Random Thoughts

I wasn’t gonna take a comics reading day today, but now I’m doing it anyway. But a short one, since I’m starting this late. Probably.

A Certain Ratio: Loco Remezclada

16:18: Anachro Magazine #1 edited by Floyd Tangeman (Deadcrow)

I got this yesterday, and as I was unpacking the package, I was going… er… what’s this… it’s big? What…

And then I went OH MY GH… OH MY GHHHHHHHH!

It’s an old book (about the artworks in the… Vatican?), and then there’s lots of stuff glued/stapled/taped into it. I mean, all kinds of things — envelopes, pages/panes from other comics, pages from notebooks, and stuff.

And some of the envelopes have other booklets inside etc. It’s so much fun.

And there’s painting/sketches on the pages itself. It’s brilliant! This is officially my favourite thing of the year!

So I read/looked at this thing yesterday for quite a while, but I’m just snapping some shots here so that you can be properly envious of me.

You’re welcome.

Just look at it!

I guess these people are the ones responsible. And I hope I didn’t get my copy by mistake, because I definitely didn’t pay enough for it.

Panoptique Electrical: Decades (2001-2021)

16:41: Marville by Bill Jemas, Mark Bright and others (Marvel Comics)

From the fantastic to the ridiculous… I read this tweet a few weeks back, and that reminded me of this:

The series was written by Bill Jemas, and the stories involve satirical comments on comic book industry conventions and trends. The book is regularly considered one of the worst comics of all time due to its confusing and rapidly-changing plots as well as its blatantly promotional nature.

Sounds great; I’ll have to read the other issues some time.

But then I totally forgot! So I now bought the Marville series, and now I’m gonna read it. So there. And I hope it’s as wonderful as that review says — “one of the worst comics of all time” is high praise indeed.

Huh. This is indeed pretty high concept.

But careful not to make fun of the current management at Marvel, I guess?

So the main character is a Superman-like guy called KalAOL… that’s… that’s a joke.

And it’s not that there aren’t plenty of jokes here — and some of them are even pretty OK. But it’s just really off. I could see this scene being quite funny with different pacing, perhaps, but it just kinda falls flat.

Well, that has a bit more bite… millionnaires punching/killing poor people because it’s what they do.

But then… with the third issue, the series grows really weird. They travel back in time and meet god (or Jack), and it’s told this way. And we’re told the history of the origin of life on Earth — and it’s not altogether totally wrong, either, but it’s really tedious.

But then they revert to speech bubbles with the fourth issue, and things grow even more tedious, and I didn’t think that was possible. It’s all about evolution/religion etc, and it’s so sophomoric that I literally died. I died. Literally.

Are these thoughts Jemas had been carrying arround since he was fifteen?

And then when you think it can’t get any worse, the sixth issue is a recap of the series! In case people were to stupid to get it the first time!

And then Jemas gives a pitch for his new version of Epic Comics, and you can read more about that here. (tl;dr It was a total shit show.)

So… one of the worst comics ever? Yes indeed — it’s really bad. The first two issues are OK, though.

Supertramp: Crime of the Century

17:45: Ric Hocket 6: Le Tiercé de la mort by Zidrou & Van Liemt (Zoom)

The first few albums in this revived series were pretty fresh.

The artwork is still attractive, but the storyline is almost as preposterous as Duchateau’s old plots, and even worse — it seems to drag instead of zip. Disappointing.

The Cure: 4:13 Dream

18:32: Flop Sweat #7-8 by Lance Ward (Birdcage Bottom Books)

I did some shopping at Birdcage Bottom and got a bunch of minis and larger books.

In a nicely illustrated box.

And a very nice bookmark and some stuff…

… and a menu? They have a café?

Anyway, Flop Sweat is an autobio comic, and it feels very honest (and is both pretty funny and affecting).

But it feels like Ward is so nervous about people not understanding the storyline that we get presented the same stuff many times — I’m guessing this was published page by page on the internet or something? Reading it in this format, though, it sometimes feels like the story moves like molasses.

It is a really interesting story, though, so that helps a lot. And christ, that Earl Root guy sounds like such an asshole — some of these pages are just painful to read. I’m going like “nooo, tell Earl to fuck off!” here on the couch.

But it’s good stuff.

19:22: Maple Terrace #1 by Noah Van Sciver (Uncivilized Books)

It seems like the indie floppy is having a kind of renaissance at the moment — I can’t imagine it makes economic sense (this book is only $6), but I really only the format.

OK, so this is going to be about Van Sciver’s childhood again…

It’s drawn in a simpler style than before, and I think that really suits the material.

And… wow. It’s just way, way harsher than Van Sciver has done before. If his family were uneasy about his comics before… This one is toe-curlingly raw and honest, it feels. I wanted to hide behind a pillow while reading it, because it’s excruciating.

And awesome! I think this might be Van Sciver’s best work yet, and he’s done a lot of great stuff. I can’t wait for the next issue.

Wouter Van Veldhoven: Mort Aux Vaches

19:34: PeePee-PooPoo #420 by Caroline Cash (Silver Sprocket)

There’s been a lot of buzz about this series (and this issue) all over the interwebs, I think? And it’s easy to see why — this is so good.

Every strip seems effortless and kinda perfect? The issue flows really well, too, with a mix of shorter and longer pieces.

19:45: Malarkey #4 by November Garcia (Birdcage Bottom Books)

I think I’ve read all the other issues in this series (including #5), but for some reason or other, not this one.

And, no surprise — it’s great. And I love the look of these pages.

But what happened to November Garcia anyway? It’s been a while since I’ve read anything new? Hm… she wrote an article about burnout in 2021. Well, I hope there’ll be more books, because she’s fantastic.

Richard Strange: The Live Rise of Richard Strange

20:08: Blab #1 edited by Monte Beauchamp (Dark Horse)

What? A new Blab #1? And from Dark Horse? That’s pretty… odd. I mean, that doesn’t seem like the most natural pairing.

And the format is more traditional than the previous Blab formats.

This starts off well enough with a Noah Van Sciver thing about an early British cartoonist…

… but that turns out to be kinda the theme of the issue: Many of the stories are about how mistreated comics artists were. Which is true, but the stuff they dredge up? Siegel and Shuster’s story of woe, which has been told so many times you could plotz (and this version of the story is about as exciting as reading the wikipedia page; it’s written by Beauchamp himself).

At least nothing else here can be that… “done”?

Yeah, Van Sciver does the story of How Wertham Killed US Comics. *sigh*

But Van Sciver does a good job here, and instead of talking about EC Comics, he talks about Crime Does Not Pay, and that story hasn’t been told that many times. So kudos for that, at least.

The longest piece is about Gorillas in popular culture, and goes on for a seemingly interminable 30 pages. I stopped reading after a page or two, so perhaps it’s totally brilliant?

The aesthetics of the new Blab isn’t quite like the old one — it went out on a kinda Daddy Roth/Juxtapoz tip, and there’s thankfully none of that here. But… it’s a nostalgic wallow, and I found most of the pieces either annoying or tedious.

But I’m sure there’s a whole bunch of people who’d be interested.

Niki Mono: Contradictions are a Luxury

20:56: Underlevet by Allen van Hansen (Forlaget Arabesk)

This one a “best comic” prize in Denmark last year, I think? So I got a copy.

The name of the book is a neologism and could perhaps be translated as “Subvival” — it’s a book about childhood sexual abuse.

Many of the pages from the childhood are illustrated like this — it’s very multimedial.

But most pages are illustrated traditionally, with a very expressive line.

The book is mostly about recovering suppressed memories, and the author uses a large number of metaphors to illustrate the difficulties. It’s well done, and the book is heartbreaking — but not necessarily… er… convincing? Some of these approaches feel pretty artificial.

Cat Power: Covers

21:28: The Cola Pop Creemees by Desmod Reed (Birdcage Bottom Books)

Is this a print-on-demand book? It has that feel…

Uhm… I guess I have to say that the character design doesn’t really do anything for me. But many of the gags are pretty funny.

It gets progressively less gag-ey, and is more about… well… depression and stuff.

Burial: Antidawn

(Oops, I think I’ve twiddled the white balance a bit much…) But it’s a pretty solid book. I feel that perhaps some of the bits were a bit repetetive, but there’s new stuff being introduced all the time, too. It’s an enjoyable read.

Humcrush with Sidsel Endresen: ha!

22:46: Lydie by Zidrou & Jordi Lafebre (Umpff)

This is the most cynical comic book I’ve read in a while. It’s melodrama that goes to 11. It doesn’t just push every button, it stomps on them while wearing wooden clogs. It’s so over the top that Douglas Sirk would have said “hey, that’s a bit much”. It’s Extruded Sentimental Product…

… but the thing is, it really works. It feels so calculated; like they had a conference deciding on what would be the most tear-jerkingest comic book ever, and then they did this.

*sniff*

23:10: That Ol’ English #1 by CM Campbell

This comic comes with helpful instructions.

The cartooning is kinda oldey-tymey, I guess, but it seems to float around in nothingness, so it’s not as engaging as it could have been, I think. The story is pretty interesting, but the book is pretty brief, so it’s hard to tell where this is all going (if indeed it’s going anywhere).

Stian Westerhus: The Matriarch And The Wrong Kind Of Flowers

23:22: Hul by Maya Elisabeth (Cobolt)

This reminds me of late 90s comics like Potential by Ariel Schrag, in a way. But more Swedish, which is odd, beause this is Danish.

Hottest sex scene ever!

It’s a good book, but it’s a bit static. That is, the first half flows along very nicely (even if the plot is a bit… standard), but then it’s like we have to sit through a bunch of scenes that have to be there because we have to get to the end. And the book loses all propulsion. But then it’s good again when we get towards the end.

00:03: Girls Steal Your Beauty by Ingrid Pierre (Verona Creative)

I don’t think I’ve seen a comic done quite this way — it’s so extreme in how it uses colours. (And, no, the white balance isn’t off again — there’s no white anywhere on these pages.)

This book is a collection of very brief stories; vignettes really. But every single one of these stories carry a punch; it’s amazing.

It’s an aboslutely flabbergasting book; I’m in awe.

And she has more books out, and I’m buying them all this second.

Prairie Empire: The Salt

00:21: Nada by Cabanes/Manchette (Mellemgaard)

Tardi’s adaptations of Manchette novels are famous, of course, and later artists have had a tendency to mimick Tardi, more or less. But Cabanes doesn’t at all, which is both a relief and a disappointment, I guess?

The Meters: Gettin’ Funkier All The Time (3): Just Kissed My Baby [Cabbage Alley & Rejuvenation]

This is a book about a heist, bus as it was written in 1972, and by Manchette, the heist in question is a bunch of Communists kidnapping the American ambassador. That’s fun! As usual in these hard boiled neo noir books, there are too many characters, and the preparations for the heist seem unnecessarily complicated (above, they steal guns from cops), but it’s got real nerve.

For a French comic book, it’s long — almost 200 pages, and it’s pretty dense. So it gives you a lot of time to get into this world, and… it really works. Towards the end of the book, I was at the edge of my sofa here. Super exciting and tense, and several nice kinda-sorta twists.

It’s one of the best French comics in this genre I’ve read in quite a few years.

Gichy Dan: Beachwood #9

02:16: Enlightened Transsexual Comix by Sam Szabo (Silver Sprocket)

The Manchette book was exhausting, but I just can’t go to bed yet, so — one more book.

Love the colours.

And it’s really funny.

Heh heh.

Anyway, this is a collection of shorter pieces, but mostly unified by theme. It’s a good read.

Catholic Discipline: Underground Babylon

02:51: The End

And now it’s starting to get light again, so I guess I should go to bed. Right? Right.

Got a big shipment of exciting stuff yesterday, so it’s comics readin’ time!

Matthew Herbert: The Horse

13:37: Causeway #8-9 by CF

And what’s more exciting than getting new stuff from CF?

I don’t know what this is all about, but it’s fun nontheless.

And very mysterious. Love it.

13:45: Junction Box by James Tonra

I also got a big package from Deadcrow, the premier (probably) publisher of underground comics (or something). This doesn’t seem to be actually published by Deadcrow, though…

This is a huge book — almost tabloid sized, I guess? And the paper is newsprint-like, but there’s a thicker cardboard cover. There are no dates anywhere in the book, and it feels slightly water-logged, and some of the pages haven’t been fully cut, so it’s an object that feels out of time? I went “whee!” when I opened the package.

The strips are a mix of narrative and non-narrative stuff. Some are funny, and some are serious, but it feels quite cohesive anyway.

Love it.

14:30: You Will Own Nothing And You Will Be Happy #1 by Simon Hanselmann

Hanselmann is self-publishing this series, which is supposed to run quarterly “for many years”!

Oh. This is a zombie thing?

That’s crushingly disappointing.

And… it also feels like a kind of a retread of Crisis Zone? Them being stuck in a house.

Hanselmann’s previous book (about Megg’s band) got a lot of criticism for being trying people’s patience, and… is Hanselmann leaning into it? “Look! I can be even more static!” But this is a really conventional book, really: I can easily see this being adapted into a Netflix TV series. It’s just so… normal. The only joke in here is Megg drinking bong water.

In the long (and amusing) text at the end, Hanselmann acknowledges the hackneydness of the zombie concept, and that text gives me hope for future issues of this series. It’s apparently going to be between 20 and 30 issues (48 pages each), so in that context, having a slow-moving first issue like this makes sense. I mean, as projected a 1200 page book.

So I’m cautiously optimistic about the series (which I’ll continue to buy, of course).

Fad Gadget: Gag

15:04: Call Me Nathan by Catherine Castro & Quentin Zuttion (Selfmadehero)

I like the artwork on this — very free-flowing and pretty. But the storytelling is really choppy. It seems to stumble along without much rhythm.

It’s a book that’s admirably on the side of the protagonist kid, but that’s also a problem: Nothing’s analysed or anything, and instead we just get a kid that’s honestly feels a bit whiny.

Various: Undergroundextra

15:31: Cowlick 6 by Floyd Tangeman (Deadcrow)

There’s a nice mix in this issue — about half the pieces are (more or less) narrative, and half are (more or less) abstract.

Gorgeous! (I don’t quite know who did this, because the contents page is… er… too much work for me.)

It’s another great issue — it flows well, and everything is interesting.

15:44: Slipping/The Basement/Quests by Kit Anderson

I bought a whole bunch of stuff from Radiator Comics.

This is very original — it’s a kind of horror story, I guess, but goes nowhere you’d expect. Love the storytelling.

This one is a wistful thing about memories and things.

And finally, an extremely charming book about a wizard that does nice things.

These are impressive little books — very original, and they’ve got a very moody mood going on.

16:05: Sun & Sand Comics Anthology 2 (Radiator Comics)

This is a very cute book apparently featuring local Florida artists?

The only problem is that the printing is a bit on the naff side. Or perhaps the scanning? Several pieces come off as way too brittle, so it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s going on.

But there’s mangoes in several stories, which reminds me:

I got some mangoes yesterday and forgot to year them.

Nom nom nom.

16:17: Centralia by Miel Vanderpitte (Living the Line)

The rendering is pretty impressive — it’s like a mix of… Moebius and… er… 30 comics strips?

Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting into this. I like whimsy and absurdity as much as the next person, but this just seemed like one kah-razy thing after another. It doesn’t really feel like it’s going anywhere? And then it turns out that it’s just a kinda normal save-the-city story, really. It’s the kind of thing that really should work, but it doesn’t. Instead it’s just kinda annoying and kinda boring. Kinda.

Oh, right — that explains why this has been translated, I guess? It’s sponsored by Big Dutch Export Money.

Sweeney: Corporeal

16:58: Ruining Your Cat’s Life/In Case if Emergency/Unicorns of Planet Earth by Lauren Barnett

I’ve been enjoying Barnett’s very funny strips on Solrad for a while now, and I finally got around to shopping her books.

I was talking about how distant the whole stay-at-home 2020 feels now — it’s just three years ago, but it feels like thirty. Response: “That’s because 2020 was like 30 years long.”

This book is very amusing, and the artwork is appealing — especially the painted bits. But one note: You absolutely don’t have to cover the cup of vinegar/soap — the point of the soap is reduce the water surface tension, which makes the flies drown when they put down on the liquid.

(Am I being the “ackshully” reply guy here? Probably!)

Nice!

The unicorn book is the oldest, and her artwork sure has developed since then. But it’s still funny (and slightly heartbreaking).

I also got a fridge magnet.

And that quarantine book reminded me that I should take a shower. Be right back.

Various: These Clouds…

17:51: Phase 7 #25 by Alec Longstreth

All refreshed.

Wut… #25? Of a book that I’m totally unfamiliar with? This cannot be! I see that he’s got a whole lot more available here…

This is pretty charming stuff. I think I’ll go on a mini shopping spree on that web site…

18:07: Cosmic Fern by Sarah Maloney

This is very trippy and quite fun.

18:11: Our Grans Station by Kelly Wang

This is really cute and more than a little wistful.

18:16: Lines no. 1 by Castro Jr.

You don’t see sports in comics much these days.

It’s a pretty amiable book, but it’s like the artist is afraid to actually say… well… anything, so it’s a bit… aimless?

18:32: Recent Minis/Sleep Tape 1-3 by Kit Anderson

Wow, I got a lot of Kit Anderson stuff from Radiator Comics…

The minis are really lovely.

Very calm and beautiful.

I appreciate that knot! Easy to open.

I’m not quite sure about the Sleep Tape books. I mean, the first one is very nice…

… but then the other two repeat/change up the sleep tape routine, and it all just becomes very soporific indeed. Which may well be the intended effect — these books will put you to sleep!

But now I have to eat some of these just to wake myself up! Yowza!

Neil Young: Archives Vol. II (2): Tuscaloosa (1973)

18:45: Girl Juice by Benji Nate (Drawn & Quarterly)

I’m guessing this was serialised on Instagram? It’s got that feeling.

So the first three quarters of a book is basically strips with a punchline at the end of each page, and some of those jokes are pretty good. Then Nate shifts into doing more long-form storylines, and that’s a lot interesting to read in a book. It gets a good groove going, but some of the sub-plots kinda go nowhere.

Then! Suddenly! We get something that read totally different — like a single, coherent story. Unfortunately, it’s just a riff on The Exorcist, but updated to an oh-so-topical “social media is the real demonic possession” thing, and it all falls flat.

But it’s an attractive book that’s pretty funny, and I can totally see people reading this, literally rolling around on the floor, laughing.

King Crimson: The Complete 1969 Recordings (7): Live at the Fillmore West

20:06: Escape from the Great American Novel by Drew Lerman (Radiator Comics)

This reminds me quite a bit of Dorman’s Doggie-era Frank Stack. With more Herriman, of course — the dialect play is quite impressive.

And… I’m guessing this is also an Instagram strip? (Hanselmann mentioned not wanting to serialise his new book on Insta for various reasons — one was the it cramps the layouts.)

This is all one long story — but it still follows the strip format (with a punchline on every page).

Oval: Romantiq

But it’s got a good flow nevertheless — the antics are pretty amusing, and it all holds together. And I love the cartooning — it’s so… classic.

RP Boo: Legacy Volume 2

21:38: ??? Comix #1 by Floyd Tangeman

Sorry, I’m unable to parse that logo…

Oh, it’s one huge sheet… one-sided. But like eight pages anyway. It’s cool.

I don’t know whether this is part of that thing? It seems to be a collection of articles about bus lines in Brooklyn being redesigned and stuff?

Most puzzling!

21:45: Maelstrom by Céline Hudréaux (Bries)

I read the short story by Edgar Allen Poe a few days ago — this is a wordless adaptation of the story, so I thought it might make sense to read it first. (And they included it as a booklet in the book.)

This is very pretty…

Oh. Most of the book doesn’t really adapt the short story (which I wondered about — the story is so slight that I didn’t quite see how you’d expand that into a book). But instead we get a whole lot of drawings of marine life and life in general in this (allegedly) Norwegian city. It’s cool.

And then we get the maelstrom bit at the end, and I’m glad I read the story first, because I wouldn’t quite have gotten what was going on. :-/

But since I had, I quite enjoyed the sequence anyway.

21:54: Winter of Our Pandemic by David Collier (Spare Parts Press)

Collier’s books are usually pretty digressive, but have some kind of over-arching theme going on… but this seems even more meandering than usual. Not that I mind much.

But pet peeve time: A book with a very right binding and small gutters is just annoying to read. I mean, you have to bend it open all the time. Bend. Beeeend.

Snapped Ankles: Blurtations

But as always with Collier’s books — they’re kinda irresistible. I’m drawn into the storytelling rhythms and everything starts to make sense (even if there are things that don’t make much sense at all). Collier’s work has something ineffable going on… it’s like things grow more still and silent while reading? Everything slows down.

Roomful of Teeth: Rough Magic

23:22: 20km/h by Woshibai (Drawn & Quarterly)

I initially thought that this was going to be something Yuichi Yokoyama-like, but instead it’s a collection of brief vignettes (each a handful of pages long).

The artist seems to strive for a poetic/”isn’t that ironic” punny thing in most of the strips.

But like… fuck off. This stuff was trite forty years ago, and now it’s just offensively tedious. Is this a strip designed to be shared on Facebook or something? “Oh, it’s so poetic! It’s so deep!” It’s puke-worthy, is what it is.

What’s happened to Drawn & Quarterly? Half their output these days is just … horrible.

23:38: Gordita: Built Like This by Daisy Ruiz (Black Josei Press)

I’ve read so many comics about being bullied in school and stuff (it’s a perennial among comic book artists, for some reason *ahem*), so I’m a bit wary of these books these days…

… but this was just flabbergastingly interesting. It’s told in a very straightforward way that shouldn’t work, but it ends up being emotionally affecting as well as entertaining and pretty funny. That the artwork is lovely doesn’t hurt, either. It’s a real uplifting surprise.

Lonnie Holley: Just Before Music

23:53: The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen (Random House)

The artwork here is, I guess, sorta halfway between Japanese and French? It’s sometimes a bit hard to tell the characters apart.

But it’s quite interesting. We get three stories at once, sort of — there’s the main story, where a boy is (among other things) reading a fairy tale to his mother, and then the fairy tale, and then the mother remembering her own history. So we get these three stories colour-coded like the above. Not that that’s original or anything, but it’s done very fluidly; it’s pleasant to read.

The pacing drags a bit towards the end, but the book stakes the ending. It’s a solid book.

00:52: Salome’s Last Dance by Daria Tessler (Fantagraphics)

This is the weirdest thing Fantagraphics has published in a while. It’s like… uhm… I guess it most reminds me of 70s underground comix, and in particular Kim Deitch? But it’s not like that, really — it’s totally original.

It’s kinda awesome.

01:06: The End

And now I’m utterly exhausted, so I should go to bed.