nowhere fast and doesn’t seem to serve much purpose except to have Jesus say “fuck”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just about the least religious person you’re likely to meet, it’s just that nothing happened in this story. Not to give anything away here, in ended in a jumbled mess. Or I missed something, I don’t know.

The other story, Dr. Mento’s Gruesome Revenge, is much better. The tale of a man who builds a robot body for his brain once he realizes that he has a disease that is eating away his body. His wife has a hard time finding satisfaction with his new robot body no matter what, um, improvements he adds on, and the story is basically about him trying to win her love back. Creepy at times, funny at others, there was nothing wrong with this one. Take away those four pages for the Jesus story and you have a great mini. Actually, the only part I had a problem with was the last panel, so I guess you could say I liked it up until then. And I had no problems at all with the art. It’s going to bug the hell out me trying to figure out where I saw it before, though. It’s worth a couple of bucks anyway, so why not e-mail the guy and see what else he has around.

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Desperate #16

This one is a bit more scattered than the last issue, but still a solid comic. Mostly the same cast of characters, and it’s always refreshing to see real talk about sex in a comic. Notice that I didn’t say “intelligent”, not that it’s stupid or anything, but real people having real sex is a lot different from a lot of the portrayals you see. Anyway, boobs a’plenty in this one, it’s still $1 and worth checking out.