Random Thoughts

Oh, deer. I’ve gotten another batch of comics, so I have to read for days. Such a harsh life.

Sophie: Nothing More To Say

06:16: The Secret Voice by Zack Soto (Floating World Comics)

Oops. I seem to have bought both the single issues from Study Group Comics as well as the collection from Floating Worlds…

Speaking of:

While unpacking packages yesterday, I was surprised to find another package from Floating World Comics — containing exactly the same books I got a couple weeks ago? They sent me the books twice? Hey, do you want them back or something? The postage from Norway to the US is probably more than they cost to buy, though… If anybody else wants this stack of comics and can drop by to collect them (I’m in Oslo), drop me a note. (I’m using a forwarding service, so I’m already out of the $$$ for shipping the books from the US to Norway with DHL.)

It’s an unusual colour scheme — yellows and purples.

Anyway, the story’s so much fun! It feels like a huge fantasy world that we’ve barely scratched the surface of, and I want more. Unfortunately, this was published in 2018, and I don’t think there’s been any further issues of the pamphlet? (Which started publishing in 2005 from Adhouse, I think?) So it’s taken over a decade to get these 140 pages…

The three issues from Study Group has the same material as the collections, and not much in the way of extras. Except this.

Cris Williamson: The Changer and the Changed

06:58: Dear Mother & Other Stories by Bhanu Pratap

This is pretty interesting graphically.

And totally fucked up. (It gets really squicky as it progresses.)

Joe Jackson: Mad At You

07:07: Georgia O’Keeffe by Maria Herreros (Selfmadehero)

What the… I swore I’d never buy another comic book artist biography? But here we are, somehow.

I quite like Herreros’ artwork.

But, as expected, it’s not a very good book. It centres everything upon O’Keeffe’s relationship with Stieglitz, and has an annoying way of insisting that it knows exactly what her intentions and thoughts are.

It’s another one of these books where you feel, after reading it, that perhaps you should have read the Wikipedia article instead, because it being a comic doesn’t really bring anything interesting to the table. But I’m glad these things keep artists gainfully employed; sure.

Dance Chapter: Anonymity

07:27: The Collected Prairie Pothole by John Porcellino (Uncivilized)

This is a collection of Porcellino’s strips from The Reader.

It’s fun to read Porcellino work in a comic strip idiom — i.e., having a sort of punch line (for some values of punch line) — instead of his usual more ruminative mode. (Which is also great.)

Tom Tom Club: Wordy Rappinghood

07:41: Hr. Vadim by Gihef & Morgann Tanco (Zoom)

This is pretty high concept — an old ex Foreign Legion guy gets bilked out of his pension (because that’s totally a thing that could happen in France and/or Belgium) and thrown out of the retirement home — and then goes on to, er, become an assassin slash vigilante.

So the storyline’s crappy, and the artwork is totally bog standard, so it’s not a very inspiring read.

David Byrne: 3 Big Songs

It’s not totally without charm, but it’s just so fucking stupid. The only plot device the authors knows about is the one called “total coincidence”, and it turns out, totally coincidentally, that everybody is involved with everybody else, so it turns into a very tangled ball of yarn. So the plot seems geared towards twelve-year-olds, while the violence level (one mobster is choked to death with a dildo) seems a bit over the top for that age segment.

I hope.

Tuxedomoon: Ninotchka

08:37: Cherry by Inéz Estrada (Kilgore Books)

I love this.

It’s so wild and fun. It’s like a proper, perfect strange little comic book.

A Flock of Seagulls: Space Age Love Song

08:47: Me & Night by Angela Fanche (Cram Books)

Heh, fun — I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book printed this way before?

The paper is folded this way, and then stapled at the other end. I love oddly printed books.

Anyway, these are diary comics. I’m quite into diary comics — when they work, they can be really interesting.

And this is pretty fantastic. It never gets into a daily grind, really (some diary comics tend towards repetition, naturally), but is endlessly varied (even if some themes are consistent).

It’s a quite harrowing reading experience, especially towards the end, when things just get more and more depressing.

It’s an amazing reading experience.

Richard Horowitz: Eros in Arabia

10:10: Nap Time

My sleeping is so fucked up these days — it might have something to do with renovations seemingly happening all around me…

Cristina: Cristina

14:01: Children of Mu-Town by Masumara Jushichi (Glacier Bay Books)

That was a long nap. And now apparently the neighbours across the street have started sawing metal pipes or something?

As usual with Glacier Bay, the book itself is just physically pleasant to read — because they use this er “detached spine” kind of thing (I have no idea what it’s called), so that you can open the pages wide. Lovely little detail.

This starts off in a most confusing manner…

… it’s not clear whether we’re in a dream world, or whether there’s “real” scenes and “symbolic” scenes or what, but then it all clicks into place: It’s a quite straightforward story, but with certain absurdist elements.

It’s wonderful! It’s so masterfully told, always on the brink of confusion, but then clarity. It’s an engrossing read, kinda propulsive?

And kudos to Glacier Bay for not including an essay explaining just what we just read, which is the American tradition for Japanese alternative comics — more as a vehicle for writing essays than enthusiasm for actually publishing the darn thing. (You know who.)

I should just go ahead and buy everything Glacier Bay has published already, instead of buying a book here and there via Domino.

*time passes while shopping*

Various: Special Club: Hiver 81-82

15:05: The Airy Tales by Olga Volozova (Sparkplug)

This is a unique reading experience — the panels (with text) are arranged in odd ways, and the stories have a very strange flow.

It feels like unmediated art? The way these tales are told remind me of the way I would spin fantasies when I was like 11: These are narratives, but lurch this way and that, and obsess about certain things.

Very interesting.

Phew: Phew

15:41: Tif et Tondu: Échecs et Match by Will & Desberg (Zoom)

I really have to stop buying these.

This is from 1981, and is still in 50s boys’ comics mode (which I quite like), so it’s better than a decade later, when they attempted being more grown up, but it’s still not… like… good. It’s kinda charmless? I do think I would have enjoyed certain bits of the plot when I was 11, though.

Phew: Phew

16:06: Long Gone #3 & #4 by Samuel Benson

This reminds me of 90s indie single author anthologies — but more heartfelt and less distanced.

It’s a really enjoyable read — these are pretty original little stories, and the artwork is satisfyingly messy.

Alan Vega: Collision Drive

16:27: Likbilen by Nærum / Volle (Cappelen Damm)

I like the artwork.

This is a sci-fi satire sort of thing — it feels like a retread of French 70s comics, in a way. The storytelling is pretty choppy, though, and I found it difficult to not get impatient with the story as it wound its way to the expected conclusion.

OK, I bought a whole bunch of smaller comics from Domino, so let’s put on some singles while reading those…

The Creatures: Right Now

16:46: Blah Blah Blah #2 by Juliette Collet

Love the artwork.

It’s a kind of wistful autobio book? It’s good.

Blaine L. Reininger: Playin’ Your Game

16:57: Good Night Seattle by Julia Gförer

Gförer’s published a whole bunch of these minicomics, but I can never remember which ones I’ve already bought… She should just publish a regular single author anthology already.

This is very funny, and exquisitely drawn as usual.

This Mortal Coil: Kangaroo

17:02: My Sux by Angela Fanche

It’s a lovely little book.

Junie Morrison: Techno-Freqs

17:05: Psychedelic Desert by Mia Gilling

Very tranquil.

Junie Morrison: Techno-Freqs

17:07: Skim Lizard 5 edited by Dylan Williams

This is a mini from 1994, and we open with a lovely letter from Bill Schanes.

The longest piece here is this Dave Cooper er masterpiece.

And Dave Sim writes in, too.

Colourbox: Say You

17:16: Superb Uti by Jack Reese

Wow, love this. Kinda Yokoyamaish? Not in the art style, but somehow anyway.

Colourbox: Punch

17:21: Bunny Bear by Andy Heck Boyd

Very odd (in a good way).

Colourbox: Punch

17:24: The Golem of Gabriol by Olga Volozova (Sparkplug)

This is in some ways more straightforward than that book up there (it’s a retelling of the Lilith story with some added stuff), but it’s told in a somewhat oblique manner. Interesting, though.

Colourbox: Punch

17:31: Becoming by Elif Baysak

This is really cool. It’s a narrative of sorts (on the right-hand pages)…

… but on the left-hand pages, we have top/bottom halves of strange faces, so you can construct your own. It reads really well if you just read it sequentially, flipping half page by half page, but it’s also fun to play with.

The artwork kinda reminds me of Mark Beyer? No higher praise is possible.

Hm… should I eat dinner? I should probably eat dinner. But another book first:

Cocteau Twins: The Spangle Maker

17:38: From This Flame by Oumi Konomi (Glacier Bay Books)

Uh-oh. I hope I didn’t just buy another copy of this book… uhm… yup, I did.

This is very contemplative and calm.

And gorgeous artwork.

Breathless: Waterland

17:47: Dinner

Even with the huge nap in the middle there, I’m fading, so I think I’ll call it a night.

That was a fabulous batch of comics (with a couple of exceptions, like Vadim and Likbilen). But exhausting.

I really shouldn’t be taking a day off to read comics — I’ve got errands to run and stuff — but I’ve gotten so much stuff over the last week that I just have to.

It’s a hard life.

Various: PC Music Volume 3

13:56: Cixtite Impératrice by Anne Simon (Fantagraphics)

Oh, this is the continuation of the Aglaia thing…. which I remember nothing of, but I think I’ve read it?

The printing of half the pages at the start is really bleached out. Printing error, I guess?

The ones that aren’t bleached looks quite nice. It’s a muted palette.

The story is kinda “eh”? I mean, it’s all about how horribly exotic Chinese people are, without even much filing off of the serial numbers. And the storytelling is oddly choppy — I mean, some scenes have a good flow, and then there’s abrupt changes.

Various: PC Music Volume 3

14:32: Tongues #5 by Anders Brekhus Nilsen

I love getting these books out of the blue. Not only are the physical books exquisite, but it’s like getting a birthday present with all these little bits and bobs.

I don’t know how many years it’s taken to get to this issue, but I’m amazed at how much I remember from previous issues. I could, like, go back and read them all every time I get a new issue, but uhm I’m waiting until it’s complete. And I really enjoy reading them this way — semi-confused, semi-recalling who these characters are and what the plot is.

This is a quite chatty issue, though, and things are coming to ahead. I found the discussion between the two gods puzzling, though — they kept saying that human minds are to wonderful and amazing, which feels like… fan service on a more abstract plane. Having characters going “oh yeah, the reader is so fantastic and smart and hot” (OK, didn’t say the last bit) is a bit eye-rolling.

We’re pretty stupid creatures — if these gods are impressed by our pattern recognition and synthesis skills, then those gods are pretty tragic.

Porridge Radio: Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky

15:02: Performance by Simon Hanselmann (Floating World Comics)

Oh, yeah, Floating World Comics had a sale (I think?). In any case, I went berserk in their web shop.

This is really cool. It’s a huge broadsheet newspaper thingie, but printed really well. Hanselmann’s artwork really pops here. It’s great seeing it this huge.

15:09: Q by Aidan Koch (Floating World Comics)

They sent me three copies of this? Perhaps they just grabbed three by mistake when pulling the order — these are pretty slim newspapers: Just eight pages. (I.e., two sheets of paper.)

It’s gorgeous.

15:17: Adapt #2 by Jonny Negron (Floating World Comics)

Wow, these things look so good… the paper isn’t quite newsprint, but is nicely matte anyway — and holds ink really well. The colours really pop, which they usually don’t do in these things.

Anyway, this is the second issue, and I have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but that’s fine.

And then there’s randomly an essay about Krautrock and Raw by Matt Seneca.

Class production.

15:22: Kjøkken by Xueting Yang (Jippi Forlag)

This is a book of shorter pieces — many of them present themselves as being dreams.

It’s a lovely, languid book — these are narrative pieces, but have a vague, appealing flow.

The artwork looks a bit riso-ish — is this reproduced from riso prints, or perhaps just digitally made this way? Looks great, anyway.

Various: On In Out

15:38: Franka 25: Gratis goud by Henrik Kuÿpers (Cobolt)

Of all the neo-ligne claire people in Comics, Kuÿpers is surely the clairest. This deco design sensibility and ever-smiling people in stylish clothes is super attractive, I think. Razor sharp.

The storytelling is really abrupt, though — on this spread, Franka is run over, pushed into a pond, saved by a dog and two pest control people, flown to hospital in a helicopter, then a police reenactment of the pond thing, then a romantic evening, and then she gives the pest control people that saved her a gift.

*phew*

And there’s a lot of stuff like this in between talkier scenes where we get the low-down on art heists and swindles.

It’s fun, but exhausting.

17:15: Ace Face by Mike Dawson (Adhouse Books)

This is an odd collection — it’s mostly about this guy with the arms…

… and then also some super-powered kids…

… and then the son of the guy with the arms. Each story is pretty amusing, but as a book it doesn’t really work.

But whatevs. It’s fine.

Screamers: Demo Hollywood 1977

17:35: Hvordan kan Los Angeles knuse hjertet mitt? by Ida Neverdahl & Øystein Runde (Jippi Forlag)

This is a unique reading experience. It’s about 50% pages from each artist, and it’s one continuous story (in a distracted sort of way).

It’s about going to LA and staying there for a while. So it’s basically a shared autobio book, but it also takes wild leaps into fantasy… but it’s not exactly clear what’s what, and it’s wild. It’s funny and interesting and looks good.

Feathered Sun: Two Journeys EP

18:05: After Land by Chris Taylor (Floating World Comics)

That’s a handsome colour for the cover, eh?

Anyway, I like the design, the artwork and the general flow here…

… but I didn’t like the story much: It’s not my kind of thing. It’s a “quest”, which has been a very popular thing in alternative comics the last decade. I guess the influence is from video games, animated things like Adventure Time, and pot? I find that sort of story structure tedious and a plot about finding a diamond to be tedious.

I feel like this book would have been much better if he’d just have ditched the plot and just gone full drug extravaganza. Because it works on a page by page basis.

Feathered Sun: Saubohnen EP

18:18: Rave by Jessica Campbell (Drawn & Quarterly)

So this is yet another comic book about teenage religious damage. Of all tedious subjects, that one.

The artwork doesn’t really do anything for me, and the storytelling is pretty choppy. And as I was reading this, I just got more and more annoyed, and when it ended (SPOILERS) in the way I was totally expecting, with The Naughty Girl Dying So That Our Hero Can Get An Epiphany And Break Free From Her Shackles (or Plot 11B as it’s called in the business) I was ready to hurl the book across the room.

But the cover looks nice.

Dry Cleaning: Sweet Princess EP

18:40: Kris Kool by Caza (Passenger Press)

Wow. I’ve only read Caza’s later, funnier work, which is very different. This is certainly super derivative — it’s all pop art riffs — but it’s fun to look at.

The story is like… as if Caza tried to put at many Freudian/Jungian things in here here as possible. We’ve even got a vagina dentata and a not-so-symbolic killing of the mother. I think Caza is making fun of these things? But perhaps he was just super into it; it’s hard to tell.

I forgot to say up there that one of the nice things about that book by Xueting Yang is that it has nothing to contextualise the work: You just have to take it on its own term. This book comes with a ton of extra material… which is nice, but it somewhat deflates the main story.

Comes with a nice print, though.

Stephan Mathieu: Radiance (4): A Rainbow of Moonlight

19:17: Chateaux Bordeaux 1: Le domaine by Corbeyran/Espé (Zoom)

From one extreme of French comics (arty porn from 1970) to another (non-arty wine porn from 2010). This looks like one of those hyper-specific French albums made to measure for a specific audience, namely people who are really into wine.

But sometimes these books are entertaining, and they usually look pretty swell.

*ding dong* Food! Ain’t nobody got time to make din-din while reading comics, so let’s eat some fishies while reading this thing…

Oh deer! This looks 100% generic — there’s a school in France that pumps out people that draws exactly like this, I suspect.

Look at that colour palette. Euuurgh! I suspect they do that to signal that this is a book that properly adult adults can read.

And the writing is exactly like it is in these books: You have a sort of plot (usually about a struggling and or successful business), but then the writer drops in factoids about The Subject every third panel, like here about the carbon dioxide dangers of sticking you head into a wine vat.

There’s even a mysterious found manuscript!

At this point, I was ready to ditch this book, because it’s just too hackneyed, but I was eating, which meant that it was difficult for me to get out of the couch, so I continued reading…

… and… I got kinda into the plot? And I liked the wine factoids.

Darn! Now I have to read the rest of the books in the series.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: So Far

20:20: Chateaux Bordeaux 2: L’œnologue by Corbeyran/Espé (Zoom)

So how convenient that I bought those, too, at the flash sale at Faraos.

I think the second album looks a bit better than the first — less generic. But it might just be that the relentless professionally of the plot’s keeping me interested. So:

Normil Hawaiians: Dark World (79-81)

20:53: Chateaux Bordeaux 3: L’amateur by Corbeyran/Espé (Zoom)

The plot thickens!

I’m really surprised — they turned this into a potboiler/soap opera with lots of twists and turns, and keep the wino factoids coming, and I’m really entertained.

It may not be clever or anything, but they know what they’re doing.

But now I have no more of these albums, so:

Normil Hawaiians: Dark World (79-81)

21:15: Object Compendium by Kilian Eng (Floating World Comics)

First I thought that this was a book of illustrations…

… but then I thought it might be narrative?

But then I went back to “nah, illustration” again.

The artwork’s quite narrative in itself, though — the favourite schtick here is a tiny figure confronting a huge artefact or building or landscape or cavern.

The artwork’s lovely, but I started zoning out after the first nine hundred pages.

Fort Romeau: Beings of Light

21:35: Heartstopper vol 1 by Alice Oseman (Scholastic)

Oh, wow. I can see why this is a major hit. I don’t think I’ve read something with this effortless storytelling since Raina Telgemeier.

I just breezed through the entire book with a smile on my face. I love that there’s not really much in the way of a plot. There’s some conflict, but it takes up so little space that it’s more there just to drive the action inexorably, breathlessly forward.

So sweet and so much fun. My only problem here was with keeping a couple of the characters apart, but that’s a very minor detail.

22:04: Selected Works 2012-2013 by Jonny Negron (Floating World Comics)

This is a little book of illustrations.

Floating World does very colourful books, eh?

Fort Romeau: Beings of Light

22:07: Thing To Do Instead Of Killing Yourself by Tara Booth/Jon-Michael Frank (Floating World Comics)

This is filled with really good tips.

I’m ordering a dog bed right now.

Black Cab: Rotsler’s Rules

22:17: Vile #1 by Tyler Landry (Study Group Comics)

This is a little sci-fi thing about a guy stranded on a planet. You know. The normal thing.

But I really like the look of this — it’s exactly the right green colour, and while it’s a well-known story, it’s told pretty inventively. It has an enjoyably wistful mood going on.

Black Cab: Rotsler’s Rules

22:24: Karmela Krimm 1: Ramadan Blues by Franck Biancarelli & Lewis Trondheim (Zoom)

Trondheim has been writing non-humour/non-fantasy comics (drawn by others) lately. (Or has he always done this?) I read one series the other year, Maggy Garrisson, was really enjoyable. And I guess it was commercially successful, because now he’s back with a series with a kinda-sorta similar name, and it also looks like it’s gonna be a crime/mystery book.

This looks very attractive. They manage to imbue their characters with er a lot of character very efficiently, and it’s a satisfyingly complicated plot, with all the required twists and turns.

The storytelling is pretty choppy here and there. Trondheim tries to drop in witty repartee in every other scene, which I appreciate, but deadpanning everything, so it’s often *read panel* *raise eyebrow* *re-read panel interpreting it as a joke* *lower eyebrow*.

But it’s entertaining, and I hope there’ll be more of these.

Floorplan: Supernatural

22:54: Shelterbelts by Jonathan Dyck (Conundrum Press)

I was all confused at first — I thought the priest on the left with the beardy thing was an older version of the priest on the right with the beard. And it was two different times and we were moving back and forth between those times.

But it’s not; it’s two different duelling beardy priests, and I went “oh noooooes”, because eh.

But it’s kinda interesting? It’s all about pacifist Mennonites vs Megachurch assholes (we’re rooting for the pacifists, natch), and it’s almost like reading sci-fi, because it’s so alien.

Leslie Winer & Maxwell Sterling: Once I Was

But it gets brutal. All the (at least) couple dozen characters (that look pretty similar) have identical personalities. They all talk the same way, and they’re all kinda laconic, and there’s no humour. Just page after page after page of these identical mannequins discussing things sincerely.

He does this layout thing I think he must have invented himself: The pages are essentially a six panel grid, and then he’ll split some panels up in various ways. But see what he’s doing on the right-hand page there? Suddenly we have panels in “the middle” — and those indicate a flashback. Neat.

And… I’d say the last fifty pages or so are pretty good? The ending really works.

OK, I’m fading now, but perhaps just one more comic book.

Boris: Tears e.p

00:22: The Clitoris by Rikke Villadsen (Fantagraphics)

I’ve really enjoyed Villadsen’s other books, and this one looks great as well. The first bit here explicitly presents this as a dream, but it doesn’t really read much like a dream?

It’s got that associative logic, though. It’s fun.

And I’m totally exhausted, so:

Don Cherry’s New Researches featuring Naná Vasconcelos: Organic Music Theatre Festival de Chateauvallon 1972 (1)

00:43: The End

Time to sleep. That’s a hard day’s comics reading.