Geez. I still haven’t fixed my sleeping patterns, and one needs to be bright awake to read comics, right? But let’s see how this goes.
And for music er “today”, let’s go with albums from 2024 only.
| Bogdan Raczynski: You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever |  |
04:45: Mini Kuš #127-130 (Kuš)
This is the first Walker Tate book I’ve seen in colour? I think? And it’s a departure in other ways, too — it’s more of an er story? But it’s good.
Apolonija Lučïć gives us tips on collecting seashells.
Yuma Wang seems to be telling us to be more selfish. I don’t think that’s usually a problem most people have…
etchingroom1 talks about love.
It’s another lovely batch of minis, and you can get them from here.
| My Brightest Diamond: Fight The Real Terror |  |
04:58: Holler by Jeremy Massie (Dark Horse)
This art style is like a distillation of the 90s Alternative Comics style… bu on a Cintiq, so it loses that appealing texture those books sometimes had.
The books is mostly shorter anecdotes about being in a band, and a teenager in love, and guys being dicks to each other, and religious damage. It’s almost supernaturally standard. If you like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing you like.
Where it goes totally off the rails are in these bits that are supernaturally tedious.
And there’s the generally embarrassing bits.
But it’s OK, I guess? I’m guessing a lot of people would like this book.
| Oranssi Pazuzu: Muuntautuja |  |
06:12: Orakelet Taler by Liv Strömquist (Forlaget Manifest)
This book is basically about being a human bean today. It’s mostly a critique of self help books and influencers and stuff, and the influencer parodies are very funny.
This sort of thing can devolve into an illustrated essay, which wouldn’t be very exciting, but Strömquist is a very inventive comics maker.
The bits where she makes fun of religions are also very amusing.
| Porridge Radio: Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me |  |
Heh heh heh. It’s funny and smart. I wonder whether there’ll be an English language edition? I hope so.
| Sophie: Sophie |  |
07:47: Adrift on a Painted Sea by Tim Bird & Sue Bird (Avery Hill)
This little book is very moving — it features paintings by the author’s mother (who has recently died)…
… and the author tries to make sense of her stuff and things. It’s great — it’s really unresolved, but the vagueness of the structure is perfect for the material.
08:02: Welcome to Casa Baba by Giulia Cellino/Jindrich Janicek/Jurits Tatarkins (Baba Jaga)
I got this from the nice people at Kuš, and it’s a collection of things created while on artist residency programs.
This one is very funny — I LOL’d out loud several times.
Really like the moody artwork here — and the story is about working in a bookstore, which is a nice staple for a reason.
The last one is a bit more abstract — more sketchbook like. But cool, too.
That residency program sounds nice.
| Squarepusher: Venus No. 17 Maximised |  |
08:18: Clay Footed Giants by Alain Chevarier/Mark McGuire (Mad Cave)
Wow, Mad Cave had a lot of people working on this book. Especially surprising since this was originally published in French by a totally different publisher.
I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything from Mad Cave before, though? They’ve never been on my radar…
I like the artist’s rendering style, if not his actual faces and stuff.
It starts off being about the stress of handling your kids while your wife is away on work trips. Looks stressful!
Then it becomes all about daddy issues, because of course it does.
So I’m guessing this book features a lot of details from the authors’ own history? But it doesn’t read like an autobio thing at all — it seems very much like it’s following pat fiction structures. You’ve got the three acts, the scenes of So Much Unbelievable Drama, the pat resolutions…
| Thurston Moore: Flow Critical Lucidity |  |
What I’m saying is that it’s not very good (except some of the artwork), and that I’m going back to ignoring Mad Cave again, even if they have so many people working on their books.
| Bill Frisell, Kit Downes, Andrew Cyrille: Breaking the Shell |  |
09:49: Folkbokförd i rännstenen by Tommy Sundvall (Galago)
This book collects four tall tales featuring these two characters.
The artwork’s pretty basic, but get the job done.
| The Necks: Bleed |  |
A bigger problem is that the author seems to lose his enthusiasm for the project half way through. The book starts with a lot of mad-cap crimes, but then it sort of deflates.
It’s fun, though.
| Xylitol: Anemones |  |
11:27: Exceptional X-Men #1-2 by Ewing/Carnero/Woodard (Marvel Comics)
Another attempt at finding a monthly super-hero book to read…
The storytelling here is just… like… wha? Even on a modern super-hero scale, it’s just hard to place people in relation to each other and tell what’s supposed to be going on.
It’s a shame, because the story seems pretty OK? Perhaps I’ll give it a couple more issues.
| Xeno & Oaklander: VIA NEGATIVA (in the doorway light) |  |
11:44: Sine qua non by Katie Lane
I really like the artwork.
I think I’ve read at least parts of this before? Perhaps in an anthology? And this is printed very small (and sometimes faintly), so it’s a bit of a strain on my old eyes to read this…
| repository: Xiu Xiu |  |
11:53: Curriculum BD by Annie Goetzinger (Les humanoides associes)
This is a collection of things Goetzinger did for Metal Hurlant in the 70s, I think? I’ve never read any of this before.
And her style is a lot more florid than her later style. It’s really cool, though.
The stories vary in length from single pages to a handful of pages, and some of them are pretty lame (mostly ones she didn’t write herself). It’s still fun.
| Dummy: Free Energy |  |
12:42: Earthbound by Blonk (Pow Pow Press)
This is a relationship drama/sitcom starring a zombie, and it’s told (mostly) in these two-page spreads that have a vague punchline at the end.
And… even for a zombie thing, there’s so much drama.
This is totally not my thing, so I’m ditching it halfway through.
13:09: The End
And that’s enough comics for today. I lasted longer than I thought I would!