Blog Archives

Sampson, Mark (editor) – Khaki Shorts #24

Myspace page

Facebook page

Bad Press website

Khaki Shorts #24

First thing first: I have no idea if Mark Sampson is really the editor of this comic. He wrote the intro for the book and introduced everyone, so I’m just assuming here, and am hoping that the fine folks who sent me this comic will be nice enough to correct me if I’m wrong.  This is an anthology out of Glasgow, and the fact that it’s up to #26 (I checked the website) is pretty damned impressive.  And, apart from the strange obsession with “arse” and “bum” being the apparent pinnacle of humor, there was a pretty funny pile of stories included.  Stories in here include a superhero that patrols the red carpet by Rob Miller, Martin and Adam Smith’s piece about two guys stuck out of time that seems to think a giant fart is the funniest thing in the world, Rob Miller with a mostly incomprehensible piece, Rob again sticking it to the man, a story by some guy (this is what happens when you don’t put a table of contents in your book or at least clearly label the creators) about nostalgia and shallowness, another piece by Rob that insists on making the reader wallow in shit, Larned Justin on traveling to Glasgow after being accepted to do a strip for the book, some other guy with a piece on the lion and the crocodile, Rob (who is, at the very least, nice enough to sign his pieces) with a longer story that’s a bit on the incomprehensible side, A.J. Smith with a sad drunken guy (and at least they made note of the fact that this particular strip used up their allotted scatological humor for the year), some other guy with time traveling priests, and Rob again with a brief Star Trek parody.  See how much better this might be with a table of contents?  I could look up each individual artist, compare styles and try to figure it all out, but it’s not like I’m getting paid for this gig.  It still ends up, on balance, being a pile of funny, and I realize that dry descriptions are not the best way to explain comedic tales.  The poop humor gets a little old, then tiresome, then annoying, but if you can get past that (or if it’s your thing) then there’s plenty to like about this comic.  That price is, I believe, right around $2 in Americaland, which is a steal for this much content.

Miller, Rob (editor) – Khaki Shorts #2

Website

khaki21

Khaki Shorts #2

Technically this is apparently the second edition of this series, but it’s only notable to people (not me) who have seen the other stuff, so I’m just calling it #2.  Just on the off-chance that anybody was worried about that.  This is an anthology of various folks in the UK, there is no table of contents and some of the stories aren’t labelled, so I’m going to go with my best guesses.  First up is a piece by Shug 90 called The Wildebeests, dealing with conspiracies over the years while substituting animals for the humans.  Hey, it’s funnier than it sounds.   Next up is an ongoing story by John Miller called Star Trudge, and if you were guessing you had a 50/50 shot of getting it right: it’s a parody of Star Trek.   Once again it’s funny stuff (and I’m sensing a trend), as the Captain starts off waking up to a drunken crew and has a series of adventures throughout the book.  Float by Martin & Adam Smith is next, which is about some guys who wake up, um, floating.  It’s a long way to go for a poop joke, but at least it’s a funny poop joke.  Generic Street by Alrite Miller (no, I don’t know if that is Rob or John either) is next, and this piece breaks the trend by not being funny but instead being extremely odd.  There’s some genuinely odd imagery in here to go with word balloons coming from arms, and I’m not even going to try to explain it. Following this is the story from the cover, which immediately follows their story from the last issue, which leaves the reader a bit lost.  The hyper-inflated superhero team and the incompetent archenemy bit looked like it had some potential, but three pages was way too short to get much of an idea.  John Miller has a piece up next that makes me a bit dizzy to think about, as that panel structure was all over the place, and I’m frankly not entirely sure what was going on there.  Dollyforce 2020 (by Adam Smith)follows and it’s the longest piece in the book, dealing with a group of kids and an adult trying to free their grandma from a small army of robots, all being controlled by a man with a crush.  It meandered a bit but really came together in the end.  There are two more short pieces by Rob Miller and one on the back cover by John Miller, but I’m leaving them a surprise for when you pick up this book for yourselves.  Have I mentioned that it’s consistently funny?  And when it’s not funny it’s thoroughly bizarre and inventive.  I’ve felt all day vaguely like I got hit by a truck, so I apologize if this isn’t up to my usual standards, whatever they are.  I just wanted to make it perfectly clear: you will not regret getting this comic.  That is all.

khaki22