< comics/x >
TENT CITY TALES #1
by Sam Costello, Shawn Decker and Steve Collins
($2.00,
Tent City Publishing)
Review by Matt Dembicki
Don’t expect to be wowed by the two stories in this digest-size comic. In fact, they’re pretty clichéd. The first, "Vegas," is about a fella who literally loses his chips at the tables in Las Vegas. He then wanders around the city people-watching and window-shopping. At the end, some passing girls comment on his "nice ass" and he smiles. All is fine with the world! "Vegas" depends heavily on the art to move the story – and it does so fairly well – but it definitely could’ve used more text; eleven of its 13 pages are wordless. Some more text, whether in captions or dialogue, would have made for a richer, more interesting story.
The second story, "Night Shift," centers around a poor couple trying to make ends meet. The husband takes up another job at night, and the writer tries to lead you to assume that it’s something unscrupulous. The writer tries too hard to make it appear the character is up to no good: He packs a gun, puts on gloves and a black ski hat. In fact, all this had the opposite effect: I knew he was probably going to a legitimate job, which is precisely what happened.
Measured against the writing, the art is much better, though it does have its weak spots. Drawing faces isn’t a strength of the artists. But the layout is actually quite good. There were some interesting angles and paneling, which made for a smooth read. The cover was nicely rendered, too. It definitely makes you curious about what’s inside.
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< comics/x >
MINT ON YOUR PILLOW #1 & 2
by Becky Strom
(
Becky Strom)
Review by Rick Bradford
Becky's minis are fun. You may remember the
Becky in the Big Apple review from several weeks ago. These comics are pretty similar to that one. There's not a lot of sequential stuff here; it's more like snippets from her daily life – brief snapshots of the places she goes and things she does. It's a bit like reading someone's diary, only without so many words. We also get random sketchbook doodles and some art history notes, which bring back a lot of memories for me. Not
good memories necessarily, but still...
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< resources >
ZINE WORLD supplement to issue 20
(Jerianne / PO Box 330156 / Murfreesboro, TN / 37133-0156 USA. Web:
www.undergroundpress.org)
Review by Rick Bradford
If you've any real interest in zines and/or free speech then you should be reading
Zine World. This is a between-issues supplement to its latest that contains a bit of news (including details on Tower Records' Chapter 11 filing) and nearly a hundred reviews of zines, comics and other alt media.
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< zines:personal >
CABOOSE #4: The Ridiculous Issue
by Liz Mason
($1.00 from Liz Mason / PO Box 476802 / Chicago, IL / 60647 USA.
E-mail)
Review by Rick Bradford
Liz Mason, I'm pleased to report, is an entertaining writer. This is the second
Caboose I've read and both were a lot of fun. Perhaps my favorite piece in this one is an article entitled "If You Are Nice Maybe I Will Do THE DANCE For You", in which the author proudly discusses the routine that begins with "I can do my dance to this!" and the workout videos that spawned THE DANCE. Her enthusiasm is so great and her observations so amusing that I truly wish I could go to Chicago just to see THE DANCE. In fact, I'd pay good money for just a video of it. THE DANCE has me in its grip and I've never even seen it.
Some other things I really enjoyed include Liz's recollections of working at a renaissance faire, the karaoke update (partly because it's such a bizarre otherworld to me), abandoned tattoo ideas and her kiddie porn (uh, that is, naughty drawings she did as a kid). There's a lot of funny stuff here – more than I've mentioned – and a buck for this is a steal. Go check it out for yourself.
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< comics/x >
GRAPHIC CLASSICS: JACK LONDON
edited by Tom Pomplun
($9.95,
www.graphicclassics.com)
Review by Sean McGurr
The fifth volume in the
Graphic Classics series features adaptations of the works of Jack London. Although I had read some London stories when I was younger, they were mostly dog adventure stories such as
The Call of the Wild and
White Fang. The stories collected in
Graphic Classics: Jack London show that London wasn't limited to a single genre and could mix adventure, drama, and comedy.
"A Thousand Deaths" and "The Shadow and the Flash" fall distinctly into the SF genre. In "A Thousand Deaths," the narrator is rescued after falling overboard by his father, who no longer recognizes him and is a mad scientist. He has found a way to bring people back from the dead, but needs to work on the formula. To that end, he kills the narrator in various ways and brings him back to life. Eventually, the narrator devises a machine to free himself from his captor. "The Shadow and the Flash" features an O. Henry-type twist at the end. Two rivals compete to discover a formula for invisibility, only to be undone in the end.
Onsmith Jeremi contributes an adaptation of a crime story in "Just Meat." Although the story is predictable, Jeremi's cartoonish-style offers a contrast to the seriousness of the tale. Another crime tale, "The Leopard Man's Story", uses a traveling circus as the setting. Ably illustrated by Rick Geary (
Treasury of Victorian Murder), the story is interesting, although the reproduction in the book is of a lesser quality.
There are many examples of London's adventure stories at sea and on land. A humorous dog story, "That Spot," works better as a sequential story than it would as text-only. "Jan, the Unrepentant" and "Moon-Face" both look as if they could be included in
Mad Magazine. The madcap drawings complement London's dry wit. "The Handsome Cabin Boy" is another humorous, if predictable, story with a twist, but lovingly adapted and drawn by Trina Robbins and Anne Timmons. The best story in the book is "The Francis Spaight." The tale of a doomed sailing ship is given an eerie treatment by John Perard.
Other London stories are only partially illustrated, but highlight the range of his writing ability. A short essay by London on writing and a "fictional" biography about London by Mort Castle and Roger Langridge round out the book.
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