Comics Daze

It’s been such a long time since I just sat down with a bunch of new comics… I’ve been reading (eww!) books all spring and summer (in addition to the Epic Comics thing), so my queue of incoming comics has grown to ridiculous lengths.

So! Newish blog concept! I get up in the morning, and do nothing else but read comics until I fall asleep, and I kinda er log them here on the blog?

I won’t be doing reviews, but I might… scribble something about what I read? Or not.

I’ve got candy to keep me company:

Let’s start!

11:51: Portrait of a Drunk by Ruppert, Mulot and O. Schrauwen (Fantagraphics)

Wow. What an asshole.

It’s very meta, all this trapped-in-purgatory-being-forced-to-watch-this-asshole stuff. Excellent.

12:23: The Social Discipline Reader by Jan Sundahl (Domino Books)

Unnerving and beautiful. Really talented storytelling; too bad the stories are a bit on the edge lord side; the ending of this one made me groan out loud.

12:42: Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook, Ko Hyung-Ju and Ryan Estrada (Iron Circus)

Man, this starts out at So Much Drama Level 11, and it just increases from there. Even the size of the lettering contributes to the feeling that everybody shouts all the time.

It’s a pretty annoying read, and it’s difficult to keep the characters straight.

But it’s very edumacational, and almost despite myself I found myself drawn into this (apparently) true story about protest in South Korea in 1983. It’s interesting! And I teared up at the ending.

13:47: Space Basket by Jonathan Petersen (Domino Books)

Yes yes of course.

13:53: The House by Paco Roca (Fantagraphics)

This one tries really hard to be moving… and succeeds. I felt more than a bit manipulated while reading it, but it’s good. It does sometimes feel like the storyboards to a Spanish sentimental movie (and not in a good way), though. And it’s annoying the way Roca just can’t decide on a panel layout methodology, so you have to guess the reading order on every page.

14:39: Langosh & Peppi: Fugitive Days by Veronica Post (Conundrum)

This is a very oddly structured book… it starts as a down-and-out travelogue, and then there’s a manic pixie bit, and then there’s a people-in-the-country-side-sure-are-strange bit (i.e., Deliverance), and then there’s a bit about the refugee crisis. Any of those bits could have been a complete book, really, but all squished together like this, it’s an odd reading experience.

But there are some nice pastoral scenes. The character design on Langhosh feels like a mistake, though.

15:33: Bad Gateway by Simon Hanselmann (Fantagraphics)

I feel like this book has gotten less attention than Hanselmann’s previous books? Perhaps that’s not a reflection on the book itself, but rather that Hanselmann just isn’t the new hotness any more (I mean, nobody)…

By the way, that interview in The Comics Journal was hilarious? It read as if Hanselmann was a kid talking to his parent, and telling not-quite-true stories about the other nasty kids at school. I think a third of the interview was just about how nasty people are on Twitter, because they’re mean to Hanselmann, and by “people” I mean Kim O’Connor, who Hanselmann didn’t actually name…

Great comedy!

We’ll, let’s read the book.

OK, now I know why the book’s not getting much attention.

*sigh*

16:33: Becoming Horses by Disa Wallander (Drawn & Quarterly)

This reminded me of this:

Anyway — lovely.

16:48: Spider Monkey #1 by Jesse McManus with Austin English (Domino Books)

Very pretty and very puzzling.

17:05: Art Life by Catherine Ocelot (Conundrum)

Very witty, and a very challenging choice do depict all the figures like this. You have to express everything through dialogue and posture.

17:51: Face Man by Clara Bessijelle (Domino Books)

Very odd!

18:05: Nap.

18:55: A Gift for a Ghost by Borja González (Abrams)

Wow. This was something else. Such storytelling.

But no faces in this, either. Is that a current trend?

19:47: Psychodrama Illustrated by Beto Hernandez (Fantagraphics)

A real indie comic book! You don’t see many of them these days.

We’re in the Fritz/Killer storyline somewhere, and it’s all very meta, with Killer acting in a remake of a Fritz movie, and we get the DVD commentary on the movie by both of them, and then further explications on it all from Fritz as she hooks up with some guy.

It’s great! Reads like prime Beto.

20:24: Old Growth by Niv Bavarsky and Michael Olivo (Fantagraphics/F.U.)

I thought that this was going to be mostly non-narrative, but it’s a whole… epic… unfortunately, the final part is mostly just a big fight scene.

Aaargh! And the red glitter from the cover of the book has transferred to my pants! I”LL SEW YEWS FANTAGRAPHICS!

20:54: Pizza

Since I’m just reading comics (and napping, apparently) all day, I don’t have time to make food, so I got some pizza. It was pretty good, but there’s too much filling on it, so it was a bit on the soggy side. More isn’t always more.

20:54: Stig & Tilde: Vanisher’s Island by Max de Radiguès (Nobrow)

So I’m reading this while eating the pizza… not an ideal combination, because it’s awkward to hold in one hand. Anyway, it’s gorgeous, and it’s got a real old-timey kids adventure book kinda feel.

21:18: We Served the People: My Mother’s Stories by Emei Burell (Archaia)

So this is a book about the Cultural Revolution… I read the first few pages and I was all “well, OK, that’s interesting, but…”

But then it gets really entertaining, too. I don’t even know why they had the text pages at the start; the comic itself goes through many of the same points, but in a much better way.

I’m guessing… an editor that though some text pages would class it up?

In any case, it’s a very readable and interesting book.

22:20: Beirut Won’t Cry by Mazen Kerbaj (Fantagraphics/F.U.)

This seems very familiar… Oh, yeah, I wrote about it here, didn’t I. Yes. OK, I’m not re-reading it now, though.

Another duplicate to schlep to the used bookstore…

22:29: Motel Universe 2: Faschion Empire by Joakim Drescher (Secret Acres)

It’s an entire epic.

23:20: Inappropriate by Gabrielle Bell (Uncivilized)

I love Gabrielle Bell. This is a collection of shorter bits and pieces, so it’s very dense. Hilarious, moving and smart as always.

00:45: Go To Sleep (I Miss You) by Lucy Knisley (First Second)

Very cute.

01:18: It’s time for me to go to sleep, too.

Well, that was fun. I don’t think I’ve read comics that intensely and without much in the way of interruptions for … decades? My brain is all lethargic and buzzing at the same time… comics overload… coooomics…