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TRAPHIK
by Andy Nukes and Marc van Elburg

($6.00 from Marc van Elburg / de Hondenkoekjesfabriek / PO Box 68 / 7700AB / Dedemsvaart / THE NETHERLANDS. It may also be available from Andy Nukes / PMB 211 / 19046 Bruce B Downs Blvd. / Tampa, FL / 33647 USA. It'll soon be in the Poopsheet Shop as well.)

Review by Rick Bradford

I've been enjoying Marc van Elburg's projects for a while now and I've been a fan of Andy Nukes for years so I was quite looking forward to this joint effort. Essentially what you've got here is 20-some-odd pages of jam drawings by the two artists. Van Elburg's visuals are generally pretty chaotic while Nukes' are pretty controlled (although very abstract), so they're an interesting pair for this sort of collaboration. I think it works well (I knew it would, I just couldn't imagine it). What's more, as with all of the Hondenkoekjesfabriek booklets, it's perfect accompaniment for the included noise CD.

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< comics/x >



ALICE IN NEW YORK
by Henry Chamberlain

($2.00 from Henry Chamberlain / 1545 NW 53rd St., Apt. #1 / Seattle, WA / 98107 USA. E-mail)

Review by Carol Pond

Described by the author as the start of a graphic novel inspired by New York City, Alice in New York follows the arrival in the Big Apple of an eager young man named Henry. It’s a good start to a longer story, leaving us with a lot of questions, including, “Who is Alice?” I hope Henry finishes this so we can all find out.

[Note: Those in Seattle may be interested in the "Alice in New York" exhibit of comics and paintings currently being shown at Glo's on 1621 East Olive Way.]

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< zine:personal >



KIMOSABE #1
by Marc Parker

($1.00 in cash or stamps from Marc Parker / 2000 NE 42 Ave. #221 / Portland, OR / 97213 USA. No zine trades. Web: www.zinethug.com)

Review by Randy Osborne

I don’t know who that enormous guy (or woman? Massive feet) in rehab on the cover is, but there is much left unknown in this intriguing piece of work – a personal zine almost as worthwhile for what it leaves out as for what Marc puts in. The first piece, “Taxes,” ends in mid-sentence with a promise of “To Be Continued... ” followed by a symmetrical, crab-like inkblot. Fear of the IRS? “Mush” includes news that Marc “shared three pitchers of Coors (no P.B.R. at the -----)” and the name of the bar is blacked out. Libel concern, or refusal to provide gratis advertising? In “Getting to Know,” he writes about his Dickies: “The only occasion on which I’ve worn them was when [blank] and I had our date at the Anarchist Book Fair last year.” You get the sense that more is going on than Marc wants to tell, and that’s a good thing.

Some readers will be frustrated by the marching repetition of activities ... beer drinking, bowl smoking, watching movies and TV, having “occurrences” at work that his boss warns him about ... but such is the stuff of which perzines often are made, and Marc lays them on the page with the resolute key smack of the can’t-stop (once he starts, that is) writer, along with some funny turns of phrase. “On the bus to Maureen’s, we saw Anja, who was coming home from work. She had pizza to give away, two slices vegetarian. I was to eat one of those slices,” he writes, as if eating a slice of pizza were something fated by the gods.

I especially liked the revealing, self-reflective lines like these, about time spent at the apartment of friends, one of whom has asked Marc not to smoke pot – not in the apartment, that is, or anywhere else while he is staying there. “The next day I rolled the joint Sky had given me when Clark and Clare were at work. I smoked it leaning halfway out their guest room window. Some degree of indignance was involved, but mostly I felt juvenile and ridiculous.” Who hasn’t, pot or not?

A smart touch is the “To Help You Along” on the back cover, a paragraph that provides background on the characters, and has the effect of drawing the reader inside.

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< comics/x >



DEATH ROAMS NEARBY
by Marko Turunen

($6.00 US/6,5 €? from Daada Books. E-mail)

Review by Hans Nissen

The early works of Marko Turunen were violent science fiction stories with superhero influences, full of experiments with both storylines and illustrations. At the turn of the century, a small plastic alien appeared from a chocolate egg and the comics of Turunen were changed forever. That little alien became the center point of his now increasingly autobiographical stories. The first Alien-story, called "Love at Last Sight", introduced readers to his girlfriend the Graterwoman and a strange world of penguins, hostile creatures and storylines going forwards and backwards at the same time. It was a basic science fiction/love story but told in a very original way. The readers who thought that was weird didn´t know what hit them as the Dishwashing diary hit the bookstores. It was an accurate list of every item Turunen (as his alter ego, the Green Falcon) had washed within a year. The lists were livened with little stories of what, when and with whom the Green Falcon had eaten that day, with beautiful and numerous illustrations of the dishes. It was a kind of cooking book turned upside down, but more importantly a between-the-lines description of everyday life. A big publishing house found potential in Marko Turunen´s strange world of comics and a four-color novel called The Base came out last year. In it the little intersecting stories from the author´s childhood grow into a vividly colored fantasy world that keeps on haunting the reader, because the pieces presented don´t seem to fit together. The Base is a very personal and disturbing book about childhood in a small town in Finland some 20 years ago.

Now the newest installment in the life and times of Alien and Graterwoman is available in English. Death Roams Nearby is a story of life as usual in the city of Lahti, Finland. The science fiction and fantasy influences of previous books are almost absent and are replaced with snapshots of the happenings of one normal day. Still, the atmosphere is dreamlike. The passing of time is depicted in peculiar ways, like zooming on a bottle of shampoo for three pages! The illustrations are darkly expressive and full of anxiety. In the nightmare world Alien lives in, solace comes in disguise. As Graterwoman.

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< music/art >



RIGODON #1
edited by Marcel Herms

(available from Anima Mal Nata / Postbus 6359 / 7401 JJ Deventer / HOLLAND or The Electric Lodge / J.F. van Hengelstraat 76 / 1019 DC Amsterdam / HOLLAND)

Review by Rick Bradford

If you're into noise recordings or noise's graphical partner-in-crime, art brut, then you'll probably want to check this out. There are interviews with Bob Saunders (Manherringbone), Oscillating Innards, Monobrain (Fckn' Bstrds, Headhunter), Jelle Crama (Rotkop), Kapreles and Johnny van de Koolwijk (Dead Husbands). For those unfamiliar with those names, most of these artists record noise and make other types of art. In addition to the informative interviews you'll also find a rant about the noise "genre" by Hal McGee, several pages of reviews (recordings, related zines) and lots of great drawings by Billy McKay, Marcel Herms, Sietse Hoeksma, Kapreles, Claudio Parentela, Marc van Elburg and others.

I must admit that I don't quite "get" noise. I don't know if it's a matter of opening my mind or a lack of exposure, but I do know that my brain doesn't know what to do with it (in large doses, anyway). I think it's excellent that the stuff exists, though, and I'm even more pleased by the type of visual art that seems to come from its participants. If you're curious about any of this, I recommend Rigodon. It's as good a starting place as you're likely to find for info on this segment of the underground.

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< comics/x >



WHATEVER! #1 & 2

by Michael Bregman and Sally-Anne Hickman

(£2.00 from Cheese Comics / 36 Finchley Way / London N3 1AH / ENGLAND. Web: www.cheesecomics.com)

Review by Mark Campos

Well, here's one that didn't do it for me. Beatrix is a riot-tot with a Baby Sue-like facility for inventive swears. She has a fantasy in which she mobilizes tides of smelly hippies and the Powerpuff Girls to overwhelm the US Military, allowing Saddam Hussein to nuke the world.

That's the first issue. The second contains a long sequence in which Beatrix's hooker mother is humilitated and beaten by a trick, as B. listens from the next room. What's the point? Is this social satire, dark black humor, or just ugly for ugly's sake? Clueless hippie peace activists as a target for satiric barbs went out of fashion in the late '80s, and who satirizes beaten hookers? There's no humor here. I must conclude that ugly is the purpose of these tales. The drab story is complemented by the leperous art. Unless you like feeling grim after reading a comic, there is no fun for you here.

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< comics/x >



BLOOD ORANGE #1
by various, edited by Chris Polkki

($5.95, Fantagraphics Books)

Review by Mark Campos

(Caveat: Chris Polkki is a contributing reviewer to Poopsheet, but this has not padded my review of his anthology. The twenty bucks he sent me, on the other hand, worked wonders.)

What the world needs now is a good mid-priced anthology. After scraping to get the rent paid and purchase Rosetta or McSweeney's #13, how novel it is to be able to pick up something like Blood Orange, which contains new material from the best of the moderns.

Here's Mahler, here's Weinstein, here's Mr. Kupperman, Regé, Allison Cole, Maaike .. short bursts of reliable flavor goodness. Tobias Tak kicks in a romance between a bucket and a fan that shuts like a trap on your head. Gary Baseman throws in some sketchbook pages (even a naked lady!), and there are four pages of godhead from Marc Bell.

All this and more, as they say, for the cost of one go-round at the Indian buffet. If you can deny yourself access to unlimited amounts of tandoori chicken for one afternoon, get this and bask in its greatness.

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< comics/x >



NIGHT PATROL ON MYSTERY HILL
by Pam Bliss

($1.25 ppd from Pam Bliss / PO Box 304 / Valparaiso, IN / 46384 USA. Web: www.paradisevalleycomics.com)

Review by Carol Pond

Foursquare, the superhero identity of Jack “Soup” Swann, dons his hooded sweatshirt and blue leather gloves to go on a night patrol of the town. He encounters mammoths, cave paintings and a lake serpent, hides out in the eye of a storm with Thunderbird and ponders the loss of a normal life doing things like hanging out around a campfire with friends. A pensive, well-drawn comic from the legendary Pam Bliss.

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