Random Thoughts

The cache of unread comics has shrunk considerably! So let’s get reading, and as usual: No reviewing.

Fashion Forecasts by Yumi Sakugawa (Retrofit/Big Planet)

So this booklet is based on an Insta thing?

Hey, this is amazing.

Not only is it funny, but the artwork’s so appealing. Love the colours. It would have been nice if it had some kind of progression to it, but it doesn’t really build up to greater fashion fabulousness, but just starts off high and keeps it there…

Oh! Somebody made these clothes into reality!?

Wonderful.

And then there’s other bits and pieces that relate to the concept… This book feels less than a book than a… show catalogue? Perhaps that’s what it is? I’m slightly disappointed by the whole thing, because it started off so strong.

Man-Eaters #9 by all those people above (Image)

Man-Eaters is a very high concept book with a sort-of strange execution. It’s about how girls turn into were-panthers once they begin menstruating, so the gummints response to that is to give them hormones to make them not menstruate. (I think?) It’s a lot of fun!

The strangeness here is that the artwork is super-duper “mainstream” “realism”…

… while being mixed in with a lot of other “found” material (forms, magazines, books, ads), and that doesn’t really quite work for me. Perhaps it’ll read better in the collected edition, because there’s so little happening per issue that it’s difficult to get a grasp on it.

Oh, yeah, this was the issue that broke the twitters. For some reason, some transsexual women felt that a storyline that involved menstruation as the major plot point was exclusionary or something. Somehow Cain didn’t respond with *rolls eyes*, but instead included the tweets in the book…

Oh, yeah, one of the things that’s been confusing me throughout this book is why all the estrogen-free drinks are called something with “estro”. Isn’t that just bad branding?

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #45 by Ryan North, Derek Charm and other people (Marvel)

Up until now, Squirrel Girl has been immune from Marvel cross-overs (which has previously knocked the wind out of any other Marvel comic that I’ve been reading (like Howard the Duck)), but North seems to be able to muddle through. True, these are the worst Squirrel Girl issues ever, but they’re still pretty entertaining.

2001 by Blaise Larmee (2d cloud)

So I was wondering whatever happened to Larmee after all that drama last year… and the news item on The Beat has gone missing, leaving only a stub from the Tumblr mirror. He’s even gone from Wikipedia. Did he ever exist? This 2011 interview is still up, so perhaps… not?

Anyway, this book is great. The play with the grid is captivating.

*gasp*

Flabbergasting. Well, he’s probably off somewhere doing art that pays better, I’m guessing…

Marécage (Lagon)

This is a physically beautiful object. It’s oversized, and about half the pages are riso and half are very glossy offset printing.

And it’s half in French and half in English, so there’s this booklet with translations included… which isn’t ideal…

This book reminds me quite a bit of Mould Map? It’s got the same forward-looking aesthetic.

But it’s very French.

About half the pieces are non-narrative…

… but the ones that are aren’t… very?

It’s amazing how varied the approaches are while still being a coherent reading experience.

Ooo! Jaakko Pallasvuo! And he provides the funniest piece.

It’s a pretty amazing publication.

Krüger & Krogh 2 (Egmont) by these people:

This is a Norwegian comic, and the selling point is that it’s a traditional Franco/Belgian adventure comic.

But set in Oslo in the … 60s?… so it’s a double whammy nostalgic venture, I guess?

It’s not very exciting. The plot is pretty muddled for something so simple. Think Yoko Tsuno, but with Men in Black, and you’re there.

The artwork’s particularly uninspiring.

Now 5 edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)

Now goes from strength to strength. This issue is particularly abject, which makes the opening page seem vary apposite.

I mean…

I don’t think there’s a weak piece in here, but it’s a bit emotionally draining on the whole…

No, they embody the message “I am bald”.

The Prince by Liam Cobb (Retrofit/Big Planet)

Well, this certainly has an interesting look.

But with the fake riso aesthetic, there’s a fake Japanese horror comic plot to go. Every dialogue feels fake and the attempt at being increasingly unnerving falls flat.

Uhm…. Parker Ito? (Landfill)

Actually, I don’t know what this spiral-bound thing (with attached plastic medallion is called). Most of the pages are in Japanese and … appears to be an essay about something?

Then there’s a bunch of single page illustrations by various people.

And a text in English. Most confusing.

The funnest section in the book is a series of pages with acetate overlays. So you have that with the overlay…

… and this scary thing without the overlay.

Oh! It’s a catalogue from an exhibition. Or something. That makes more sense.

It’s a very cool-looking item.

Magnum Song by Jean-Claude Claeys (Borgen)

This is a weird genre exercise. It’s basically a bunch of old movie stills that the artist has traced or… xeroxed? Transferred, anyway, to the pages.

So it’s a Fumetti/comics crossover thing, and it looks stilted as hell.

And it’s just lacking in all kinds of storytelling ability. Brando’s to the left of Wayne and then suddenly he’s to the right, probably based on what stills the artist had at his disposal?

He sometimes actually kinda draws, but it’s strictly limited to making his guys look beat up and bloated.

Oh, the story is some kind of noir non-sense.

FOR 120 PAGES!

Survive 300,000,000 by Pat Aulisio (Retrofit/Big Planet)

Huh. Sure is a lot of Retrofit books today… I have no recollection of buying these… perhaps I did some kickstarters or something?

I was all “oh noes, not another post-apocalyptic waste land thing”…

… but this is very lively. I like the ratty drawing and crazy digital colours. It’s not like anything very exceptional happens in this story, but it moves fast, is kinda funny and has a good vibe.

I was thinking towards the end “but surely there should be more of this”, and there will be! I’m there.

The Clandestinauts by Tim Sievert (Uncivilized)

Oops. PLEASE LET THIS NOT BE A ROLE PLAYING GAME INSPIRED COMIC!

AAAAAURGH! It is.

If there’s one thing I hate almost as much as video game inspired comics, it’s role playing game inspired comics.

But, c’mon, this is Uncivilized… Surely it’s not just … that… Uncivilized used to be cool; I bought absolutely everything they published for years, although I lost a bit track of them last year (as I did with everything else, really). Did they stop being cool?

It’s just page after page after page of this.

OK, then.

I bailed on page 20. Perhaps the remaining 200 pages are great; I’ll never know.

Perfect Hair by Tommi Parrish (2d cloud)

Hey, that’s a nice table of contents…

That’s just what it feels like!

But joking aside, this is a powerful little book. I absolutely adore Parrish’s sense of colour and space. And it’s not all sex and abject behaviour.

There’s also sweet things.

Sort of.

Sprawling Heart by Sab Meynert (2d cloud)

This is a very pretty booklet, but I didn’t really connect much with it. The texts seem to have a self-help vibe, which isn’t my thing.

Time Capsule by Maggie Umber (2d cloud)

I was absolutely captivated by Umber’s grey/blue book about owls… what was it called… something with snow? Anyway, that was amazing.

This one’s a smaller work, and it’s got an ending I didn’t see coming at all.

Five Years #2 by Terry Moore (Abstract)

I only read a couple of issues of Moore’s long-running (and successful?) series… which was called… uhm… Oh, yeah, Strangers in Paradise. It looked a bit like Love and Rockets, but it wasn’t Love and Rockets, so I just avoided it. But I thought I’d give him a try again, and this is more than a little confusing. If I read issue one, I’ve forgotten it, and he doesn’t explain anything here. But that’s fine. What’s more disappointing is how the artwork is rather unengaging.

What’s Michael? vol 11 by Makoto Kobayashi (Dark Horse)

The first volumes of What’s Michael? were some of the funniest things I’ve ever read in my entire life ever, but it seemed to get less inspired as it went along. Fewer characters introduced; fewer scenarios — more streamlined. And so this volume continues…

… until the second half, which is all dedicated to a new concept: A planet where the cats are the dominant species. It’s not prime Michael silliness, but I laughed out loud a couple of times.

This was the final volume Dark Horse published, and I wonder whether that was because Makoto Kobayashi stopped doing them, or whether it was because they didn’t sell…

Beasts of Burden by the people named up there (Dark Horse)

I’ve been a diffident Dorkin fan since forever. I mean, I’ve bought and read everything he’s done (except Pirate Corp$; I hope that’s collected sometime soon), but I’m not… I mean, Dorkin has his faults.

And the new artist here is more Generic Image than Jill Thompson, so there isn’t that much to recommend this latest series. There’s a “the end” on the final page, so it’s just a two issue series? And … nothing that mattered much happened here? It’s just… odd.

Prince Valiant vol 18 by Foster and Murphy (Fantagraphics)

We’re in deep pap pap territory now.

I used to read Prince Valiant in crappy editions as a child, but reading these new editions from Fantagraphics has been an eye opener. Sure, Foster’s stories got increasingly boring as time went on, but the artwork sure is nice.

Except now Foster isn’t doing the artwork any more, and everything that doesn’t look like bad anatomy looks like reproduction mistakes.

I hadn’t quite realised how much my enjoyment of these comics hinged on the artwork, but I guess it did? Or perhaps Foster’s stories got even more boring when he stopped inking, because I just can’t pay attention to this, and I bailed about half way through. I’ll stop the subscription now for sure.

What Am I Doing Here? by Abner Dean (New York Review Comics)

This is a “real book”. Nice to know.

It does seem pretty much like a collection of cartoons, though. *gasp*

Quite a few of these have the non-joke structure of New Yorker cartoons.

But some of these are kinda good.

And some are way smarmy.

The True Death of Billy the Kid by Rick Geary (NBM)

I have no interest in Billy the Kid, but, then again, I’ve had no interest in any of the killers and murders that Rick Geary has meticulously made book after book about for the past… three? decades. I just love Rick Geary and the way he makes comics. His pacing and panel to panel transitions are immaculate.

This story gives Geary lots of fun possibilities to play with, which doesn’t hurt.

Tempo 23 (Egmont)

Comics for boys: Tempo was an anthology running from the late 60s to the late 70s (I think) and translated and reprinted material mostly from the Franco/Belgian weeklies Pilote and Tintin. So you get comics about race car drivers, pilots, football players, detectives and everything that interests boys.

This is a newish go-around with the same series, but this time a couple of albums per new “book”. I’m guessing the target audience is the same as before, only fourty-fifty years older.

I wouldn’t claim that these comics are … good? Because they’re pretty weak stuff: Usually pretty stilted an formulaic. But it’s in a style I kinda like. And at least they tried to be progressive, like bringing in a female Soviet astronaut into the Dan Cooper story above, for instance.

But it’s mainly the style. I just like looking at pages of nice interiors, as in this … Luc Orient? thing?

The story is beyond tedious, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I mean, it looks pretty exciting, doesn’t it?

And there’s other odds and ends in this book; it’s most amiable, but I wouldn’t really recommend it to anybody. There’s a reason these comics end up here instead of in proper collections: Even fewer people would buy them then. I’m guessing the only reason that it’s feasible now at all is because the French have gone in for a massive scanning-and-reprint operation for many of their “classic” series, which makes the material cheaply available for anybody who wants to publish translated versions.

Is my guess.

OK, it’s now way late and I should go to sleep. And there won’t be any more posts about comics for… four days? There’s a free jazz festival happening, but I may be back on… Monday? Yup. Monday.

The was an unplanned service interrupting in this blog series yesterday (OK, I went to a garden centre and bought a rose bushlet that I then had to plant and etc), but I’m now back to reading comics all day long. And as before: No reviews, because ain’t nobody got time for that.

War of the Realms: Journey Into Mystery #3-5 (Marvel) by all these people:

There was a decade and a half where I didn’t read any super-hero comics, but then I dipped in here and there and now I’m getting a handful per month. Unfortunately, the ones I like keep getting cancelled. On the other hand, Mile High Comics has this weird thing where you get “cross-overs” with the books you’re buying, and I guess I got this because I was reading Hawkeye (written by Kelly Thompson)? I could get them to stop it, but I kinda like getting these random comics…

This one is more random than most: It’s part of Marvel’s latest (?) mega-crossover thing, and I have absolutely no idea what’s going on.

Or who these characters are.

But no matter: This is totally amiable. There’s gags that kinda work, and there’s fun fights, and it ends with nothing really having happened, really, because it’s a mini-series designed to slot into a mega thing.

That’s fine.

Almost Completely Baxter by Glen Baxter (New York Review Comics)

I love silliness (Michael Kupperman is a favourite), but this book just doesn’t connect for me.

So many of these just don’t seem very inspired.

This one did make me laugh, though.

And the one on the left.

About half of these seem to be exercises in taking a still from a movie (or something) and then adding an incongruous title, and that’s just lazy.

OK, that’s a good one.

Salz and Pfeffer by Émilie Gleason (2d cloud)

This book is about Disney characters alternatively torturing people…

… or being tortured. And the last half is also one big giant fart gag, so what’s not to like?

It does feel excessively inconsequential, though.

Trying Not To Notice by Will Dinski (2d cloud)

This is a very non-2d cloud book: It’s a traditionally told story about the most boring characters ever in the history of ever: Stand-up comics and accountants.

It does become a bit more interesting in the final section, which is about what the title says. There’s some eerie, effective scenes in there. But if you sum it up (“oh boy, movie stars sure are delusional!”) (ok, that’s the crassest way possible) it’s all rather slight.

Twists of Fate by Paco Roca (Fantagraphics)

This is the story about Spanish antifascists.

There’s two layers: There’s a comic book artist interviewing a veteran, and the stories by the veteran. It’s a moving story, and I cried a bit when they entered Paris, but let’s face it: This book’s a mess. I immediately assumed that the framing story (“Roca” and the veteran) was complete fiction… because that’s what it reads like. Then bits of the history itself started seeming more and more unreal, what with the “ironic” twist of getting killed just when they were out of danger. They should sell Extreme Eye Roll Insurance with this book, because I sprained my eyeballs.

Worst of all, it reads like an adaptation of a movie: There’s nothing comicsey about the work at all. You can translate it to film, frame by frame, scene by scene, and that makes for a less than idea reading experience.

But there are powerful scenes in here, and that’s mostly when Roca doesn’t have the veteran telling “Roca” how wonderful he is.

Abyss by Saman Bemel-Benrud (2d cloud)

This is an interesting booklet that starts out like an anti-gentrification thing and then spins out in all kinds of interesting way. It’s pleasantly unsettling.

Untitled by Unknown (2d cloud, perhaps)

There’s no text anywhere in this booklet, so I don’t know who this is by, but it was amongst the stuff I bought from 2d cloud recently, so I’m guessing they’re the publisher.

It’s kinda hypnotic. There’s page after page of this mixture of very concrete and then more dream-like imagery…

And then in the middle of the book, there’s this thing, which comes as a visceral shock.

I don’t know what the book is about, but I’m guessing war and death.

It Felt Like Nothing by Fifi Martinez (2d cloud)

This booklet is pretty awesome. It’s got this flow…

… and the marks are so appealing.

Gustave el Aubert Tro Is Contes by Christopher Adams (2d cloud)

This mini seems to perhaps be composed from conversations overheard on CB radio… and other places? It’s got a nice rhythm.

Tim & Thomas 38: Fristelsen by Will and Desberg (Zoom)

This is a direct continuation of the Tif et Tondo album I read the other day, and it’s slightly less depressing. It’s about Tif (I think) going undercover in the fascist organisation, and eventually defeating it (before they make France into a whites-only monarchy).

(That’s the fascists’ propaganda video.)

It’s still a wildly incongruous reading experience… and it’s… not good?

It’s got a nice ending, though: The villains’ ill-begotten money goes to fund childcare for immigrants.

Comics as Poetry (edited by Franklin Einspruch)

Hey, this is really special. I like the Ink Brick anthologies, but they do have a surfeit of works that are simply illustrated poetry. This is much more ambitious, with works that really hint at a comics poetics.

Like the thing above that you have to work out how to read.

And this, which is very… Something. I’m so erudite.

All the work in here is good, but I particularly liked this four page piece by the editor.

Frontier #19 by Hannah Waldron (Youth in Decline)

This is a booklet of weaved material. I was a bit confused about the presentation until I, genius that I am, realised that we’re seeing both the front and the back of these tapestries.

Front…

Back. So we’re sort of reading a book of tapestries; how it’d look like if they were bound in this format.

Only on paper.

Neat.

Mr & Mrs X vol 1 (Marvel) by all these people:

Thompson has written some other super-hero comics I’ve kinda enjoyed, so I got this one.

It starts off amusingly enough. I mean, it’s not actually funny or anything, but it’s OK. The artwork’s a bit confusing, though, because nobody looks like they usually do. I think? Or were all the characters replaced by other people while I wasn’t paying attention? It’s happened before.

Well, I don’t care.

And the action bits (and there are a lot of them) are also not awful, but about halfway through this volume I lost all interest and it was rather a chore to get through. These aren’t bad super-hero comics, but, you know.

Roopert by August Lipp (Revival House)

Well, even for odd books, this is an odd book. I guess it’s meant to look like it’s been drawn on a yellow notebook? But then that means that all the figures have been whited in? And then drawn with blue over the whiteout? That doesn’t make sense, so the conceit falls apart…

It’s just so bizarre. I mean, that’s a very very simple pee joke, but drawn in this style it feels less like a joke and more like a transmission from another planet.

Mami by Diigii Daguna (Peow)

My immediate reaction to this was “oh no, not another European guy doing Japanese comics”, but this is from somebody on Manila, and it’s rather cute. The cartoonist is going for “manic fun”, and only occasionally lands at “incoherent chaos”.

In addition to the fun storyline, there’s also cooking. I like that.

All the Sad Songs by Summer Pierre (Retrofit/Big Planet)

I didn’t know anything about the Pierre, so I thought this was just going to be about growing up and making mixtapes, but it turns out she’s a musician, so
I put on this playlist about halfway through reading. She should have mentioned that at the start so that I could have been listening all the way through. Dude.

This reminds me of an interview I read with a novelist just the other day. She said that people often tell her they like her books because they identify with them, but she finds that so odd: Just liking something because it’s about somebody similar (in one way or another) to themselves. She likes reading about people totally different from herself.

Pierre has a really appealing line, but the pacing of this book seemed way off to me.

You Don’t Get There From Here #46 by Carrie McNinch

I usually read these pretty quickly upon getting them (because I find them really soothing), but this was stuck between some other comics, so I re-found it recently. And went “hm, hasn’t it been a while since I got new issues?” and my subscription had expired. But the good news is that four new issues is coming my way any day now.

This one deals with (among other things) January 2017, so it’s not completely undepressing.

It’s still irrepressibly readable.

But now I think it’s time to go to bed. Another day of reading comics tomorrow? Sure, why not?