Sequential State – the comics criticism archive of Alex Hoffman

Month: January 2015

  • Looking Forward: Space Face Books Spring 2015 Publishing Slate

    Happy Friday!  It’s a new year, and that means publishers are starting to reveal Spring 2015 slates. There have been a lot of exciting announcements the past two weeks, one of which is 2D Cloud’s 2015 publishing expansion. Nestled in a post that includes two new employees for the micropress was a list of authors…

  • Review: mini kuš! #24 – Swimming Pool by Anna Vaivare I’m back again with another mini kuš! this week. The kind folks at kuš! komiksi sent out a selection of their recent minis, and I’ve been thinking about how different each of these minis is compared to one another. While there aren’t necessarily unified themes…

  • Review: SCREWJOB #1, edited by Paul Lyons Contributors: Box Brown, Pat Aulisio, Lale Westvind, Josh Bayer, Blake Sims, Brian Ralph, Paul Lyons, Mickey Zacchilli, Walker Mettling, James “GUNSHO” Quigley, Matt Leines A review copy was provided by the publisher. There was always a ban on “indecent” television in my parent’s home growing up. My brother…

  • Review: Doctors by Dash Shaw One of the key tenets of bioethics is the maxim “Primum non nocere” or “First, do no harm.” The guiding principle of nonmaleficence reminds doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers that any intervention they pursue may cause more harm than good. This principle seems to have been completely abandoned by…

  • Review: In Clothes Called Fat (with emphasis on comparison to Kyoko Okazaki’s Pink)

    I wanted to take some time to discuss Moyoco Anno’s new comic In Clothes Called Fat late last year, and I’m finally getting around to it now. Recently, Katie Skelly wrote a thoughtful review of In Clothes Called Fat and compared it to Kyoko Okazaki’s Helter Skelter, a seminal josei manga of the 1990s. After having…

  • Review: Days Longer Than Long Pork Sausages by Gabriel Corbera Back in the days of dial-up internet, I played MUD (multi-user dungeon) games on my PC’s telnet console. These games were complex worlds built of nothing but words and the player’s imagination. Whether you were throwing magic missiles at rats to grind those early levels…

  • Interview: Solomon Fletcher ‘It’s really important for me to show the people in my comics practicing consent, communicating, being safe and respecting each other–even when they make mistakes. ‘

    One of my “new years resolutions” for Sequential State was to talk to more creators about their comics. Over the holidays, I had the opportunity to talk with Solomon Fletcher about their porn webcomic Goldy & the Bears, about sex positive education, and making video games. I’m happy to post the first in what hopefully…

  • Review: Mimi and the Wolves, Acts I and II by Alabaster Late in 2014, Matt from Hic and Hoc sent over a bundle of recent comics, and it’s only now that I’m starting to get around to reading everything. The first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have one, so there it…

  • Review: Rough Age by Max de Radiguès

    Earlier last year I took some time to review Max de Radiguès Bastard #1 from Oily Comics. I liked the comic’s flow and Radiguès’ delicate line. Thankfully in 2014 we got a bit more of his work from One Percent Press, a collection of the 2009-2010 L’âge dur, translated as Rough Age. The comic has…

  • Looking Forward: Sophie Goldstein’s The Oven Collected by AdHouse

    Sophie Goldstein’s work has been on and off my radar over the past year – I still haven’t grabbed a copy of her Ignatz-winning  House of Women, Part 1, but her comic The Good Wife caught my attention early last year with its over-saturated colors and its biting, brilliant uncomfortableness.  The Oven is a 6 chapter sci-fi…

  • Comics That Challenged Me in 2014: The Complete List

    In no particular order: RAV: 1st Collection – Mickey Zacchilli [spideretc] (Youth in Decline [youthindecline] , 2014) Ley Lines: Unholy Shapes – Annie Mok [heyanniemok] (Czap Books [kevinczap] & Grindstone Comics [wormulus], 2014) Autobiographic Comics (untitled) – Laura Knetzger [laurark] (self-published, 2014) Never Forgets – Yumi Sakugawa [yumisakugawa]  (self-published, 2014) “My Sister Dropped Dead From The Heat”…