Sequential State – the comics criticism archive of Alex Hoffman

Month: June 2015

  • Review: The Oven by Sophie Goldstein  The Oven is a book I’ve written about briefly in the past – starting out as a serialized black and white comic in the Maple Key anthology, it was published earlier this year by AdHouse as a 2 tone black, white, and orange perfect bound book with orange gilding.…

  • Review: Shoplifter, by Michael Cho It seems like the last week of June is the week where I talk about books that focus on people who are displaced or struggling; on Monday I reviewed Noah Van Sciver’s Saint Cole, and today, Michael Cho’s debut graphic novel Shoplifter, a 96 page two-tone comic from Pantheon about…

  • Review: LYDIAN, by Sam Alden Sam Alden is known for beautifully rendered graphite comics (for examples, check out my reviews of Alden’s Wicked Chicken Queen from Retrofit Books retrofitcomics and It Never Happened Again from Uncivilized Press uncivilizr ). But for a little over a year, Alden has been using low-resolution full-color pixel art as…

  • Review: Saint Cole by Noah Van Sciver No singular artist captures the dysphoria of modern blue collar life like Noah Van Sciver. His latest book, Saint Cole, is 116 pages of black and white comics about a guy named Joe working as a server at a pizza chain. Joe is stuck in a service industry…

  • Pointers #2

    I’ve been running a lot of reviews recently, and I thought I’d take a break and point you towards some webcomics I’ve been reading recently: Snarlbear by Natalie Riess is a webcomic about a girl called Snarlbear who has been transported to the strange and oddly dangerous Rainbow Dimension. I think has recently hit its…

  • Review: Black River by Josh Simmons Author’s note: The contents of this review may be triggering due to discussion of both physical and sexual violence. There’s been a “recent” uptick in post-apocalyptic literature, from the resurgence of the zombie flick and revival of the Mad Max franchise to YA stories like The Hunger Games and…

  • Review: The Nature of Nature by Disa Wallander Humanity has a strained relationship with the natural world. We marvel at its complexity and its beauty, but we are afraid of its wildness and its brutality. And for all that we understand about the natural world, there’s still more to learn. This quest for more information…

  • Review: Inaction Comics Anthology no. 1 – productivity, edited by Kimball Anderson with editorial assistance by MJ Robinson Inaction Comics no. 1 is an anthology collecting the work of 12 cartoonists into a 100-page perfect bound book that studies, fights, and comes to terms with the concept of “action” or “doing.” Edited by Kimball Anderson,…

  • Review: Miseryland by Keiler Roberts This weekend is the wild rumpus of comics arts festivals, including the brand new New South Festival in Austin Texas and CAKE in Chicago. If you have the weekend free and are nearby either, I’d suggest you check them out. There are quite a few books debuting at these shows,…

  • Review: Sleepwalking by Lauren Monger

    Review: Sleepwalking by Lauren Monger

      Lauren Monger’s comics are fairly popular on the World Wide Web, and this spring Monger released a full comic in print with Space Face Books, Sleepwalking. (Update: This comic has been reprinted by Silver Sprocket in 2019, since Space Face Books is no longer publishing comics) One of my must-grabs this TCAF, Sleepwalking is…

  • Review: Lovers Only #1 by Cathy G. Johnson, Mickey Zacchilli, and Sophia Foster-Dimino The Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) is thoroughly in the books at this point, and after two weeks of vacation & work-inflicted internet exile, I’m finally digging into some of the books I got at TCAF. Last year I wrote a show…