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Winter Is Behind Us Now; It Is Ahead of Us, Also – Thoughts
It’s been just under a week now. But it’s been a long time coming. This last 18 months has been brutal. It feels unprecedented. It is, in some ways, and in others, maybe not. I’ve been reading a lot, but not comics, certainly not literature. I’ve been listening to a lot, but not music. Analyses,…
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Review: Internal Affairs III by Patrick Crotty
Review: Internal Affairs III by Patrick Crotty Another of PEOW! Studio’s Kickstarter comics, Patrick Crotty’s Internal Affairs III is a continuation of previous Internal Affairs comics published by PEOW!, but stands alone as a 192-page graphic novel. In it, the main character, Onion, is an unpaid intern at Banervelt AMCS, a major corp that uses mechs…
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Review: Happy Trails by Scott Roberts
Scott was kind enough to send over a copy of his latest comic, Happy Trails, before SPX this year. Roberts is a constant formal experimenter, and Happy Trails, which is a 112 page risographed book, is both a comic, and a two-way flip book. Happy Trails is also probably the most frightening comic I’ve read all year. I pulled…
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Review: Wrecked Hearts by Mathilde Kitteh & Luca Oliveri
It’s become obvious that the demarcating lines between different comics traditions are blurry. It’s been that way for a while, but we are starting to see more interaction between the North American/European comics scene and the Japanese manga scene. More and more cartoonists who were introduced to manga and anime at a young age are now working on their…
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Review: Trying Not To Notice by Will Dinski
Trying Not To Notice is one of the final books to come out of 2dcloud’s Spring Collection and my first encounter with cartoonist and illustrator Will Dinski in long form. I read An Honest Performance in 2015, which was noticeable for its strong line and a sense that marks on the page were more instinctual than placed. Now Dinski…
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To Be Known, If Only for a Moment: Thoughts on Cartoon Crossroads Columbus 2016
This weekend was Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC). This year represented the show’s first major expansion as it continues to grow. There was an academic conference on Thursday and Friday, with events throughout the end of the week; the CXC Expo and Marketplace happenedSaturday and Sunday this year, and I was fortunate enough to attend bothweekend days. It sounds…
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Review: Weakly Comics Xtra Large Annual, edited by Andrew Alexander, Max Huffman, and Jack Reese
I got a copy of the Weakly Comics Xtra Large Annual through Kickstarter this year. It was shipped out during the Spring, right before TCAF, and it ended up getting filed away for another time. That time, for me, was last week. The Kickstarter video for the campaign was a little weird, so it…
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Review: Safe Distance by James Hindle
Safe Distance is a 20 page zine published by One Percent Press and is the third book by James Hindle published by the micropress. I got a copy at Genghis Con in 2015. I’ve read it a few times since then, and while it’s a quick read, Safe Distance is a complex book. In it Hindle explores the…
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Review: Someone Please Have Sex With Me by Gina Wynbrandt
Part of 2dcloud’s Spring Collection, Someone Please Have Sex With Me is Gina Wynbrandt’s debut graphic novel, a collection of satirical, semi-autobiographic short stories. There’s been plenty of talk about Wynbrandt’s work. One of the selections, “Big Pussy,” got Wynbrandt nominated for a Promising New Talent Ignatz in 2015. That comic, riso printed in fluorescent pink, was a favorite…
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Quick Picks #5: Manga Manga Manga
Quick Picks is an occasionally written series of microreviews of books I’ve read over the past two weeks. Here’s a selection of manga I’ve been reading recently. Haven’t You Heard, I’m Sakamoto #1 & #2 by Nami Sano A series that recently ended with its fourth volume, Haven’tYou Heard, I’m Sakamoto is an oddball comedy by Nami…
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Review: The Envelope Manufacturer by Chris Oliveros
Chris Oliveros is best known for founding Drawn & Quarterly and acting as its publisher for 25 years. In April of 2015, Oliveros stepped down as publisher, and in January 2016, his self-published comic The Envelope Manufacturer was released with distribution from D&Q. The Envelope Manufacturer is 102 pages of black and white comics about the anxieties and self-delusion of…
