< zines >
DE ONDERGRONDSE #14
edited by Marc van Elburg
(de Ondergrondse / Postbus 68 / 7700AB Dedemsvaart / THE NETHERLANDS.
E-mail,
Website)
Reviewed by Rick BradfordThis is a cool hodgepodge sort of networking zine for the underground scene in general. Lots of ads for all sorts of comix and music from around the globe plus art by Zookie, Teddy, Fluffy Malcolm and others, a couple of poems from Jack Terrible, a text piece (in Dutch) by Pieter Zandvliet and even a few doodles from yours truly.
I wish more people published this sort of thing, actually. It's nicely informal and seeing all of the little ads for various projects makes me feel all warm and gooey inside.
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< comics/x >
THE GLUMby Billy McKay
(Billy McKay / PO Box 542 / N. Olmsted, OH / 44070 USA. Also available in the
Poopsheet Shop)
Reviewed by Rick BradfordUpon first read, the story in this one seems slight for a comic, but that's not really what it is. What it really is is a children's book in mini-comic format – in which case, it's quite good. The story is about a downtrodden loser whose life is completely turned around by way of chance (and magic). It's a quick read but is a good example of Billy McKay's optimistic spirit. And that spirit seems almost contradictory to his creepy, "ugly" artstyle but I think that's part of the work's charm.
I like Billy's work a lot. There's nobody else who draws like him and every page is a marvel. If you haven't yet seen his work in more "respectable" (read: paying) venues, then you will soon. My recommendation is to ask him what's available and buy some of his comics while you still can.
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< comics/x >
JAY'S DAYS: The Rise and Fall of the Pasta Shop Lotharioby Jason Marcy
($10.99,
Landwaster Books,
Jason Marcy)
Reviewed by David Hedgecock
Better reviewers than I have reviewed this latest book from the autobiographical series,
JAY'S DAYS. So, I would immediately defer to their expertise on this one. However, if I must add my voice to the internet reviewing cacophony, I will say this:
Jason Marcy is unflinching in describing his life. Even when it means risking the health of his marriage, his job, and his friendships, he appears to be unfailingly truthful. An admirable trait for an artist working in the autobiographical field.
Everything else – slightly sub par cartooning, disappointing pacing - become minor complaints in the face of this honesty.
Jason will give your voyeuristic-inner-child everything it needs until Joe Matt decides to pull down his zipper again.
[More information:
Interview with Marcy,
Marcy's blog]
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< comics/x >
LIQUID SUNSHINEby various
(
Wide Awake Press)
Reviewed by Rick BradfordThis is a short jam comic done at the 2004 Heroes convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's a cute little story with a few funny panels that'll mostly interest fans of jam comics in general or the contributors specifically. Drawing one or two one-panel pages each are Andy Runton, J. Chris Campbell, Duane Ballenger, Chris Pitzer, Sam Henderson, Rob Ullman, Jacob Chabot, Chris Giarrusso and Justin Gammon.
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< zines >
TRANNIES IN LOVE #7
by various
($1.00 from Trannies in Love / PO Box 171 / Schenectady, NY / 12301 USA. Web:
www.tranniesinlove.com)
Reviewed by Mark CamposFrom Schenectady, NY, comes this newsprint freezine aimed at the upstate transgender community. The usual fringe paper assortment of rambling blank-verse poems, inscrutable in-joking and area-specific ads can be passed over, and what remains might surprise and enlighten you. Any publication whose publisher is identified as "bitchy Xzhaoouziye Crowbar" has got to be worth checking out at least once.
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< comics/x >
ANYWHERE BUT HEREby Tori Miki
($12.95, duotone, 96 pages,
Fantagraphics Books)
Reviewed by Mike HunterHave a case of "humor whiplash" here: went from reading Tim Kreider's exuberantly earthy
The Pain - When Will It End? cartoon collection* this morning to the downright dehydrated drollery of Tori Miki's
Anywhere But Here.
The latter has surely the most impressive intellectual credentials I've come across in a professional cartoonist. Besides his popular, award-winning humor manga, Miki is - as Nozomi Ohmori's intro puts it - "a prolific critic and columnist, drawing on an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema, science fiction, and comics...Japan's foremost researcher on the dubbing of imported television series and movies...an erudite scholar of
rakugo, Japan's...comedy style...well acquainted with the various gag patterns
rakugo practitioners have perfected since Japan's pre-modern Edo period...[and] acknowledged as one of the intellectual leaders of Japan's alternative culture..." The introduction continues, "Tori voraciously quotes the whole repertoire of popular fiction, movies, and manga classics in his free-wheeling parodies...[many of which] work simultaneously on two or more levels."
The flavor of these wordless cartoons themselves almost defies description. You might as well play "Charades" to get across a mathematical equation. (Stephen Wright's standup comedy regularly approaches the taste of the cuisine gathered here.) To convey his oddities with precision, Tori Miki's drawings are graphically superb. Created on a nine-panel grid, rendered with masterful minimalism (and beautifully colored in duotone), there are spatial disruptions reminiscent of Escher and Magritte, Monty Python-esque absurdity, turns of narrative that go beyond the predictable twist of a punchline into surreal realms.
A recurring cast of characters, led by a caricature of the cartoonist himself, play havoc with the conventions of comics - panel borders are scissored through and penetrated, those spiky-edged "surprise bursts" are, after witnessing a series of startling events, stacked on a table by Tori - satirize popular conventions, exaggerate everyday travails. (Tori explores a tunnel, across a jungle sees a stepped pyramid, atop which he finds a cookpot. The final panel shows him emerging from burrowing beneath a kitchen counter and proffering the searched-for object to his girlfriend.) A dowager's hairstyle expands 'til she floats off, the last panel showing an astronaut landed on the new world, the woman's tiny figure sticking out
upside-down from its surface.
These are examples of the more conventional gags found in
Anywhere But Here. In most, the humor is so visually deft, or downright bizarre, one imagines an aura of interrobangs** circling baffled readers' craniums. As Ohmori notes, "...even avid Japanese fans familiar with Tori's work [might have to] cogitate and ponder, and finally feel the laughter bubble up from within."
If
Anywhere But Here is intended to tickle the cerebrum more than the funnybone, that goal means it also richly rewards repeated readings with greater appreciation of its depth and the remarkable range of its creator's wit. For appreciators of graphic narrative, it's a remarkable display of virtuosity, and an unceasing source of delight.
*Literally laughed so hard I cried! Acidic humor not intended for bluenoses,
$14.95, from Fantagraphics...
**See
http://www.interrobang-mks.com/
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