Blog Archives
Page, Tyler – Mini Vittles #1
Mini Vittles #1
What’s a safe level of expectation for a mini comic with a bunch of unconnected odds and ends when it’s from a guy who put together one of your favorite graphic novels of the last couple of years? If you answered “guarded optimism but also ready for the worst”, you’re right! I thought the first Stylish Vittles book (of which I ramble about for quite a while up there) was tremendous. I didn’t get to his table at SPACE until the end of the day, meaning that most of my money was gone, so I couldn’t afford the second installment. Still, I didn’t want to leave empty-handed, so I picked up the mini. And, well, it’s kind of a mess, but at least he’s honest about it.In here is the inspiration for the first graphic novel, an untitled page (that goes nowhere), Grocery Boy, a sloppy ramble on self-doubt, Dryer Girl, babysitting, and a cat. The best part of the book was too little kids sitting on a doorstep and talking about marriage, but overall this is only something to get once you’ve exhausted your other Tyler Page options and are still curious about his work. Check out the graphic novel, this is $2 if you’re interested and contact info is up there.
Page, Tyler – Stylish Vittles: I Met a Girl
One thing I’ve learned while reviewing books is to NEVER read other reviews of the book before I’ve written anything down. Then I’m never sure if I’m just rehashing old positions that I just read about, not that anybody but me would ever notice anyway. I’m mentioning this because I just read some reviews, and I’d like to refute some of the problems these people had with this book, because it’s a damn fine piece of work that everyone should seek out and take a look at. It’s an autobiographical tale about Tyler and the start of his senior year when he meets a girl, like the title says. It’s a graphic novel, in case I haven’t made that clear, not just a regular sized comic. I was trying to figure out if it was a comic first and just collected here, but I’d have to guess that this story would be really hard to read in any other format. I’m not going to spend too much time talking about this, because if you like autobio stuff you should really check it out because it’s an incredibly genuine and moving tale about falling in love, and he didn’t leave out any of the little dorky things that you’re usually embarrassed by afterwards. If you don’t like autobio, you’re not going to buy it because you’re hopelessly biased against good things. The quibbles that people had in other reviews is something that I’d like to address. The book opens with probably 30 or 40 pages of zooming in on the planet slowly from far outside our galaxy and is then silent for the next 20 pages or so. That sounds dull and I think some people felt that it slowed the story down considerably. I thought it was brilliant. I mean, really, who takes the time to set stuff like that up? One of the main things Tyler talks about throughout the book is his place in the universe, and what better way to really show that then to take his time to show just how much else there is out there? As for the problem with the lettering, well, I kind of agreed there. Kind of sloppy, but it didn’t take away from anything that much for me. I also didn’t like how the narrative shifted to his girlfriend’s point of view a couple of times. Didn’t really do anything for the story and it disrupted the narrative flow. Again, a minor thing that only happened a few times anyway. Well, if the fact that I just wrote the longest review for this thing ever show you how much I liked it, I don’t know what will. Go to his website, check out some more stuff from the guy and buy the book!
