I wasn’t planning on doing another comics reading day this week (since I’ve been reading so many comics lately), but then I remembered that I’m going away next week, and I’ll probably shop even more comics, so I should read the ones I already have first. Make sense? No? OK. And for today’s music: Only albums from this year, because I’m always on trend.
| Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin: Ghosted II |  |
11:56: A Witch’s Guide to Burning by Aminder Dhaliwal (Drawn & Quarterly)
Hey! This isn’t comics!
It’s pretty wild… is this meant for children? What with the different typographical stuff going on, like “burnt” burning and stuff. If it’s for children, it’s really way violent.
This seems pretty OK, really? It’s not my thing, though, so I ditched it after about 70 pages.
| Pet Shop Boys: Nonetheless (1) |  |
12:25: Alva i mørket by Aksel Studsgarth/Daniel Hansen (Afart)
This starts off in a pretty intriguing way…
… but then it rapidly becomes er a lot.
They keep piling on one thing after another — several twists, elves, secret organisations, gruesome labs, gumming conspiracies — it’s all elements we’ve seen before mixed together in random order. By the end I was going “fuck this”. Perhaps they’re aiming for a Netflix TV series adaptation? The problem is that Netflix wouldn’t have to pay to adapt it — it’s so generic.
But I guess it’s told in a pretty lively way? I can definitely see people who enjoy this kind of thing enjoying this thing, because it’s one of those things.
| Julia Holter: Something in the Room She Moves |  |
13:13: Made Flesh by Lars Kramhøft/Tom Kristensen
This is a horror book, and it’s more successful.
The artwork looks intriguing and fits the mood. And it’s a bit scary?
But it ends up relying on so many horror clichés… and worse, there’s pages and pages and pages of people explaining the plot to each other, when anybody who’s seen a couple of horror movie could guess everything without any explanation whatsoever. So it’s not a complete success, but it’s OK. (Some of the scenes (not shown here) were too grisly for me, though, but I’m a wimp.)
| Ai Aso: The Faintest Hit |  |
14:09: Drawn From Life edited by Oslo Davis
This is another thing I got from Philip Bentley (thanks again!).
This is a newspaper size thing done for a Melbourne festival.
And the theme is Drawn From Life, so you get a bunch of half page to one page things… and amazingly enough for this kind of thing, it’s almost all really strong pieces.
And there’s a page by Jim Woodring!
This anthology is a really enjoyable read.
| Squarepusher: Dostrotime |  |
14:41: The Fairy Godfather by Robert Mailer Anderson/Jon Sack (Fantagraphics)
This is drawn on a Cintiq, I guess?
Anyway, they explain the entire premise there on the left-hand page. I guess that’s an efficient way of getting the exposition over with…
Holy grid, Batman! Every page is very gridded, but a different grid on each page. It’s strangely annoying — gridding usually lets the storytelling get highlighted over the page design, but here it has the opposite effect. And the post-Drnaso palette doesn’t help, either.
And… er… burritos are “negative calorie foods”?
It’s… it’s… OK, I think this book has its heart in the right place? It’s basically a papery version of one of those “cool kids with gay parents in a small town” high school movie. So it’s got all the characters you expect: The cool dyke, the goofy brother, the cool jock, the nasty jock, the Heathers, the awful neighbours, etc etc etc. That’s OK — it’s a formula because it works, and you can do a lot within that familiar framework.
The problem is that its written as if by an alien, who has had no interaction with people like this beyond watching 80s teen movies, but trying to be all modern: You get all this 2022 “hello my fellow teenagers” slang, and using phones a lot, and even a simple thing like the sequence on the left hand page is beyond the capabilities of the artist, making it all a head scratching and annoying read.
OK, I’m being too harsh here: I like the book? It’s got some fun scenes? It’s generally likeable? But…
| Kokoko!: Could We Be More (Remixes) |  |
16:00: Santos Sister #6 by Gred & Fake
The most confusing comic book on the stands is back.
Is it a parody, or do they mean it? Even the ads are confusing.
But it’s fun.
| Kim Gordon: The Collective |  |
16:15: Hjärnan darrar by Klara Wiksten (Syster forlag)
This book is a series of portraits of people Wiksten has met — mostly when going to various things arranged as part of mental care or work training stuff.
And every portrait is a tribute — she’s on everybody’s side, and she imagines how their lives must be like.
| A Certain Ratio: It All Comes Down to This |  |
It’s great! It’s moving, it’s funny, it’s interesting. And the artwork works perfectly with the stories she’s telling.
| Still House Plants: If I don’t make it: I love u |  |
17:57: The High Desert by James Spooner (HarperCollins)
Another book about being different in a small town, but this is autobio.
| Sean Ono Lennon: Asterisms |  |
I felt at the start that it was a bit too… er… editorialised? That is, Spooner shows us what happened, and then he tells us why that happened in a very pat way — instead of letting the readers work it out themselves, or integrating it better into the narrative.
| Moor Mother: The Great Bailout |  |
But like with the author’s life itself, everything changes when we take a trip to New York — it’s like the book finally starts breathing and becomes more fun to read. I was totally on board for the last third of the book.
| John Lurie: Painting With John |  |
19:47: Krampe by Frederik Rysjedal
This is a book about swimming.
And not getting cramps. It’s fun.
| Laetitia Sadier: Rooting for Love |  |
19:52: Trær jeg har møtt by Anna Fiske (No Comprendo Press)
Lovely artwork.
The is a slightly narrative book — it’s a life told through encounters with trees (sort of), so you get these drawings of trees and that figure who is a stand-in for the author, accompanied by er I guess prose poems?
It flows really well — it’s a lovely book.
| Laetitia Sadier: Rooting for Love |  |
20:21: The End
And now I should go make some food.