Blog Archives
Weing, Drew – Untitled
Untitled
You know, I always liked the idea of untitled books before I had this website. Now that I have this everything needs to be categorized and untitled things are a bit of a pain, but I still respect the need for them. This comic is basically a love letter from Drew to his girlfriend, wife, or target of stalking, Eleanor. He gets home from the store only to have a tornado of some kind hit, so he has to spend the rest of the comic trying to find Eleanor. It’s an interesting story, pretty quick read though. I liked it anyway. Website revealed!
Filer, J.C. – Untitled
Untitled
Actually, there is a title on the inside cover, I just can’t read it. You know the gang script you sometimes see plastered on walls in shady neighborhoods? I’m not nearly cool enough to read it, so I’m leaving it untitled. The closest thing I can come up with is “Gaycore”, and chances are that isn’t right. Anyway, how about that comic? There are three different stories in here, with a few pinups mixed in. First up is a crazy man rambling on the street about his time being the champion of the earth fighting martians, among other things. Generally it’s funny stuff, a good start to the comic. Then you have the bulk of the comic, a story that I’m really torn about. It’s a silent tale of a man fighting his way up through floors of various ninjas and monsters. It’s a good concept, but it isn’t pulled off well. For one thing the same page is printed twice in a row two different times, making following the story almost impossible. Then there’s at least one case where the hero gets out of an impossible situation by… who knows, maybe that page got eaten when he copied the wrong page in. I’m torn about the whole thing because the ending of the whole thing is fantastic, nearly making up for the chaos that came before it. Lastly there’s a sword fight on the roof of a comic convention, a decent enough story, but it feels like it’s in the middle of a much larger story without letting the audience in on that fact. There’s plenty here to build on for future issues, that’s for sure, but this one is a bit of an uneven mess. $3
Calla., B – Untitled
Untitled
I’m breaking a few rules with this one, as there was no name anywhere in the comic (I’m getting the “B. Calla” from the e-mail address) and it’s untitled, meaning there’s no way to find out anything about this online that I know of. I tried googling the e-mail address, which does occasionally work if you’ve never tried it, but no dice. So why review it at all? Mostly because I really loved the artwork.  As for the story, this is a tiny thing and I have no idea where it’s going, but that could be good or bad. A prince escapes from his kingdom into the sea, and is saved by a merman who would rather eat him. He runs into a bunch of unicorns, who respond derisively to the guy until he smacks them around a bit. Finally at the end we get to see where he might come in useful later. Like I said, it could go either way, but the level of detail on some of the artwork was downright impressive. Impressive enough to dull my white-hot hatred of comics produced without names attached. I’ll never get why that’s such a difficult thing for some people. If I hear back from him/her, I’ll put the actual name up there. For now, a lesson to any young cartoonists out there, or dim-witted older ones: any comic you make could be the one that somebody like me picks up. Maybe this person has a detailed bio in every other comic they’ve done, but THIS is the only one I bought on this trip to Chicago. Unless maybe they’re completely incognito and I just blew their cover, in which case… oops. $1
LeVine, Jeff – Untitled #2
Untitled #2
Here’s another issue of this sketchbook series from Jeff. One minor complaint: he has a listing at the start of the book indicating where all the drawings are from. That’s fine, but he lists pages for all of that, and then doesn’t put page numbers on the actual pages. A minor thing, as you can figure it out without too much trouble if you can count to 40, but I’m a lazy man and I want it all itemized! Dammit. In here he has drawings of airports, jazz musicians, and basically just all kinds of little things he saw in his travels and daily life. Interesting stuff, but I’m still a bigger fan of the stories. Contact info is up there, $2!
LeVine, Jeff – Untitled #1
Untitled #1
One of the great things about Jeff is that his style is always changing. Sometimes its clear straight lines, sometimes it’s more realistic, and sometimes it grimy (I mean that in the best possible way) like this. It’s a book of pictures, from the looks of it little snapshots of his apartment and all the stuff he has laying around. It’s not my favorite thing he’s ever done, but I like most of his stuff a lot, so take that however you’d like. He has a new website, which I linked to a few times up there, but here you go in case you don’t feel like scrolling. I still think everybody out there should buy all of his comics right away. I guess I was looking for some dialogue in his book (why I was looking for anything is beyond me, but there you go), but this is still a great, quiet look at the orderly chaos that is the average apartment. I’m guessing this is $2, it’s on his website!
Coon, Jim – Untitled
Untitled
Ah, the untitled mini comic. Make up your own! Also, some of you may be looking at that cover and thinking this should be on the page for Barry Rodges, but this really is from Jim Coon. Have I mentioned yet how impressed I am by the sheer range of books he has available? This is the wordless story of two creatures who meet and fall in love. Which wouldn’t be much of a story, but one of said creatures is a space explorer who accidentally crash lands on an odd planet. It’s love at first sight with a local creature… at least until science catches up to them. And boy is it tempting for me to describe what that means, but I’m going to resist. Kudos on that one page spread amidst all the cuteness…
Aulisio, Pat – Untitled
Untitled
This is a collection of some of Pat’s shorter pieces and also includes Quotidian, which I reviewed ages ago and it’s way, way at the bottom of this ridiculously massive page. Short recap for today: I don’t remember it being nearly that, for lack of a better term, fucked up. I’d also swear that he either cleaned up the art a bit or he was better than I thought at the time, as the story really looks amazing. Tons of small details that I either didn’t see the first time through or have since forgotten because of the ravages of age. Other than that the short pieces include the joys of crossing the streams, the matter of perspective when it comes to giant creepy monsters, and how it’s always best to lull a creature into complacency before bashing its head in with a rock. Quotidian also comes across after those short pieces as being something of an epic, what with the love story, fighting off evil monsters and starring in a rock band. I liked it just fine as a stand alone comic (back then Pat was mostly doing comics with all kinds of stories), but these little pieces really serve to contrast that story. It’s probably worth picking up even if you already read Quotidian, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess most of you missed it the first time around. No price, but what with that fancy cover I’d say it’s at least $2.
