Comics Daze

larsmagne23

2 hours ago

OK, I haven’t had a day of comics dazing in too long a time, and the comics are starting to pile up, so let’s get to it.

And I think I’ll play a lot of random albums from 1991 as accompaniment — 1991 isn’t a good year for music, really, but let’s try it anyway…

Lisa Germano: On the way down from the Moon Palace

12:57: Heaven by Katie Skelly (Fantagraphics)

This is a fun book — it’s about a group of friends finding a mysterious… strip joint…

… and then stuff happens. Can you guess what the twist is?!! … You can? You totally already guessed what the mystery is? Yeah, me too.

But it’s an engaging book nevertheless — even though the pacing is off. And what’s with the friends waiting for hours and hours outside the strip joint? That’s just weird.

13:12: Stay by Jesse Rimler (Fieldmouse Press)

I really like the artwork here — very appealing.

But at the first here I thought I totally knew where this was going, and I was getting annoyed… but then it turns out to be something totally different! Wonderful!

This is a great book — fresh, funny and also really scary, in a way. Unnerving.

Chris & Cosey: Pagan Tango

13:22: What Is The Deal With Gabrielle Bell by Gabrielle Bell

I’ve read these comics before (on Bell’s patreon), but it’s nice to read them all in one go.

This book is very focused — it’s all about Bell’s experienced with some kinda newfangled magnetic resonance therapy thing. It’s good stuff.

Consolidated: Brutal Equation

14:02: Tales from Qyleoth by Yaxam

I think I bought this from Domino Books — I got a big shipment from there the other week.

This is fun — it channels first generation underground comics so perfectly.

If you’d picked this up in a head shop in 1969, it would have felt totally at home there.

I like it.

14:22: The Cannibals by Tinguu (Fieldmouse Press)

I must have had a shipment from Fieldmouse Press…

Oh deer… this is one of those metaphorical comics, isn’t it?

But worse than the tablet-ness of it all is that it veers into the dreaded Desktop Publishing Territory.

I had to drop the book halfway through.

14:30: Grampa by Travis Rommerheim (Silver Sprocket)

Hey! Stickers! With silver print!

This is an entertaining little book.

It’s very slight, though — I wouldn’t have minded reading a much longer book of this stuff.

And the punchline is great.

Front 242: Tyranny >For You<

14:33: Stagnation Seed by Bennizone (Fieldmouse Press)

Fieldmouse have traditionally not done a lot with different formatting and stuff, but that book up there was a hardback on very shiny paper, and this one is spiral bound? I love amusing formats, but…

… what’s the point here, though? It seems so unmotivated — there’s no connection between the format and the contents.

And this is, once again, something Very Symbolic Indeed, which isn’t my thing at all.

But I like the artwork, even if it’s tabletey.

Pale Saints: Throwing Back the Apple

14:41: Bimbo Agitprop by Raquelle Jac (Fantagraphics)

Hehehe, that’s great.

Pale Saints: Flesh Balloon

I really like the artwork — Aline Kominsky is name-checked several times in this book, which is appropriate. The storytelling isn’t much like hers, though — I wonder whether My Favorite Thing Is Monsters was an inspiration?

Pet Shop Boys: Was It Worth It?

But… what this book reminds me most of is Precious Rubbish. It’s a book about how horrible her parents are, and they’re really horrible.

Everything is gone over again and again, and analysed to death, leaving no space for the reader. It’s chock full of stuff that sounds like it has been worked out over years of therapy. And it’s also careful to guard itself by adding any objections the reader could have into the work itself — everything is explained repeatedly. Did I say repeatedly? Repeatedly.

So — a clear candidate for all the “best of 2026” lists that’ll start dropping in a couple months time.

(I feel like this is a current trend — perhaps because everything is so often taken out of context, artists over-explain things to make sure that readers understand what they’re actually saying; no need for interpretation. But at the same time, the book is frustratingly vague on basic biographical information — like, how many sisters does she have, anyway? We’re told about a wonderful weekend she spent with her younger sister… and then she isn’t (I think) ever mentioned again. There’s also an older sister mentioned, but isn’t shown except in a “flash forward” sequence, I think? So — overdetermined but with “plot holes”: Not a good combo.)

I did like the final section, about going to a Flaming Lips happening while on acid.

ESG: ESG

16:40: Bobbie Cade by Juliette Collet

This is another newspaper size comic from Collet.

This time around, it’s one single story, which makes a change, I think? It’s pretty goofy, which I like.

Joni Mitchell: Night Ride Home

16:54: L’inconnu de la Tamise by Boudouin Deville (E-Voke)

Huh, how odd. I mean, this is meant to emulate the Edgar P. Jacobs school of comics, but it’s obviously been drawn on a tablet. So it’s brand new? But the shapes are just a smidgen odd — has it all been drawn with vectors and bezier curves? I mean, the look is attractive, but it’s just… uncanny.

If it turns out that this is some forgotten classic from the 60s then I’m gonna look pretty foolish. I mean, I can’t just edit the text above after doing some research, can I? OK, research time! Oh, but before that — I also suspect that this isn’t a French artist. Perhaps Swiss? OK.

AAARGHL! It’s from 1984! I was totally wrong! And… he’s Belgian.

Darn! I wish this editor had editing capabilities!

But man… this artwork just looks inhumane, doesn’t it? It’s like… a Charles Burns that doesn’t quite know how to draw convincing figures decided to do a Jacobs book. (But featuring women.)

So odd.

Anyway, I didn’t really catch much of the story, because I was just fascinated by the odd artwork. The story didn’t really seem to be very good?

17:12: Le Cirque Bodoni by Peyo et Walthéry (Dupuis)

Oh, I gotta do my French lessons today. I read the first half of this album yesterday.

I especially liked the joke about the sad debt collector who wishes he hadn’t listened to his father, and instead followed his dream to become a “tueur aux abattoirs”. Heh heh.

Anyway, Benoît Brisefer is a classic children’s series. I remember reading a couple of these as a child (in translation), but I don’t think I ever read this one?

It’s very lively and full of gags and jokes. And since it’s geared towards five year olds, it’s perfect for me. I mean, my French level.

C’est vachement drôle.

17:40: Conversations with Don DeLillo by Drew Lerman (Cram Books)

I really liked Lerman’s Snake Creek book…

… but this one is awfully slight.

(Ooops, out of focus; sorry.) I guess this was serialised on Instagram? It has that low ambition feel.

Tuxedomoon: The Ghost Sonata

18:00: Squanderlust by Krusty Wheatfield

Now with this one, being spiral bound makes total sense.

It’s a collection of (I’m guessing) notebook pages drawn of the past few years? It’s entertaining.

18:19: This Place Sucks So Much by Tana Oshima

This little book sounds like it’s going to be kinda didactic…

But it isn’t! It’s loose and impressionistic and great!

I love it! You totally get the feeling of being in that place in just a few pages — everything is imbued with so much character and emotion. A wonderful little book, and I got it from here.

Consolidated: Friendly Fascism

18:28: Bloom by Andrew White

Heh heh.

This is a super-referential comic — I guess Pickle is what echoes the hardest here — and it’s a totally fascinating book to read. You get shivers running down your spine every few pages.