Random Thoughts

DHL was supposed to deliver a new laptop today, but then apparently changed their minds or something? So I’m drowning my sorrows in comics instead. And since I’m really melancholic, I’m going to play only albums from the early 80s that I had as a teenager. So there.

David Byrne: The Catherine Wheel

13:48: Plaza by Yokoyama Yuichi (Living the Line)

What the… I think Living the Line was established basically to publish the Sim/Graubach book The Strange Death of Alex Raymond… and then I registered that they were publishing a Graubach/AI-generated art series… but now they’ve branching out into doing Yuichi Yokoyama!?!? What the!? I’m flabbergasted and very excited.

Wooow. Yokoyama makes the loudest comics in existence.

Most of his previous books have had a kind of propulsive narrative — people going on a journey, discovering things, even if it’s kinda vague what they’re finding out, really, but it’s got that hook.

This, as far as I can tell, has no narrative. Instead we’re looking at a totally absurd parade going past, cheering along with the wild crowd at the amazing spectacle.

It’s absolutely wonderful. It’s pure comics, and it’s insanely exciting. Wow!

But a nerdy note about the actual physical book — it doesn’t feel very satisfying. It’s a quite floppy almost-album-sized book, but with a tight spine, so I’m sitting here struggling both to keep it open and to un-floppify the pages. In addition, it’s printed on a paper that makes the black ink somewhat reflective (and mottled when it’s reflecting light), so I have to shift the book back and forth. That, combined with the general floppiness (thin paper) of the package and the tight spine means that I’ve had the workout of my life reading this book here on the couch. My hands are so strong now!

Quibble over! Sorry!

The Cure: Faith (1)

14:45: How To Make A Monster by Casanova Frakenstein/Glenn Pearce (Fantagraphics)

Wow! New Casanova Frankenstein, too? Is it Xmas?

Oh! The artwork isn’t by him! Well, that’s a huge disappointment, because I absolutely love his artwork — it’s gorgeous. I guess this is by Glenn Pearce, somebody I’m not familiar with, but it looks pretty good. And seems to meld with the story in a way that’s unusual for a writer/artist combo book.

This is a classic growing up autobio comic — the nerdy guy at school getting beat up by bullies. But it’s more interesting than that: It’s so angry. Every page is just pure venomous hatred towards what has happened and the people responsible. It’s pretty thrilling.

Tom Robinson: North by Northwest

Mother of the year award.

Anyway, I’m curious what others will make of this, because the book pulls no punches.

But that’s only the first half of the book. The second half is very different: It describes in minute details a couple of days where he’s playing hooky. And these bits are magical — it feels so precise that it’s hypnotic. It pulls you in and the tension is amazing.

It’s a book like nothing else and it’s kind of amazing — intensely personal with no compromise in sight — and then there’s bits that are like “hmm”. So now I’m gonna do something I seldom do and google what others thought of it.

Right:

It’s a harsh but compulsively readable story, intensely wrought, and will hold appeal for readers of Emil Ferris and Ulli Lust.

Err… this is something else…

Er… Actually, I can’t find any other reviews? How is that possible? Is it that brand new? I’m usually a month behind in my reading, so that never happens. Did Fantagraphics forget to send out review copies? Are people shying away from the book because of er the controversial bits?

Weird.

Simple Minds: New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)

16:31: Grey #1 by Yoshihisa Tagami (Viz)

What’s this then? I bought an album from Australia, and they included this old, old Viz book in the package. That’s random, eh?

And a hoodie.

Oh, I should put the album on while reading this, but I’m not putting the nice hoodie on…

Lawrence English: Approach

Hm… I guess the comic goes well with the music? The music is flowing and ebbing in a nice abstract, whooshy, but intimidating way? Scary music.

As is often the case with Japanese comics for teenagers of this era, I can’t tell the characters apart. At all. Those two have identical faces, right? I wondered whether they were supposed to be twins, but later they almost have sex, so I guess… er… I guess that doesn’t really tell me anything.

They solve the problem later by fridging the one with the boobs, and then bring in more characters where each one has a Distinguishing Feature (unfortunately nobody with an eye patch or a wooden leg).

It’s fine as these things go, I guess.

16:49: Young Agatha Christie by Augel (Humanoids)

Well, OK, this is for children, and it seems like it’d be fun for the right person…

I mean, it’s amusing? It’s just not my thing, though, so I ditched it one third in.

Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel 4

17:02: The Poe Clan Vol 1 by Moto Hagio (Fantagraphics)

This is a collection of stories from the early 70s. It starts off with three shorter stories, and then three really long ones, bringing the page count up to almost six hundred.

Her artwork was totally trend setting, for better or worse. I mean, it’s really pretty, but she has a very limited palette of pretty faces, so half the characters can only be distinguished by their hairdos.

New Musik: Warp

But they’re fun stories, as vampires-as-gay-predators stories go?

Bunching these stories up like this doesn’t do them any favour, though, because I was getting slightly bored by the whole thing after three hundred pages, so I think I’ll save the last half of the book for later.

King Crimson: Beat

18:30: Blackwater by Arroyo/Graham (Henry Holt)

Wow, this looks… this looks awful! Was this made for display on a screen? It looks like somebody with no experience with print just sent a colour PDF to a print-on-demand service that accidentally printed it in black and white instead. And this is Macmillan/Holtzbrinck, one of the world’s biggest publishers.

Publishers like to follow trends. When one of them has something that’s a hit, you can be guaranteed that there’ll be something similar from all the other major publishers around 15 months later, because they’re kinda slow. So I’m assuming Henry Holt ordered half shelf metre of Heartstopper clones to fill the fall schedule, and this is what they got. (This is exactly how publishing works. I am very smart.) Of course, comics take longer, so half the chapters have artwork by one person, and half of them by another.

They also completely miss the point of what made Heartstopper work, and pour on the fake drama from the start.

And then… they add werewolves, because symbolism. That’s what this needs, obviously.

This is such a train wreck that I couldn’t avert my eyes. It’s monumentally awful on every level. Nice going, Henry Holt.

Kate Bush: The Dreaming

19:09: Death Save by Rune Ryberg (Forlæns)

I was reading an article about Danish comics of the previous decade, and this was mentioned as one of the defining works.

Love the colours!

This is the kind of art style I’m always wondering whether they’ve made an artistic choice to draw like this, or whether it’s just a way to disguise that they can’t really draw hands. But I like it anyway.

This is a story about two kids hanging out one summer. It feels very genuine — it’s got that classic pairing of one that’s more nerdy and introverted, and one that’s wild and out of control. So if they play out the normal playbook here, the wild one is going to die so that the nerdy one can learn an important life lesson.

I know, I know, I make fun — but it’s really well done. It’s got a real sense of place, and you can feel these streets and these rooms and everything. It’s so specific, and so general at the same time.

*time passes*

Unfortunately, the third act goes through more clichés than you thought was possible, and the book falls flat. It’s like he had an editor or something that took him through all the plot points that would make this into a “real story”, and it all turned to shit.

Has it been adapted into a movie yet?

Grace Jones: Living My Life

20:08: Tummy Bugs by Leomi Sadler (Breakdown Press)

These are very strange comics.

Mostly shorter pieces that mix naivete with whimsy? It’s very pretty, and it builds to a very distinctive mood. Nice.

Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

20:26: Total Jazz by Blutch (Fantagraphics)

I’m really sceptical towards comics biographies — they’re usually extruded products made to fill a publishing schedule. But this is Blutch, and he’s great, so…

This is very slight work, though. It’s a collection of single page strips he did for a French Jazz magazine a couple decades ago.

It looks great, and some of the strips are amusing, but it’s… it’s just kinda slight?

But it’s fine.

Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft: Für Immer

20:46: När vi var samer by Mats Jonsson (Galago)

This is a book where Jonsson tells the story of his (re)discovery of his sàmi heritage. There’s also a huge amount of historical backstory and stuff.

He draws in his usual utilitarian style — it’s not exactly pretty, is it? It gets the work done, but reading 340 pages like this is somewhat discouraging.

The Cure: Pornography

I’d say that this book is a success… but there’s bits that work bettern than other bits.

Blaine L. Reininger: Broken Fingers

Reading deeply personal work is great, of course, but I think he sometimes tips over into private stuff that’s not that interesting.

Tom Tom Club: Close To The Bone

And while he’s good at doing autobio, when he tries to do fictional bits where he imagines what life was like in, like, the 1600s, it falls pretty flat.

I have to admit I started skipping these bits, and some of the historical infodumps, because… I’m so uncultured, OK? A Philistine! I admit it.

It’s pretty good? It’s pretty good.

Talking Heads: Speaking in Tongues

00:14: Welcome to Oddville! by Jay Stephens (Adhouse Books)

This is a collection of strips — perhaps originally published on the interwebs or something?

Printed in an album format… is that optimal? Somehow the way they’re arranged on the page just makes me impatient with the strips, even if they’re sometimes quite amusing.

Whatever the reason is, I’m just not feeling it, and I ditched this at the halfway point.

Simple Minds: Sparkle In The Rain

00:43: Weltschmerz #10A by Christopher Nielsen (No Comprendo Press)

Nielsen is an institution in Norway, but I’ve somehow never actually kept up with his output. It’s probably a decade or two since I read something of his? I have no idea how that happened, because I remember quite liking his stuff?

Oh yeah… I had also forgotten how he has a tendency to take a good joke and run with it to such an extreme that it gets annoying.

But you can’t argue with the cartooning.

And several pieces in here are, indeed, hilarious.

Psychic TV: Dreams Less Sweet

01:32: The End

But I think it’s time to go to bed — I’m exhausted.

That was a somewhat unusual mix of books for me. Most of them were strongly narrative — except the Yokoyama book, none were “art first”, so to speak. The Casanova Frankenstein and Yokoyama books were strong, and the rest were kinda… hit or miss? Let’s see…. Yeah, none of the other books were total successes, I think.

Oh well. So sleepy.

I’ve been going a bit over board with my comics shopping the past few months. I mean, nothing is better than comics, but it’s getting in the way of, like, doing stuff, so I should cut back a bit. It’s basically all the fault of Domino Books — not just because I’ve been buying lots of comics from him, but the site’s been inspiring me to seek out publishers and buy stuff from them directly. (It’s beyond me why many comics publishers don’t have a web shop — it seems like a pretty low effort way to make some extra money, especially since the margins on selling directly are much higher than selling via stores. But I guess if you don’t have the manpower, you don’t have the manpower…)

ANYWAY! Probably fewer comics in the coming months, but there’s at least enough stuff for a dazing a couple more days. So let’s get started.

And… for music today: Only albums from the 80s.

Joe Jackson: Beat Crazy

12:44: Bug — livre 3 by Enki Bilal (Cobolt)

And the music choice is in honour of this new book by Bilal! New book by Bilal!!!! The 80s are back!!!

Getting a new Bilal album is An Event, but I’m not quite sure why — it may be pure nostalgia, because (let’s face it) his work the past decade has been a bit spotty. But I’m still like *gasp* every time a new album drops, until I sit down to read it, and then I’m more like… *mmm?*

The artwork’s just so wild and beautiful?

This is the third album in the Bug series, and it’s way more informed by current events than I can remember any other Bilal work being. It probably takes years for Bilal to make an album, but it makes references to basically everything that’s current now (except Ukraine): We’ve got Neo-Czarism, cancellation, Fascism rising, migration, etc. He even squeezes in a dig at Putin’s large tables, which had to be a last-minute addition.

So Bilal seems to be reinvigorated, and it’s a solid read — it’s exciting and just the right amount of confusing.

Talking Heads: Remain In Light (vinyl)

13:39: Sanatorium Magazine #1 edited by Jens Andersson (Sanatorium)

This week’s publisher is Sanatorium, a Swedish publisher that I know nothing about. But the web site looked interesting, so I bought bunch of books. Let’s hope they don’t suck.

This is a huge book… larger than tabloid size.

Most of the pieces are single page things, but there’s a longer story in here, too. It’s funny but melancholy?

Oh! This book isn’t stapled, but held together with a very large rubber band. So several of the sheets are really posters — if you deconstruct the magazine, you get a bunch of double page spreads suitable for pinning to the wall. Nice — I don’t think I’ve seen anybody do quite something like this before. (Except some portfolios and stuff, but that’s a different genre.)

Talking Heads: Remain In Light (vinyl)

13:53: Elsewhere by Fredrik Rysjedal/Anusman (Kinakaal)

This is a high concept cultural exchange book (there’s a text in the middle that helpfully explains it all). Half the book is Norwegian, and half Chinese, but they illustrate the same concepts. Above we have the Norwegian version of “Taking A Stroll”…

… and here’s the Chinese one.

I’m not sure this juxtaposition really brings added interest here, but the comics are pretty good. And it’s a very nice physical object as a book, what with the slightly metallic ink and the thoughtful presentation.

David Byrne and Brian Eno: My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

14:04: Möte med monsunen by Lars Sjunnesson (Sanatorium)

Wow, it’s like… it’s like an 80s punk strip? I’m getting huge waves of nostalgia here. And I think he’s trying to be kinda offensive, but it doesn’t quite work (except for one strip he’d kinda have to swap out if publishing this in the US today), so it ends up being really cute.

It’s funny, and it ends up being kinda wistful and touching towards the end of the book.

I’ve seen books from this guy in bookstores before, but I’ve never picked one up, because it superficially looked like lame gag books, but it’s really good. I’m surprised.

David Byrne and Brian Eno: My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

14:25: Koloss by Erik Svetoft (Sanatorium)

This oversized book collects a whole bunch of insanely intricately detailed illustrations.

It’s really cool.

And then there’s a huuuge fold out poster included, which is even more insanely detailed. Nice.

David Bowie: Scary Monsters

14:32: Jérôme K. Jérôme Bloche 7 by Dodier (Zoom)

I’m not a fan of this series — I used to see it pop up in various anthologies in the 90s, but it never seemed to stick around for long. I assumed that it was just too generic — a French(ey) series about a youthful detective set vaguely in the past — to make an impression on anybody. It certainly didn’t on me.

So I was shocked — shocked I tells ya! — to see this book. The Danes have apparently been publishing a collected edition for a while now, at three albums per book. And this is the seventh collection, meaning that there’s been (maths time) 21 Jerome K. Jerome Bloche albums! (Bedetheque informs me that they’re up to 28 now in France.) How can this be? Perhaps I was totally wrong and it’s good? So I bought this collection. Let’s find out.

Hm… I misremembered about this being set vaguely in the past — looks like it’s vaguely in the present? (This is from 2006.)

My immediate impression is that this is quite like stuff I like? It’s well made — that office really looks like an office, and the street scenes look like specific streets… the only thing I’m not quite sure about is the way the main character is drawn: He looks, like, 10% more cartooney than the surroundings, so he ends up in the uncanny valley.

This… it’s kinda good?

It’s good!

The stories are really original — the first two albums are about both domestic abuse and a contract killer, and it works. The third album is about a hit and run, and there’s a twist ending, and it’s all quite touching.

So: Either this series has gotten a lot better than it was back in the 80s, or I was just wrong. (Sounds impossible, I know.) I guess I’ll be getting all the volumes of the collected edition, then… Ooh! They’ve got 1-4 at 60% off! Yoinks!

The Cure: Seventeen Seconds (1)

15:49: Limbo by Erik Svetoft (Sanatorium)

Another book of illustrations…

Less extravagant in format this time.

Yukihiro Takahashi: Neuromantic

15:53: Natacha by Lars Sjunnesson (Sanatorium)

This is drawn in a very different style from his other book up there.

And it’s completely insane! Insanely complicated. Every chapter circles back to tell us more about what’s happened, seen from the point of view of the different characters, all of whom have multiple identifies and stuff. Every chapter is like “what you’ve already read wasn’t quite what it seemed like” and I think it all makes sense somehow? It’s not really Rashomon-like — it’s more post modern? It’s a dizzying read, and lots of fun.

Fantastic.

Various: The Fruit of the Original Sin

16:46: Olycka by Lars Norén & Agnes Jakobsson (Kaunitz-Olsson)

Norén is a famous playwright, so is this an adaptation of one of his plays, perhaps?

The text on the back cover seems to imply that this is a play that’s never been staged?

In any case, it’s very very very very much like a drawn Swedish stage play. It’s three people in a room that talk and talk. Jakobsson does an amazing job under those constraints, sometimes zooming in on details in an interesting way, but… since this is all about reveals and emotions and stuff, I can’t help thinking this would have been much better as a play, because you need the human element more than what we’re getting here: A good actor can make even the tritest play devastating.

Norén has obviously spent a lot of time hanging out with really drunk people, so it’s got that going for it — parts of the conversation feels really well observed. Other parts — not so much.

*ding dong* Nobody ain’t got time to cook when reading comics, so I got a pizza from a place that used to be good, and then was awful, but that was like three years ago.

That looks reasonable, at least…

Various: The Fruit of the Original Sin

17:35: Intégrale Martin Milan 2 by Godard (Zoom)

So I’m reading early 70s second banana French(ish) children’s comics while eating.

(The pizza’s not bad!)

The artwork is quite on point for this sort of thing, and the gags are OK…

… but the storytelling often doesn’t quite work on a panel to panel basis — you can see what he’s going for, but it just doesn’t quite work.

But it’s fine for what it is. It’s pretty amusing. But a couple of these stories is enough for one sitting; I’ll save the rest for some other day.

Various: Methods of Dance (1)

18:30: Havet by Jan Egesborg/Kim Lars (Fahrenheit)

Wow. I haven’t seen something this Fumetti-looking in a while — it’s like the artist just had people act everything while filming then, and then traced the screenshots exactly. It’s barely a comic book.

And the plot… oy vey. A mother and a surly son moves to a remote island, there’s a Shocking Plot Twist, and then the mother has sex with a guy, and then dies dramatically (in the sea). They’ve managed to squeeze in an impressive number of tedious clichés in this brief story. *slow clap*

(OK, there’s a couple of scenes that work well — the pages where she’s surfing in the huge waves look rather good — a good use of the stark inky blackness of the artwork.)

Tuxedomoon: Desire

18:46: Spa by Erik Svetoft (Sanatorium)

Another Svetoft book? Is Sanatorium mostly just Svetoft’s thing, perhaps?

As a nerdy comics nerd (who’s nerdy and old), I’m rather fascinated that it’s financially feasible to just randomly use an extra colour for the lettering. It used to be so much more expensive to do some kind of colour that it was only used when there was a compelling reason to do so. But here it’s like a whim — red lettering? Sure! Why not. Things have changed in how printing presses are set up, I guess.

Anyway, this is a horror story about a spa hotel. It’s like… it’s like a mix of Lars Trier’s The Kingdom and a gazillion Japanese horror comics? With a dash of David B?

It’s got a good flow. If I have one criticism, it’s that too many of the characters (and there’s a lot of them) are hard to distinguish from each other, so I found myself flipping back a bit to see whether I’d gotten things right more than a few times.

The horror bits didn’t quite land for me. It felt like it should be scarier than it is? The funny bits were pretty amusing. So — it’s pretty good. Love the line work.

19:31: Popocomi 2 by (Popotame Books and Gallery)

As with the first issue of this anthology by artists that don’t normally do comics (if I’ve understood the concept of the anthology correctly), there’s some pieces in here that are pretty weak. There’s some good ones, though.

Maiko Dake’s thing was cute.

Imjina’s thing was very moving.

Akiko Miyakoshi’s thing was gorgeous and wistful.

Tom Tom Club: Tom Tom Club

19:47: Klaus Magazine no. 3 by Richard Short (Breakdown Press)

That’s a good letters’ page.

So… this is told as a series of four page gag strips? It makes reading it really choppy.

Like one of the (fake?) letters said, there’s a disconnect between the dialogue and the action — it like the text goes in and out of phase with the artwork, vaguely intersecting each other. It’s interesting, but it’s ultimately exhausting to read. Or perhaps I’m just tired? I ditched the book halfway through.

Simple Minds: Sons and Fascination

20:24: The End by Anders Nilsen (Fantagraphics)

I’ve read the previous incarnations of this (the Coconino book like in like 2007) and then the bigger book in like 2015 — is Nilsen going to release this book every seven years forever?

If so, I don’t mind, because it’s better every time. I mean, the original book was heartbreaking, and this is still heartbreaking, but is a richer reading experience. It’s a great book on a difficult subject.

*sets calendar to buy the next edition in 2029*

Simple Minds: Sister Feelings Call

21:10: Puttana Cartoonist by Heather Loase

…

… this is fucking brilliant! I love it!

I started snickering at the first page, and then I was laughing and then I kept laughing until it was over. It’s over way too soon! Funniest comic book of the year!

And gorgeous too. Fantastic colours.

Wow, that was just what I needed right now. Perfect.

New Order: Movement

21:21: Brigade Verhoeven – Rosie by Bertho/Corboz (E-Voke)

This is the kind of Extruded Comics Product that the French churn out so well — everything here is professional and well-made.

Unfortunately, it’s based on a novel by Pierre Lemaitre. I had the displeasure of reading one of his novels a few years back, and yikes — it was so awful. The plot here is so moronic that I’m rather annoyed with myself for guessing what the ending was going to be one third through this album, because that has to mean that I’m pretty stupid myself for thinking of it. (I’m sure that makes sense?)

I rate this one Ten Eye Rolls.

OK, I should end this daze there, but… One more?

Kraftwerk: Computer World

22:02: Alpha 1: L’echange by Jigounov/Renard (Zoom)

What’s this then? It’s a series started in the mid-90s, and there’s 16 tomes so far. The Danish comics er industry is so weird to follow these days — all the classic French(ey) series have been published long ago, and in several editions, but there’s somehow an apparently insatiable hunger for more. So there’s random stuff now they’re picking now where the hook seems to be “doesn’t that quite remind you of…” And this looks so generic it reminds me of basically all oldee tymey French(ey) boys’ series, from Michel Vaillant on down.

But this isn’t at all bad. It’s told somewhat clumsily, but it looks generally attractive, and the plot is intriguing (mostly because nobody explained anything). I totally expected nothing to be left in the dark until further albums…

… but then they end the album with six pages of this: Wall to wall explanations. And the reason the plot seemed original was because it’s just too stupid for somebody else to come up with before: The KGB wants dollars, so they’ve tricked the Mafia into exchanging dollars for Roubles and promises of a happy welcome in Russia (lies, of course, and the Mafia are just so gullible), and the CIA (who’s the heroes here) want to put a kibosh on it all because unhappy mobsters will just be too… OK, let’s end the explanation there.

So… not a winner, but better than expected.

King Crimson: Discipline

22:43: The End

Of the comics daze, that is.

That was an interesting batch of comics. Some clunkers, but also some great stuff. And one work of sheer genius: Puttana Cartoonist by Heather Loase. Looks like you can get it from Silver Sprocket, Domino is sold out.

Nighty.

I need a break from computering, so a Daze day it is. Let’s go.

The Waitresses: Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?

14:20: Quaderni ucraini: Le radici del conflitto by Igort (Pax)

This book is from 2010, but has gotten a Norwegian edition now.

Igort has interviewed a few older people from Ukraine, and illustrates their stories. The stories are mostly from the 30s and the following decades, and they are masterfully told in Igort’s distinctive and understated style. It’s a really moving book.

*sniff*

Suicide Romeo: Pictures

15:36: Clubhouse #14 (Colorama)

The Clubhouse books are based around the concept of inviting a bunch of artists to Berlin to create an anthology while at a residency. Arranged by Colorama, who’s a riso printer. So there’s some cohesion to the books just based on that.

But this was done remotely (due to Recent Events), and it feels really random.

And some of the pieces have artwork that don’t suit riso printing at all.

So I had a hard time getting into this — there were some good pieces in here, but it was just hard to give it the required attention.

Alan Vega: Alan Vega

16:08: Leonard by Michael R. Muller

This starts off a bit rough, but once I got into the rhythm of things, it actually got strangely gripping (for a book of obscure jokes and hi-jinx).

It’s really interesting (and I laughed out loud a couple times), and I can easily see this artist going somewhere.

The Meters: Gettin’ Funkier All The Time (2): A Message From The Meters [Struttin’ & Singles Bonus Tracks]

16:41: Blank Frames by Nicole Rodrigues (Reptile House)

This has a very distinct point of view — it feels very assured.

It’s interesting.

The Meters: Gettin’ Funkier All The Time (2): A Message From The Meters [Struttin’ & Singles Bonus Tracks]

16:55: Down Under by Daniel Østvold

This is extremely silly, in the best possible way.

It’s one absurd thing after another, and it’s most amusing.

The Meters: Gettin’ Funkier All The Time (2): A Message From The Meters [Struttin’ & Singles Bonus Tracks]

17:08: Wet Shape in the Dark by Jon Chandler (Breakdown Press)

This is a collection of shorter pieces that are mostly about people being threatened with violence of one kind of another.

I expected these to somehow build to something greater, since they’re so focused on the same kind of theme… and indeed, the final piece is a callback to a couple of the other pieces, but it just doesn’t quite work for me? That is, I think stumbling onto almost any one of these pieces in an anthology would have made an impression (because they are pretty unnerving), but collected like this, I just got impatient with it all.

Jeanne Lee: Conspiracy

17:38: Extended Play by Jake Terrell (2d cloud)

Oops! I’m pretty sure I’ve already got this one here… somewhere… why is it that I only realise that when I’ve got the actual book in my hand, and not when I’m shopping on the interwebs? Well, might as well re-read this now…

Oh, man, I miss 2d cloud. Every book impeccably produced and every book drop an event.

And this is a really good book. It’s a collection of shorter pieces, where most take a different approach to storytelling (which I guess explains the “play” in the title). It’s all pretty successful and interesting? And very pretty.

17:58: Mortensens mondæne meritter: Tulipannotatet by Lars Jakobsen (Forlaget Fabel)

This is a newer Danish time travel series, and if I remember correctly, the storytelling is rather chaotic? But entertaining. I think this is the newest album…

This is actually a whole lot more straightforward than the previous albums. It’s still rather abrupt and choppy, though, but not as much as before.

But now it’s so straightforward that there’s almost nothing left — it seems so brief that it’s over before it’s begun. And while the artwork is pretty attractive, it’s hard to tell people apart. Or, rather, see that they’re the same character in different costumes.

4 Hero: Parallel Universe

18:25: This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews (Gyldendal)

I try to avoid translations if I can read the original language, but I found this really cheaply on sale, so…

The colours are wonderful here, but the figures and line work is kinda generic in a 90s Top Shelf kinda way?

I think Andrews is going for whimsy, but it reads as allegory in the first half, which means that it has an unpleasant whiff of “spiritual” going on.

But the book has a really surprising flow — it absolutely didn’t go where I expected it to, and in a way my expectations here sabotaged my enjoyment of the book. It’s actually a pretty good book, and all the annoying beats I thought the book was going to hit never happened.

I can totally see myself being absolutely enthralled by this book when I was, like, 12 — it has that kind of magic going; a real sense of wonder, and nothing to undermine that feeling.

19:37: Nwai & Palace no. 1 by Antoine Cossé (Breakdown Press)

These books collect some mysterious short pieces.

Cossé’s artwork is really attractive, and quite varied.

These are intriguing, classic little vignettes, and the books are satisfying reads.

19:50: Tel-Tales #1 and Red Bird #6 by Dan Zettwoch

I love these little books Zettwoch does… always some printing or assembling flourish (in addition to the amusing (auto)bio stories).

Tel-Tales #1 is a very small book, but it folds out in the middle.

And the cover is made from a aperture/punch card (rescued from the same building the story takes place in) that’s been screenprinted on top of. It’s super dooper cool.

The other booklet is larger, and is less extravagant format wise. But it’s also a good little anecdote; more wistful than the first one (which basically retells a prank of sorts).

John Zorn: The Bagatelles (2): Erik Friedlander and Michael Nicolas

20:04: Windowpane #4 by Joe Kessler (Breakdown Press)

Oh, this piece was reprinted in that larger Kessler book I read last Comics Daze day… but I’ll re-read it anyway.

Is this screenprinted? It looks and feels screenprinted, but man, that’s a lot of work…

Anyway, this piece works even better here in its own book — the book feels so perfect; it’s like a mysterious object, because there’s no contextualisation to what we’re reading. It’s more immediate and gripping?

Great stuff.

20:14: R.I.P. Mou 1&2 by Valis Ortiz

Love the glitter on the covers!

This is a collection of sketchbook entries…

… and a couple of comics. Since this is a family oriented blog, there’s extremely few pages I can snap here — there’s a lot of fucking going on in these pages.

Pretty good.

Oval: Ovidono

20:47: Jeremiah 39: Rancune by Hermann (Faraos Cigarer)

It’s pretty impressive, Hermann started this series in 1979, and has almost single-handedly done all these albums (with the exception of the colouring of some of the earliest albums). And Hermann was born in 1938!

But on the other hand, the last couple of Jeremiah albums have, how to put this politely, sucked. So…

This is better than the previous album. The artwork is more like back in the olden days — solid figure work, somehow precise and loose lines at the same time, and a unique colour sense.

But as usual, he adds a dozen characters we haven’t seen before, and only sketches in some character like these two, who are the “gross fat guy who’s fat and gross” and “his sister, who yells a lot”, but that’s something, at least. It’s a lot to keep track of.

I thought this one kinda worked, though? It’s not as good as Jeremiah Back In The Days, but it’s fine.

Apparently the French kinda agree with me:

It’s hard to judge as this album bothered me a bit at the beginning with its somewhat “deconstructed” scenario.
I reassure, things pick up afterwards and we finally understand what is happening. As usual, characters apart and colorful, a return (two even) and dialogues always as well written.
Probably not the best of the Jeremiahs, but we’re still average.

Vanishing Twin: Ookii Gekkou

21:30: The Inspector by Liam Cobb (Breakdown Press)

Riso printed, I guess?

Anyway, this takes all the usual pot shots at “fine dining”, but it takes it so far beyond the pale that even this tired old trope is funny again.

*slow clap*

Vanishing Twin: Ookii Gekkou

21:45: Whistle by Louka Butzbach (Breakdown Press)

This is a pretty unique book — it’s got a fairy tale kind of vibe, but the story it tells isn’t what you’d expect.

The artwork and the pacing are perfect for this odd story. It’s a strange, compelling read.

Dean Blunt: Black Metal 2

21:59: The One Who Weeps by Cynthia Alfonso (Cold Cube Press)

This is great — it’s a narrative book, but on the edges of abstraction.

It really works. Very interesting.

22:18: Jettens morgen by Sunna Kitti (ČállIIdLágádus)

Oh, this is the first sámi comic book or something? Well, first album sized thing, perhaps… I think I read something about that….

Huh, I had expected more Japanese-inspired artwork, but perhaps that trend is subsiding? There was a period a couple years ago where all comics aimed at teenagers had to look kinda Japanese. But this looks more American? Er… do I see some Paul Pope there? Jeff Smith? Is there even some Fiona Staples, perhaps?

This is apparently based on some old epic or something… it’s about a guy that goes to the land of giants and fights some monsters or something.

And I say “or something” because the translation is horrible! Hor ri ble. Half of the time I have no idea what they’re even talking about. Was this translated to English first and then to Norwegian? The text is frequently non-idiomatic, and often uses outdated phrases and then mixes in anachronisms.

I have no idea whether it was originally as incoherent as this originally, but this was a chore to get through, because every other page is “what does that even mean?”, “who is he referring to now?”, and just “whaa… huh?”

And the lettering is atrocious.

Various: Pop Psychédélique

23:08: Popocomi 1 (Popotame Books & Gallery)

If I understand the introduction right, this is a collection of comics by artists that don’t usually do comics, which explains why this is published by a gallery.

I wouldn’t have guessed, though — all these pieces have a good flow and read well. I would have expected comics done by illustrators and artists to be more art forward?

And then… yowza.

Anyway, this is a good anthology.

23:24: The End

And now I’m all worn out from all this comicsing, so I think it’s time to go to bed.