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BEE SEE!
by Ben T. Steckler

(24pp Chick-style mini, $1.50 + a stamp from Ben T. Steckler / PO Box 7273 / York, PA / 17404 USA. Website: www.geocities.com/bent4toons)

Review by Alan Rankin

A spoof of Johnny Hart’s "B.C.", done in a Chick-style format, satirizing militarism, lesbianism, and creationism, among other things. The focus is on a religious figure who calls his meetings “orgies” because “if I call it ‘church,’ then nobody will come.” This is my first look at the comics work of Ben Steckler, and it’s pretty unique. I’d say it’s worth the price of admission for two jokes alone: the fish catching the bus, and the character who speaks of a distant utopia he calls “Apartment 3-G.”

A side-note about the “Chick tract” format: I’ve seen so many variations on this by now, I’m starting to wonder if Jack Chick has created a form that will outlive him; if, 20 years from now, there will be “Chick tracts” from many different publishers, on a variety of topics, from the religious to the pornographic. (Bee See! is neither.) Can it be that time has not yet revealed to us the richness of Chick’s legacy to comics? Just a thought…

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MAULED! #2: True Stories of Surgical Malpractice
by various

(32pp b&w comic, $3.75 from Manual Comics)

Review by Alan Rankin

Mauled is similar in structure, if not format, to the Big Book series and other recent comics nonfiction: short vignettes by artists of diverse styles, each focusing on a different true story. The content of Mauled #2 will confirm your worst fears about modern medicine, as you might expect from the hilarious cover by Dave Savage. But what really comes off smelling like Stink River is the vast corporate industry that’s grown up around the medical field.

Sure, you’ll read about the East Coast doctor who carved his initials into a patient’s abdomen after a C-section. Or the kid whose penis was mutilated (okay, more mutilated) during circumcision. But you can tell yourself that these are rare cases, and still feel okay the next time you have to go under the knife.

But then you read about the guy who was accidentally blinded during his glaucoma operation. The focus of the story is on the insurance adjuster who deliberately keeps postponing his claim until the state’s 180-day filing deadline runs out. He is left with no money, no eyesight, and no recourse to legal action. Inept quacks are one thing, but malicious greed is something else – and that’s what you have to deal with if you want medical care in the 21st century.

My only complaint about Mauled is that all the names have been changed or removed. I see the legal reasons for doing this, but it puts the stories into the category of “anecdotal evidence” that is just a step or two removed from urban legend. A bibliography or list of source material (like the Big Books include) would have rooted the stories more firmly in the real world. It would increase the book’s weight and urgency, and make it seem less like a Fox special: When Surgeons Attack.


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JAMES KOCHALKA'S SKETCHBOOK DIARIES Vol. 4
by James Kochalka

(96pp trade paperback, $7.95 from Top Shelf Productions. Diaries website)

Review by Alan Rankin

Hmm, as I was preparing to write this review, I reflected on the pointlessness of “reviewing” someone’s diary. A diary by definition is personal, self-indulgent, and rooted in the context of the life it describes – Sketchbook Diaries is all these things. At its best, the diary will convey the flavor of the author’s life, and sketch the important people in his world. Diaries does this as well. But you can’t really review a diary in terms of “good” or “bad,” because a diary is its own independent creature, unlike a zine or a book. It succeeds or fails according to how well it meets the needs of its author, something no one else can determine.

Even comparing it to other diaries is no help. Sketchbook Diaries shares its concept with other diary comics like Tim Doyle’s Amazing Adult Fantasy, and both are entertaining, but that’s where the resemblance ends. In concept and execution, the two strips are as unlike as their Texas- and Vermont-based creators.

Reading some journals, it’s the cumulative effect of the whole work that gives you a sense of the author’s life. In Kochalka’s strip, on the other hand, it’s the individual moments that are most revealing. I especially like it when he sketches his wife’s ear or the back of her head in a semi-realistic style. The tenderness and care he puts into those drawings speaks volumes about the relationship between them.

Moments like these are scattered through other entries, where he’s obviously just goofing around. Consequently, the strip is a mixed bag, though ultimately rewarding. Watching Kochalka piss through the slats of a fence may not exactly enrich your life, but it’s worth it to witness him singing drunk on a bicycle at four in the morning, before hilariously wiping out.

Other favorite moments: Skinny dipping in San Diego. “This kid came at me holding a copy of Catcher in the Rye. My first thought was that he was going to kill me.” Arguing with his wife about whether to announce their pregnancy in the diary – one of those cases where the book influences the life it’s chronicling. And this: “I regret wasting the last couple of days just being cranky. But last night, the night before my flight to Chicago, we made love like there was no tomorrow.”

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MAGIC WHISTLE #9
by Sam Henderson

($11.95, Alternative Comics)

Review by Rick Bradford

If you haven't heard, Magic Whistle has been transformed from an irregularly-published comic book into an irregularly-published (okay, annually) book book. I think it's a great move since it means more pages, nicer binding, a greater variety of work and 32 pages in color.

As to the content, what can I say about Sam Henderson that I haven't said before? This volume shamefully boasts the usual orgy of lowbrow humor and dumbass cartoons that are still smarter than you. Henderson knows comedy and seems to be a master of taking lame concepts, turning them on their heads and making them actually funny (even if the humor lies in the ridiculousness of it all). This one's got Pickles the Exploding Dog, Dirty Danny, sketchbook pages, gag cartoons (so to speak), Simperton J. Narcisissy (he's an artiste!) and more, but the real gem here is the 25-page Hamburger Joe story. Not only does it sport the best coloring of the issue, it's also blatantly self-referential and inbred (yet still funny). Although it seems to be a collaboration (with Tim Maloney and John Hoffhines?), Henderson's love/hate relationship with parody magazines and the comics industry really shines through. It's a fun, unconventional story that's not over the top (for a change) and is told through several different art styles (mimicking newspaper comics, Tijuana Bibles and there's even an homage to Rube Goldberg).

Is there plenty more good stuff as well? You bet. You can also expect surprise appearances from Walt Holcombe, Erica Merchant, Sammy Harkham, Coop and others. Recommended.

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