It’s a lovely day today for once, and I should probably be out frolicking with woodland creatures, but eh. That sounds exhausting! So comics it is. And today’s music is all Ray Aggs’ bands: Trash Kit, Shopping and Sacred Paws. I was a latecomer to their music — I discovered them in like 2021, and snapped up all their albums and was happy… but then it turns out that they haven’t made any new albums since 2020! Won’t I ever get to see them live? *pout*
| Trash Kit: Trash Kit |  |
11:25: Causeway #18-21 by CF
CF had printer problems or something, so I got all four of these in one fell swoop.
The Internet is for cats.
The first Causeways issues were more narrative, but recently they’ve been more sketchbook like. But this seems to hint at a story again, although I’m not sure what it is… probably not.
Anyway, class stuff. And I like the colourful blotches.
| Trash Kit: Teenagers |  |
11:31: Petar & Liza by Miroslav Sekulic-Struja (Fantagraphics)
This book is a bit frustrating.
There’s bits that are brilliant, but it doesn’t quite come together.
| Trash Kit: Woolf |  |
But it’s pretty good. I love these tableaux. And the book’s ending is successful.
| Shopping: Consumer Complaints |  |
12:29: Jaywalk #4 edited by Austin English & Floyd Tangeman (Domino Books)
It’s another great issue of Jaywalk — it’s mostly slightly longer pieces this time (but perhaps it was like that last time, too)?
Some of the pieces get somewhat abstract.
But with huge emotional impact.
| Trash Kit: Confidence |  |
12:45: The Furry Trap by Josh Simmons (The Mansion Press)
I may have read this before? It’s a collection of horror pieces from 2004-2011, but this is a new edition? Did Fantagraphics publish a version of this? Goodreads says yes.
The reviews aren’t very… er… enthusiastic.
This is drawn in an impressive range of styles… and it’s all so much more horrid than you can imagine. I hope.
Simmons is really successful at what he’s doing, I guess — which is making people want to throw up. I’ll let Goodreads speak again:
| Shopping: Why Choose |  |
13:11: All My Bicycles by Powerpaola (Fantagraphics)
This is autiobio told through the lens of her bikes.
It’s really good — it’s sort of ruminative and odd, but it’s tied together by constantly returning to the bikes. It feels like a very free, natural and unforced way of structuring these glimpses of friendships gained and lost. It’s got a great flow.
| Sacred Paws: Six Songs |  |
13:31: Zoo no. 4 by Anand
This is in “album” size, but it has smaller pages at the start and end. Nice.
These stories are funny and sometimes touching. Some are almost straight-up jokes and others are more short-story like. It’s pretty great.
| Sacred Paws: Strike A Match |  |
13:59: Passage by Tessa Brunton (Sparkplug Books)
Wow, this is great. Love the artwork and layouts. This is from 2011, but I guess I missed it the first time around.
And it’s funny and extremely poignant.
| Shopping: The Official Body |  |
14:10: My Life Among Humans by Jed McGowan (Oni Press)
This is pretty odd — I mean the storytelling. Having a narrator chat this much is unusual these days.
But I think it works pretty well? It’s a sort of horror book, really, but also a comedy of sorts.
14:32: Puncentration Camp by Susan Kaplan
Wow.
There’s narrative content going on here, but it’s pretty associative.
It’s really impressive (and expressive). Cool books.
| Trash Kit: Horizon |  |
14:45: O’boy by Ida Larmo (Strand forlag)
This starts off as if it’s going to be a faux diary thing…
… but then abandons that immediately. Very odd, but I guess the conceit allowed them to do the fun cover design with a diary-like lock thing.
Hey! The sun went away, so I can sit on the balcony, which I’ve barely been able to do this year, because it’s been a cold and crappy summer. The few days it’s been warm, it’s been so windy that I couldn’t sit out here anyway.
(Note clever technical solution to getting sound on the balcony: Rotating a speaker.)
I really enjoyed this book. It’s one of those rare books about childhood that’s not about trauma or horrible things, but about the fun stuff about being 11. Sure, she goes through all the normal embarrassing things you do when you’re starting puberty, and It’s The Worst Every etc, but it’s all handled with an extremely light touch. But I’m not sure how much an 11-year-old now would relate to it, because it’s an extremely period piece — everything that happens is based on the author’s real diaries from about 1992, and everything feels 100% true. That’s… 32 years ago?
I think it’s a wonderful book, though.
| Shopping: All Or Nothing |  |
15:43: The Russian Detective by Carol Adlam (Penguin Random House)
This is a very ambitious book — it’s told in a variety of styles…
… and involves people with multiple identities, and mysteries, and dreams and ghosts and stuff.
It’s entertaining, but I’m not sure the payoff is commensurate with the effort demanded of the reader. That is, we’re being pleasantly confused throughout the book, but then the ending is just what we’ve assumed all along…
| Sacred Paws: Run Around The Sun |  |
16:27: Kijara 4 by Tatiana Goldberg (Comic Factory)
Well… This isn’t my kind of thing, but it’s the fourth album in a series, so it sounds like others enjoy it? For instance, the scene above is a stock “people bitching to each other while training” scene, with the Standard Fake Drama thing going on. But it’s a cliché because people like reading that scene. Or watching it on TV.
I have more of a problem with just the basic mechanics of reading these pages. On the left-hand page, can you tell where the characters are in relation to each other? In the third panel the door is missing, so are we doing a 180° camera movement, which would explain where they are in relation to each other — and the blue and yellow guy turned around, too? But then in the fourth panel the door is back, so we didn’t do an 180°, but both the red haired one and the blue one changed places? And then again in the sixth panel?
And it’s the same on the right-hand page — who’s to the left of who, and are they in front or behind the yellow tape?
If I’d enjoyed the story, I’m sure these things wouldn’t have annoyed me as much, but…
| R. Aggs: Tape 1 |  |
16:55: Illusions 1 by Floyd Tangeman
I love this.
It’s a collection of religious drawings, it says.
17:01: Guff #2
Errr… I’m not sure who made this?
Possibly Kai Eliott Reynolds?
Anyway, it’s good stuff. It’s a bit on the random side, but all the pieces are engaging. And there’s one that’s pretty funny.
17:10: Wild Combination by CJ Reay
This is a series of two-page spreads illustrating a snippet of Arthur Russell lyrics.
I like it.
Oops! I ran out of Ray Aggs albums… so I’ll switch to Talking Heads.
| Talking Heads: 77 (Sire) |  |
17:16: Bad Omen by Noah Blake
Interesting graphics…
… but it’s so brief that it’s over almost before it began.
17:23: Tom’s Bar by Berardi & Milazzo (Epicenter Comics)
The artwork here is really strong. This is Italian, I guess?
However, the stories are pretty standard Italian crime things with twist endings, so it’s not all that inspiring. The art almost makes up for it, though.
The translation doesn’t help — it’s pretty non-idiomatic, and things are frequently quite abstract. You’re not quite sure what they’re trying to say half of the time. I guess Epicenter Books is Croatian or something?
17:43: The Fortune of the Winczlavs 3 by Van Hamme & Berthet (Cinebook)
Why did I get this, then? I vaguely remember the previous album in the series being pretty bad…
Ah, yeah, it’s the story of Largo Winch’s ancestors… and I’ve barely read that series.
Yada yada yada. OK, I still have zero interest in this, so I’m ditching it.
| Talking Heads: More Songs About Buildings and Food |  |
17:52: World War 3 Illustrated #40
Aah! 2008! The last year anybody was optimistic about anything.
There’s good things in here, but it’s not a memorable issue. Not many people adhere to the theme — “What We Want” — but perhaps people were already getting disillusioned after a couple months of Obama.
| Talking Heads: Fear of Music |  |
But it’s fine.
18:26: The End
But I think I’m calling it a day, because it’s getting colder out here on the balcony…