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Archcomix


By Dan Archerwww.archcomix.com
So it seems like for the last little while I've been reviewing a lot of things I don't really care about. I'd say it might be reflective of my mood in general, but then along comes a comic like this and I remember why I have this blog in the first place: this comic is great and I never would have heard of it if someone hadn't sent it to me.

Archer's work falls into the history/journalism section of comics that seems to be rarely used, and even more frequently ignored. I guess maybe left wing political comics aren't going to have a huge audience (but I can always hope). These comics all succeed on what I assume is the point of their creation: they educate the reader by telling them about something they (or at least I) didn't know about before. I learned about real events, different types of organizations, political viewpoints, and more.

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by bachan | Fri, 14/06/2013 - 07:30

For the Record I Know this is a Bad Idea


By Eroyn Franklineroynfranklin.com
I can't say for sure why this zine is named as it is, but I feel it reflects the content of the comics inside. Not that they're about characters doing things they know are bad ideas (well, some of them are), but more an admission from the author that even making these comics is a poor idea in the first place.
The comics inside here seem so...negative. And I guess they're supposed to be funny (and some of them sort of are), but I'm clearly not in the right mind set for this sort of thing right now. Comics about how nobody cares about you, drunk people passing out on the sidewalk after throwing up and making out, pregnant kids getting kicked in the stomach, laughing at someone saying "I love you", a character talking about giving their wife black eyes; It's all just...not what I want to read right now. Or ever for that matter.
Urgh, where are the comics about dinosaur robots shooting laser beams?

by bachan | Wed, 12/06/2013 - 11:15

Westside Angst 10


By Ianto Ware (this zine is like eight years old, so who knows if that email address works)

Huh, it's been a while since I've reviewed a perzine. So many comics! I went back to the UK to visit my parents at Xmas, and one of the things I did while there was look through a bunch of boxes of stuff I'd left with them. One of them contained the remnants of all of these comics that my friend Jen had sent me a few years ago. Clearly that would not do! I have to review everything! So I put them in my bag to bring back to Canada, and a fair number of the reviews over the last few months have been of those comics.

But this (despite being old) isn't one! No, I picked this up at the Roberts Street Social Centre because I thought the way it was bound with a giant metal clip, and designed with multiple layers of different cardstock for the cover made it look really neat. Weirdly, I ended up reviewing another zine earlier this year that was also by Ware and from what seems to be about the same time as this one.

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by bachan | Mon, 10/06/2013 - 09:00

Lei Li: The Rage of the Tiger #1 and #2


By Ertito Montana
www.zona00.com

I'm generally a pretty big fan of "fighting fiction" as I call it. I've read a lot of super hero comics, played a lot of video games where I shoot (or otherwise fight) other people/things, and enjoy watching action films. One style of action film I enjoy quite a bit are the ones that come out of Hong Kong and China. I've enjoyed these for years, and have watched a bunch in the last month. (Also, Vampire Warriors is kind of hilariously terrible.)

Even when they're terrible I kind of enjoy them for existing in a world completely unlike reality. The only people who exist are people who can fight, and they fight all the time! And they're so serious about it, as though who is the better fighter is the only thing that's important in the world.

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by bachan | Fri, 07/06/2013 - 11:20

Vantage


By Eroyn Franklineroynfranklin.com
This is a brief art zine that features drawings of the ground and landscape from a four day, 45 mile (72km) hike along trails in Washington state. Let me begin by saying "that sounds like something I never want to do". While I enjoy nature a lot, and really hate when it is destroyed by ever expanding human settlements, I am generally okay with it existing somewhere else and never (or rarely) visiting it. Sometimes I think that's probably better for the environment in general. For a really awesome and moving documentary about how humanity effects nature you should check out Bear 71. It kind of blew my mind, both in regards to its content and the way it told its story.

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by bachan | Wed, 05/06/2013 - 11:13

Paper and Ink: Broken Hearts and Broken Bottles Vol. 1


Edited by Martin Applebywww.inpursuitofexpression.com
Reading the introduction to this lit anthology I realized I was the wrong person to review it. Appleby writes that "The theme of this issue is heart break. A subject that most people can relate to and empathise with. I find something extremely cathartic about tales of lost love, of hearts being ripped out and shattered into a thousend [sic] peices [sic]."

And sure, I can relate to heart break, I've been in relationships, they've ended, sometimes sadly, sometimes not. But that doesn't meant I want to read about relationships, functional or not. Romance in fiction generally bores me to tears, and I frequently try to avoid it. I mean, it's not like the concept of romance is a complete anathema to me, I've read stuff that I've enjoyed, but I generally find it trite and banal.

I'm sure all of this makes me seem like a horrible person (or at least a horrible person to be in a relationship with), but it's not like I ignore the idea of romance in my own life. I guess I just find most portrayals of it to not connect with either my experience or my ideas concerning the topic.

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by bachan | Mon, 03/06/2013 - 11:18

Ci Vediamo

By Hazel Newlevant
newlevant.com

The Xeric Awards were monetary prizes given out to comic book self-publishers from 1992 - 2012. Created by Peter Laird (co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), they probably gave out close to, if not over, a million dollars to hundreds of comics creators. They stopped last year, apparently due to the popularity of webcomics and creators using Kickstarter as a means to raise money to fund self-publishing. The Xeric Foundation now only gives out grants to charitable and non-profit organizations (and not comic book related ones as far as I could tell).

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by bachan | Fri, 31/05/2013 - 08:54

Deluge


By Eroyn Franklineroynfranklin.com
I've read a number of Franklin's comics over the past couple of months, and all of them seem to succeed in making me feel uncomfortable in one way or another. This one is hard to describe as it doesn't seem to be "about" anything, and not that much actually happens. Franklin's site says "The deluge is a struggle with burdens that appear overwhelming but by comparison to the problems of others they are surmountable, even welcomed.", but to be honest I totally didn't get that out of the comic.

The comic features the same two panel layout on each page, and opens with a person seemingly frustrated with an itch in their ear. Over several pages they begin picking at it, and what starts as almost nothing becomes a...well, a "deluge" or ear stuff. It's kind of gross, helped in no small part by the fact that all of the ear stuff is printed with a sickly green colour.

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by bachan | Wed, 29/05/2013 - 10:18

Slam-A-Rama #s 2 & 5


By Dave Howlett
slamaramacomic.blogspot.com

So I read an issue of this comic last year some time, and didn't even think about about reviewing it on this site. Why? I really don't know, maybe because it seems so professional in its content and presentation. It's printed by an actual printing business, it's in full colour, and it's incredibly solid in it's construction. It's obvious to me that Howlett wrote the entire thing in advance, and had a script and knew when everything would happen. Even if the final version doesn't match the script exactly, he had a plan and put in the time to complete it. So why am I actually reviewing it this time? Well, it is a minicomic size wise, and I know that there were only a few hundred copies printed, plus I liked it!

I only had issues two and five, but after finishing reading them I went to Howlett's site and was happily surprised to discover that the entire comic is there, so I read all of the other issues. Even if I read them out of order, I'm glad I was able to read the entire story.

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by bachan | Mon, 27/05/2013 - 07:30

Pants: an anthology


By Ben Juers, Jone Fine, Emily Steele Sauter, and Nomi Kanebjjuers.wordpress.comjonlfine.googlepages.comsexandweather.blogspot.combrewforbreakfast.com
This is a comic book anthology about pants. Not pants in the UK sense, but trousers. Kind of a weird idea for an anthology, but at the same time it's broad enough that you can have lots of different types of stories that still fulfill the mandated theme.
The stories contained in this zine include one were a cat turns into a tree after putting on pants, a historical piece about early adopters of bloomers, the existence of nantucket reds and horrible yuppie society, and a giant, talking spider who thinks they're not getting jobs because they're naked.

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by bachan | Fri, 24/05/2013 - 07:30