Random Thoughts

I got a whole bunch more of the books I missed in 2024 in the mail on Friday, so it’s time to get some more reading done. And like the previous Daze, I’m mixing these books I found on various “best of 2024” lists and then realised that I’d forgotten to buy with a bunch of small press stuff I bought from Domino Comics.

OK, let’s get started… and for musical accompaniment, music from 2002 only.

The Notwist: Neon Golden

10:12: Final Cut by Charles Burns (Pantheon Books)

I’ve loved Burns ever since I was a teenager (or pre-teen? *counts on fingers* nope, but almost), and I still think that many of his shorter works are absolutely flabbergastingly good (i.e., everything in Raw Magazine, including the Big Baby book, and also perhaps including Defective Stories).

Then you get to his major opus Black Hole, which sort of expanded on some of his obsessions… and the first two thirds are flawless. And then the ending is meh. And then there’s the X’d Out sequence, where the first third is flawless, and then the ending is meh.

Heh heh:

In 2024, Burns released a short work called Unwholesome Love, and it was really good. And also Final Cut, which is a longer book, and is on one third of the TCJ’s contributors’ lists (or something), and I’m just typing all of this to explain that my expectations for Final Cut are very low, even if I am a Burns fanatic.

The printing is a bit odd. I appreciate that they’ve used matte paper, but the blacks aren’t as black as they should be — I feel that Pantheon has skimped on the amount of ink or something.

This is a return to Burns staples — teens hanging out…

… and body horror stuff.

And it’s… it’s good? It’s good. He even gets in some sly digs at critics: “It looks like a big vagina”. See, if you’re doing self criticism, you’re then immune to somebody criticising your work. Sorry; those are the rules; I didn’t make them.

Pet Shop Boys: Disco 3

OK, I’m gonna do the geekiest complaint ever: I found Burns’ aspect ratio choices weird. Like here he has a TV being 5:4 instead of 4:3.

And when they’re showing their own movies (surely done on Super8, but it isn’t specified) they’re like… 3:2? Or something? I assure you, I’m just eyeballing things and didn’t get out my measuring equipment.

OOPS! SLANDER! THAT”S CGI

Anyway, as you may surmise from me musing about aspect ratios while reading this book, I was just a smidgen bored? Yeah, I was. But it’s good! Burns stakes the ending, and I totally understand that it’s on everybody’s Best Of lists last year.

11:19: Ugly Mug no. 8

This is anthology from the House of Harley, and the various pieces don’t seem to have clear credits… but they’re really funny. It’s a classic indie/undergroundish anthology — lots of loopy, wild stuff.

And also Ed Pinsent! There’s a name I haven’t seen in a while. And his art style changed a lot?

Anyway, class anthology. I should get the other issues.

Various: Disco Not Disco 2

11:35: Service Industry by T Edward Bak

This is an oversized book from 2007…

… and it’s wonderful. Ruminative and touching.

11:53: Anzuelo by Emma Ríos (Image Comics)

This book looks really handsome, but it’s published by Image? Now I’m suddenly sceptical.

Wow, that’s some artwork. I like it. And I guess this is gonna be some religiousey/philosophical thingie… I have to say that the computer lettering is pissing me off. Choosing a font like that is just reader hostile.

Oh! But then there’s a monster? And then they all gain super-powers?

*sigh*

Oh, Image.

I wonder who put this on their “best of” list so that I can fume a bit in their general direction. Oh. Oliver Ristau. And I see now that he also recommended 12/14 by Manix Abrera, one of the worst pieces of shit published last year, so this is all on me. My fault!

The artwork is indeed quite attractive, but nope. I’m bailing after one third.

12:16: Tales from the Richy Vegas Psychoverse #4 and Songbook by Richard Alexander

I love this book — the storytelling is unique, but easy to follow.

It’s gripping! Fantastic stuff; can’t wait to read the next issue.

The Songbook illustrates a song he wrote.

I like it.

Juana Molina: Tres Cosas

12:30: Mangaka 2 by Floyd Tangeman

Heh heh. Good one.

And this magazine (which collects a number of short pieces and some illustrations) is really cool.

Moloko: Statues

12:44: Amy Kurzweil by Artificial (Catapult)

This is a hefty auto/biography — I sometimes feel that people that put together “best of” lists use a scale and then just put the books that weigh the most at the top. I’m not denying that quantity has a quality all of it’s own — but it’s rather suspicious the way most people eschew shorter works from these lists.

I love the storytelling on this — we get sequences of small panels showing people moving from one place to another, and it works so well. These sections are a delight to read. I also like the light touches in the artwork — it’s “realistic”, but flows easily, especially with the nice grey washes.

It’s just… Kurzweil tells us the story about herself, her father, her father’s father. Her father is the very famous futurist (and inventor) Ray Kurzweil, so there’s your hook, but beyond that, I feel that we’re asked (as readers) to be interested in stuff that may not be that interesting.

For instance, there’s large sections of the book where they’re putting together a computer model of her grandfather and then interacting with it. Now, I don’t know how many years this book took to create, but drawing takes time, so I guess this all started before LLMs became a thing? So time hasn’t been kind to this narrative: You could have replaced about 150 of these pages with “and then they made an LLM and found the slop it generated to be moderately interesting”.

I know, it feels so cruel, but I’m not being unfair here. Sorry! And I also have to confess (well, I don’t really have to) that I started skimming these sections.

Amy Kurtzweil is obviously a very talented cartoonist and storyteller, so I’d be interested in reading her next book. But this one? Didn’t quite land.

Various: Secondhand Sounds: Herbert Remixes (1)

14:47: WWREC #1 & 2 by Max Burlingame & Angela Fanche

This is a collaborative book — i.e., both artists worked on these pages. The first issue is a really funny thing about shopping.

The second is a spy thriller or something. They’re cool comics.

15:09: Swag 6 by Cameron Arthur

Max Tundra: Mastered By Guy At The Exchange

15:26: Yearly 2024 by Andrew White

I bought this from here.

Nice! Two sketches.

This book collects stuff White did in 2024.

And it’s a wonderful book. The pieces don’t really relate to each other, but they do anyway.

The last bit in the book is about comics.

And it’s amazing.

15:54: The End

And I think I’m gonna stop reading on that high point today. And besides, I should make dinner.

I missed some comics I wanted to read in 2024! *gasp* My methodology for US comics is to go through the solicitations on my web site here, and then semiautomatically order the books… I’ve used Mile High Comics since I was 12, but they are horrible about actually reacting to subscription changes, especially when ordering one-off books, so then I switched to DCBS two years ago, and that worked fine until they started just not carrying books from certain publishers (like Silver Sprocket), so then I switched to TFAW this autumn. Hopefully that’ll fix the problem once and for all…

I hear you sensibly say “but why don’t you just wait until the comics are in the bookstores?” And I have to reply “my memory is a sieve, and not even a steel one. It’s 50/50 whether something that looks unknown to me in a bookstore is something I already have, but the solicitations helpfully are marked as “offered again” etc, so I know which ones are brand new, and I can buy them with certainty”.

Anyway, I perused the TCJ best of list and the Hipinion people’s and ordered a couple dozen books.

Some of which have arrived! And also a whole bunch of comics from Domino. Let’s get readin’.

(And today’s music is all either Arto Lindsay albums or albums he’s been involved with as a producer or something.)

Arto Lindsay: Mundo Civilizado

08:12: Blurry by Dash Shaw (New York Review Comics)

This is a book that I was really excited to read — Dash Shaw is great.

And I love the storytelling here — it’s hypnotic.

The Lounge Lizards: The Lounge Lizards

This book reminds me a lot of Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy, but instead of having a serial “listen to a new person’s tale” structure, it’s perhaps more like If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino? Unfortunately, this has the unfortunate whiff of Inception: We get stories within stories within stories, and then pop back out in the opposite order.

That’s all fun and kinda amazing, and while the ending doesn’t make much sense logically, it’s emotionally overwhelmingly joyous. Fantastic.

But what isn’t fantastic are many of the stories themselves, I’m sorry to say. Cusk is a master of having each story told being intensively interesting, but about half the stories here were just tedious. I’m sorry for using hate speech! Especially the art teacher thing, and that’s probably the central thing here (if you can call it that, what with the structure of the book).

So it’s frustrating: They way it’s constructed and some of the sections make you feel like it’s a masterpiece, put then the feeling passes.

The Golden Palominos: The Golden Palominos

09:45: Mineshaft #43 & 45 edited by Everett Rand

Noah van Sciver takes on the bête noire of comics artists — fine art! And that’s not a joke that’s ever been done before…

Aww. Aline Kominsky and Sophie Crumb. *sniff* (I’ve read this piece before, though.)

#45 is extremely strong.

Fantastic stuff.

And harrowing stuff.

I love Mineshaft, the last underground anthology. And #45 is amazing — best issue ever, I think.

Ambitious Lovers: Envy

10:26: Lapis Lazuli by Arbor

This is a little book that mixes pictures of graffiti…

… with sketches and drawings. It’s not narrative, but it somehow seems to build to something anyway. Nice.

10:34: The Beasts Inside by Nicole Rodrigues

Ooh, nice — it’s a vellumey plastickey page.

I like the artwork here.

The narrative is a bit on the vague side, but it’s got a nice flow.

Seigen Ono: Comme des Garçons

10:40: Crepusculine 1 by Conor Stechschulte

This is very intriguing…

… but so brief! It’s the start of a long story, I’m guessing? If it’s being serialised this way, there’ll be dozens and dozens of issues, perhaps.

Caetano Veloso: Estrangeiro

10:44: My Favorite Thing is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)

OK, back to the “best of 2024”-listed books again. This one wasn’t on so many lists as the first volume, I guess, but it was on plenty.

I haven’t re-read the first book, and that was back in 2016? Or something? So I remember nothing. Except that I wasn’t overly enthused by it. I mean, I liked it, but…

This doesn’t start out very reader friendly — with a dream sequence.

Marisa Monte: Mais

But then it smooths out considerably.

Laurie Anderson: Bright Red – Tightrope

Ferris’ artwork is impressive — she especially puts a lot of effort into the faces, so just looking at these pages is enjoyable.

[I took a nap here.]

Vinicius Cantuária: Sol Na Cara

The story, though… Well, it’s an enjoyable read. It’s got all the structure of porridge. It just flows strangely from one thing to another, and the reader is being asked to puzzle out what the mystery is. But Ferris cheats a lot: She has the protagonist forgetting things at points, or blanking out, and that just reeks of TV series storytelling. And there’s so many over-the-top dramatic moments, what with the speakeasy accessible from a secret basement, and the deranged cop dad, and…

And this doesn’t really seem like it’s the final volume of the story? Is there going to be a third book? If not the book is like… a kinda “fuck you” to the reader, really. Or perhaps not; perhaps it’s more like “well, things are mysterious and you never get to know what happened when you were a child” kind of thing? Because the book is a lot about withholding information from children, and how that affects them, so I guess that could make sense.

I guess I’m saying that I liked reading it, but I’m annoyed? Yeah.

Arto Lindsay: O Corpo Sutil

16:07: Round World Thinking by Ana Woulfe

OK, back to the Domino shipment.

I really like Woulfe’s artwork.

Heh heh, I think we have a Cocteau Twins fan here.

Anyway, this is funny and oddly sweet book.

And speaking of sweet, I’ve fetched some Kinder Eggs.

16:15: No, Thanks! by S. Höppner (Cram Books)

Such stylish artwork!

The story is both really funny and very intriguing. Excellent stuff.

Arto Lindsay: Reentry

16:20: Still Making Your Diary Comics? by Fran López

This comes with a nice little print.

Hey! This isn’t a diary comic after all! The nerve!

It’s a cute little story — really cool.

Vinicius Cantuária: Tucumã

16:27: Peepshow #15 by Joe Matt (Fantagraphics)

I missed this when it was published, so I had to buy if from ebay now for $$$. Man, why didn’t Fantagraphics just print enough copies instead? All the stores were sold.

It’s like no time has passed since the previous issue (which is two decades ago, I guess).

For better or for worse. So this is a nostalgic read, but it makes you want to strangle Matt even more than usual, even knowing that this is the final issue ever.

Arto Lindsay: Noon Chill

16:56: Vera Bushwack by Sig Burwash (Drawn & Quarterly)

This is a compelling book.

It’s very grounded…

… and at the same time it’s got these wonderful flights of fancy. It’s a solid book.

My one complaint is that the characters have a tendency to look the same (build, height, stance, facial feature), so you have to distinguish them by hairdo only, and that gets old.

Arto Lindsay: Prize

17:39: True-Man The Maximortal #1 by Rick Veitch

This was also on somebody’s Best Of list, and it’s print-on-demand available from Amazon only (phooey).

Oh yeah, I’d forgotten that Veitch draws digitally now. And it’s printed kinda low rez? It gives it a very stark look, but quite attractive, really.

Heh heh.

Oh right — this is a prequel! Or rather the first part of the King Hell Heroica thing, but published last. I was getting kinda confused about the storyline until the very end…

And as usual, in addition to 50 pages of Maximortal stuff, there’s also 50 pages of reprints of old stuff. These books are very attractive packages, really. You feel like you’re getting a good chunk of interesting stuff.

And stuff.

18:23: Absolute Simultaneity by Lily Thu Fierro/Generoso Fierro

Wow, this is something else.

It’s mesmerising. It’s kinda narrative, but kinda abstract, too, and it’s somehow very emotional. Fantastic.

18:29: Szns #1 by Chaia Startz (Deadcrow)

This is a short, but good book.

It’s only the first chapter of what I’m guessing is going to be a long narrative? I’m aboard; I’m already invested in these characters.

18:34: The End

And now I think I’m going to make dinner, so I think I’ll just call it a day with the comics reading. I guess I didn’t read that many of the “missed” comics as I’d planned today, but instead went with small press stuff instead a lot, so I’ve got a lot more “missed” books to read. Er… perhaps tomorrow? Probably not, but this weekend, perhaps.