It’s comics readin’ time!
| Black Cab: Games of the XXI Olympiad (2024 remasters collection) |  |
13:28: Mini Kuš #123-126
Sara Boiça’s book is low-key, but extremely insense.
Majenye’s book consists of a number of shorter pieces — some of which are hilarious (a typical comic book convention is depicted above).
Mark Antonius Puhkan’s book is gorgeous av very mysterious.
Matti Hagelberg’s book is mysterious, too, in that I didn’t quite, er, get it.
Anyway, that’s a good batch of little books. You can get them from here.
13:43: Men hvem er du? by Martin Ernsten (Gyldendal)
This is a book about a father with Alzheimer who’s dying.
It’s a remarkably unsentimental portrayal.
There’s a lot of anger and frustration here, but also a deep despair. It’s powerful and disquieting.
And it won comic book of the year in Norway.
| Arooj Aftab: Vulture Prince |  |
14:06: Giraffes in My Hair by Bruce Paley and Carol Swain (Fantagraphics)
I have no idea how I missed this book — I love Carol Swain, and this book is from 2009!
Swain’s artwork and storytelling is lovely as usual.
Heh. Swain does Kirby!
The stories are of the anecdote type — the kinds that seem like they’ve been told over and over again. And I’m not blaming Paley — if I had these stories to tell, I’d tell them. But they feel like they’ve been honed down too much over the years, and now they’ve become standard set pieces. You get the story of walking around Manhattan in a snow storm to score heroin, you get the story where they land in jail, you get the story where he’s dodging the draft by playing insane… It’s like they’ve selected scenes based on “yeah, people love reading that anecdote”? It feels weirdly impersonal.
It seems like I’m not the only one who feels that way:
This is a tricky book for me: I love Carol Swain’s work, and will pretty much take anything she offers, but Bruce Paley’s anecdotes are dull, utterly pointless and would probably amount to less than five type-written pages without Swain’s (sadly slapdash-looking) illumination.
| Ghost Dubs: Damaged |  |
15:07: Cashiers du cinéma edited by Dan Welch and David Cardoza
This anthology made by people who works/worked in movie theatres…
… and it’s all about how awful people who go to see movies are, of course.
The most fun piece is the one by Josh Bayer.
And there’s a fold-out poster in the middle.
| Idles: TANGK |  |
15:43: Jobnik! by Miriam Libicki
This is an autobio comic from when Libicki was 19 and was in the Israeli army.
| Nia Archives: Forbidden Feelingz |  |
But as support staff, and bored to death. (I think in most European countries positions like hers would be filled by civilian staff?)
| Adult Jazz: Earrings Off! |  |
It’s really intriguing — Libicki is juxtaposing her quotidian experiences with the drama going around politically and military in Israel at the time, but is not drawing any overt conclusions about anything, and is instead presenting the material to the reader and letting them draw their own conclusions.
| Joan as Police Woman & Benjamin Lazar Davis: Let It Be You |  |
The artwork also has a sort of meandering, non-insisting flow, so it all works very well.
It’s not a very uh flattering portrait of the IDF, and you can totally see the connection between the oddballs here and the social media posts coming from IDF soldiers in Gaza now.
Anyway, you can get it from here.
OK, I think I have to take a nap now.
| Shearwater: Animal Joy |  |
20:50: Blacksad: Alors, tout tombe by Díaz Canales/Guarnido (Egmont)
I’ve bought this two-parter in Danish and Norwegian and in different sizes? Well, that’s OK.
I’d forgotten the odd anthropomorphism in Blacksad — that is, everybody’s kinda human, really, but there’s still some species difference (like in the mole guy opening a can of worms for lunch). I like it — it’s playful and allows the artist to draw a lot of different animal heads.
And the artwork is the main attraction here — it’s so attractive. And the panels flow so well.
The plot? Well, it’s pretty entertaining, too — it’s about a Robert Moses analogue, who’s even more evil than the original architect.
| Charli XCX: Brat |  |
This is a film noir pastiche, so there’s so many plot twists that I was starting to get fed up.
But I have to say that I really liked the final plot twist — I didn’t see that coming at all, and I went “heh heh” out loud. Good stuff. And if I understand correctly, this is the end of the Blacksad series?
| Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion: Rectangles and Circumstance |  |
21:52: Death Spark 1 edited by Thomas Campbell
This is a quite varied anthology — a couple pieces go for gross-out stuff or just an unexpected joke (like Trevor Alixopulos)…
… but the Katie Lane piece is something else altogether. It’s fractured and engrossing and in the end rather unnerving. Fantastic stuff.
| Gastr Del Sol: We Have Dozens Of Titles |  |
22:10: Chromatopsie by Quentin Zultion (Éditions Lapin)
I’ve been slacking off my Duolingo the last few months, and I’ve read no French comics at all. So I want to get started again…
Hey! I understand everything on these pages!
Here’s some new words. “Leur chatte”… “Son cul”… *gasp* These are naughty words! Where’s my pearls! I need something to grip!
Anyway, this is a collection of vignettes, mostly about love and sex and stuff. I really like the artwork, and the way the stories flow in a kind of airy way.
There’s heavy drama in many of the stories, but it’s usually pretty symbolic, and the stories end in a pensive way. It’s a really enjoyable read.
23:12: Att misslyckas som människa by Joakim Pirinen (Kartago)
OK, gotta do some Swedish, too, to complete my language matrix.
This is a hefty book of one-page gags.
That is, there’s a drawing, and a pun or a joke underneath.
The attraction here is the totally wild artwork — it sometimes tends towards Gary Panter 1981, which is great.
With this many gags, not all of them can be winners, but there’s quite a few funny ones.
23:44: Š! #51 (Kuš)
The theme of the issue is mindfulness.
And the stories in the first half take the concept seriously…
… and then the last half is more jokey or contrarian. I was getting worried there for a while, but it ends up being a solid issue.
| Machinedrum: 3for82 |  |
23:58: What Did You Eat Yesterday? 21 by Fumi Yoshinaga (Vertical)
OK, I’m fading, but one more…
I’ve been reading this series for years, and it’s so… calming.
Even though I’m never going to make any of these dishes.
The past few volumes have been developing longer story arches, but it’s glacial. This is in chapter 167 — Kakei meets Kenji’s parents! It’s a really funny episode, though — I laughed out loud.
| Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown |  |
01:00: The End
OK, but now I’ve read enough comics for one day.