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Tolento, Mike – Empty Life #15
Empty Life #15
You guys were probably starting to wonder if I liked everything Mike sent me. Well, no, not exactly. This is a wordless story about camping and alien abduction. I was liking this a lot right up until the point where the alien ship took him away, then it just kind of fell apart for me. It’s part one of a story, so it’s possible that the next part could change my mind about this one, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to be doing another one any time soon. That’s what the website tells me, anyway. Like I said, it might change if it’s all one story, but right now… ah, you know what? I think Mike has earned the benefit of the doubt. I loved his story in Castration, I’ve never seen anything like #14 that wasn’t terrible (and that was far from terrible), so I’m going to let him finish this story before I talk shit about it. Does that mean I’m fired from my job as reviewer? Look upon my wishy-washiness, oh people, and despair! $2
Tolento, Mike – Empty Life #14
Empty Life #14
Mike has created a new form of comics called Hypotheticomics (which is a fucking fantastic name, by the way). He basically wrote the captions in what he calls a “free associative blitz”, then drew the pictures the same way, and he had his comic. It’s completely impossible to review something like this in any kind of conventional sense, so I’ll just tell you that I liked it. If I get the scanner I’m bidding on now I’ll have some panels up soon so you guys can see what I’m talking about. Right now all I can say is that this is unlike anything you’ve seen. Well, anything I’ve seen, anyway. There are a couple of tiny stories at the end too, but by then you’ll already either by won over or you’ll have thrown the book across the room. $2
Tolento, Mike – Castration
Castration
Well, it looks like I can officially retire. Mike Tolento sent me some free comics to review. What’s better than getting free comics in the mail? And to have them be comics worth reading too, well, that was almost too much for me. I was having the hardest time writing this too because I went to his site (www.emptylife.com) to get cover pictures and spent about a half hour there and could have spent a lot longer. I got caught on this page that was all e-mails sent to his friend Paul from crazy ex-girlfriends and it was one of the better things I’ve ever seen. Anybody who has ever had a crazy girlfriend can relate to that shit.
I’m supposed to be talking about the comic here, aren’t I? Sorry. Castration is about women and , as the cover says, “why we love them and hate them”. One story by Mike Tolento and one by Sam Stern. Mike’s is called Artie’s Last Weekend and it’s all about a middle-aged man and his weekend. What he plans to do with it, what he ends up doing with it and how he deals with. Maybe my favorite of the books that he sent to me, although they’re all so different that it’s really hard to tell. The Sam Stern story (untitled, apparently) is about a man and his total bitch of a girlfriend. One of the better punchlines that I’ve seen lately at the end of it and a good short tale all around. It’s $1, just buy it and enjoy.