Sequential State – the comics criticism archive of Alex Hoffman

Tag: comics

  • Review: Leaf by Daishu Ma Sentence transitions and paragraph structure are feeling extremely difficult right now. I’ve been kicking around some thoughts about the Fantagraphics book Leaf, which was published last year at the tail end of the publishing season.  So, I guess, a review in bullets: There’s something to be said about the range…

  • Review: To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts, vol. 1, by Maybe There’s something intoxicating about dark fantasy. The most popular manga in the USA is Attack on Titan, a dark fantasy giant zombie title I haven’t kept up with (I did review the first volume a long time ago in another life, review forthcoming?).  To The…

  • Review: Handbook by Kevin Budnik Kevin Budnik’s Handbook is a mixed narrative, one of anxiety and disordered eating, and another of relationships in a post-recovery world. In a 2×2 grid that I’ve come to associate with Budnik’s autobiographical work, we see him navigate the present as he contends with a past that is part ghost,…

  • Sequential Statement #10 – Back in Orbit

    Sequential Statement #10 – Back in Orbit

    Episode #10: Back in Orbit Alex and Nick talk about Alex’s recent trip to the Toronto Comics Arts Festival in Toronto, ON. We chat about the last month’s lost episode, Captain America: Civil War, and the recent Captain America/Hydra comic and the resulting fallout. Reviews of: Dimension W #1 by Yuji Iwahara Hilda and the…

  • Review: Twin Bed by Robyn Chapman

    Review: Twin Bed by Robyn Chapman

    I’ve been reviewing comics about dysfunctional relationships this week (Lulu Anew, Megg & Mogg in Amsterdam and Other Stories), so I think it’s best to finish the week off with Robyn Chapman’s latest comic, recently published through a small Kickstarter project this winter. Chapman has slowly been plugging away as the publisher of the micropress…

  • Darkening Sameness: Thoughts on Megg & Mogg In Amsterdam and Other Stories by Simon Hanselmann

    Megg & Mogg In Amsterdam and Other Stories (Amsterdam from this point forward) is Simon Hanselmann’s latest Megg, Mogg, and Owl release from Fantagraphics. It collects 160 pages of Hanselmann’s comics which have originally appeared on the internet and in other forms, including the collaborative zine Werewolf Jones & Sons with Melbourne-based artist HTMLflowers. One…

  • Thoughts on The Greek Chorus and Circular Storytelling of Lulu Anew by Étienne Davodeau

    I recently finished up reading a stack of newish NBM books. I was surprised by Lulu Anew, a 2008-2010 French comic by Étienne Davodeau that NBM translated and published under their ComicsLit line in 2015. In Lulu Anew, the main character Lulu walks away from an unsuccessful interview and an unhappy marriage and into the…

  • Review: The Fun Family by Benjamin Frisch  Remixing the dusty, rattling corpses of newspaper comics has become something of a recent trend in indie publishing; Garfield Minus Garfield, the internet darling, is likely a progenitor of the latest wave of these comics that poke around with the classic modern newspaper funnies. These comics mine (and…

  • Alex Hoffman is creating comics criticism and writing | Patreon

    Alex Hoffman is creating comics criticism and writing | Patreon Hey there! If you follow Sequential State on tumblr or visit the website often, you know that Sequential State is an independent website dedicated to thoughtful reviews and commentary of alternative and independently published comics. Since day one, I’ve tried to make Sequential State a…

  • Interview: Andy Barron

    Andy Barron is a cartoonist and illustrator based in London. Barron will be attending TCAF this year with a collection of his self-published, small run series of Om comics called Mantra. The series features a doughy main character Om in a surreal world full of dangerous creatures ready to eat him for dinner. I sat…

  • Review: Trashed by Derf Backderf One of 2015’s bigger graphic novel releases was Derf Backderf’s Trashed, an ode to the work of being a trash collector. This thick graphic novel tells the story of a college drop-out trying to figure out what to do with his life after leaving school, and ends up on the…