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Comics! Been a while since I reviewed any comics. Let’s see what I’ve bought over the past couple of weeks....
The Great Catsby
» written and drawn by Doha, published by Net Comics
First printed volume of an anthropomorphic romance webcomic. It suffers badly from the author’s unfamiliarity with English, and the fact that the panels weren’t originally composed to be placed on a printed page. It’s the art that hooked me. Doha’s animation-style drawings (foregrounds sharp, with thin outlines of constant widths and simple two-tone shading, background fuzzier and more complex) look simple, but he has a great grasp of gesture, posture, and facial expression. His protagonist Catsby is (of course) a cat, as are the two girls he desires, and for all of these characters Dosa makes great use of their highly expressive ears. If only all nekogirl-obsessed comickers took such advantage of their material.
Pizzaria Kamikaze
» written by Etgar Keret, art by Asaf Hanuka, published by Alternative Comics
A story set in the land of the dead, or at least that section of it that suicides go to. It bears a strong resemblance to the parts of the living world populated by twenty-somthing slackers. People still work, party, fall into and out of love, go on road trips, and join religious cults. Keret paces the story well, and the story does pack a couple of surprises at the end, but very little punch. Hanuka’s art — this is another one I bought for the art — is great. Clean lines, elegant use of black and white (and a spot color, printed in silver ink), good depiction of faces, just a whole lot to like.
The Forty-Niners
» written by Alan Moore, art by Gene Ha, published by America’s Best Comics
Hey, how often does something new from Alan Moore come out? Even if it’s part of the ABC line, which is Moore writing way below what he’s capable of. The Forty-Niners is a prequel to the Top 10 series about super-powered cops in a city full of superheroes (and villains, and monsters, robots, gods, etc), probably the best series ABC published, though also the shortest. This volume tells of the founding of Neotopia after WW2, through the eyes of 16-year-old Steve Traynor, aka Jetlad (who we know as the police captain in the main series) as he deals with vampire gangsters and his own sexuality, and also makes clear that Top 10 is the reconstructionist version of the 1986 deconstructionist short piece “In Pictopia”. (Yeah, I’m using “deconstructionist” and “reconstructionist” in their obscure comics criticism senses.) Like I said, Moore’s basically phoning it in here, which means the writings only a bit better than most comics writers manage on their best days ever, instead of leaving them sputtering behind him in the dust. Gene Ha is great, filling the backgrounds with the same sort of comics in-jokes and obscure characters he drew in Top 10, and perfectly depicting a wide variety of 20th century urban architecture.
Mome #3 (Winter 2006)
» various creators, edited by Eric Reynolds and Gary Groth, published by Fantagraphics Books
Anthology comics are always mixed bags, and Mome is no exception, but the good stuff in this is really good. The longest piece, taking up about a third of the volume, David B’s “The Armed Garden”, is the fantastic story of a utopian religious movement in 15th century Bohemia. B’s art uses an appropriately medieval flattened sense of space, but he uses a very rich and sophisticated iconography, doing things like portray a religious debate by filling the panel background with an interlocked tangle of struggling, weapon-wielding letters. And you’ve gotta love a comic that shows anti-pope John XXIII committing simony, sodomy, and murder simultaneously. Other good pieces are Martin Cendreda’s one-page “Matthew and Buster” comics, Kurt Wolfgang’s “Odd Petal Out”, Gabrielle’s “Mike’s Cafe” — actually, I liked everything in here except for Jeffrey Brown’s “How I Became a Cold-Blooded Murderer”, which looks like it was drawn on cocktail napkins. I’m gonna have to pick up the first two volumes.
The Great Catsby
» written and drawn by Doha, published by Net Comics
First printed volume of an anthropomorphic romance webcomic. It suffers badly from the author’s unfamiliarity with English, and the fact that the panels weren’t originally composed to be placed on a printed page. It’s the art that hooked me. Doha’s animation-style drawings (foregrounds sharp, with thin outlines of constant widths and simple two-tone shading, background fuzzier and more complex) look simple, but he has a great grasp of gesture, posture, and facial expression. His protagonist Catsby is (of course) a cat, as are the two girls he desires, and for all of these characters Dosa makes great use of their highly expressive ears. If only all nekogirl-obsessed comickers took such advantage of their material.
Pizzaria Kamikaze
» written by Etgar Keret, art by Asaf Hanuka, published by Alternative Comics
A story set in the land of the dead, or at least that section of it that suicides go to. It bears a strong resemblance to the parts of the living world populated by twenty-somthing slackers. People still work, party, fall into and out of love, go on road trips, and join religious cults. Keret paces the story well, and the story does pack a couple of surprises at the end, but very little punch. Hanuka’s art — this is another one I bought for the art — is great. Clean lines, elegant use of black and white (and a spot color, printed in silver ink), good depiction of faces, just a whole lot to like.
The Forty-Niners
» written by Alan Moore, art by Gene Ha, published by America’s Best Comics
Hey, how often does something new from Alan Moore come out? Even if it’s part of the ABC line, which is Moore writing way below what he’s capable of. The Forty-Niners is a prequel to the Top 10 series about super-powered cops in a city full of superheroes (and villains, and monsters, robots, gods, etc), probably the best series ABC published, though also the shortest. This volume tells of the founding of Neotopia after WW2, through the eyes of 16-year-old Steve Traynor, aka Jetlad (who we know as the police captain in the main series) as he deals with vampire gangsters and his own sexuality, and also makes clear that Top 10 is the reconstructionist version of the 1986 deconstructionist short piece “In Pictopia”. (Yeah, I’m using “deconstructionist” and “reconstructionist” in their obscure comics criticism senses.) Like I said, Moore’s basically phoning it in here, which means the writings only a bit better than most comics writers manage on their best days ever, instead of leaving them sputtering behind him in the dust. Gene Ha is great, filling the backgrounds with the same sort of comics in-jokes and obscure characters he drew in Top 10, and perfectly depicting a wide variety of 20th century urban architecture.
Mome #3 (Winter 2006)
» various creators, edited by Eric Reynolds and Gary Groth, published by Fantagraphics Books
Anthology comics are always mixed bags, and Mome is no exception, but the good stuff in this is really good. The longest piece, taking up about a third of the volume, David B’s “The Armed Garden”, is the fantastic story of a utopian religious movement in 15th century Bohemia. B’s art uses an appropriately medieval flattened sense of space, but he uses a very rich and sophisticated iconography, doing things like portray a religious debate by filling the panel background with an interlocked tangle of struggling, weapon-wielding letters. And you’ve gotta love a comic that shows anti-pope John XXIII committing simony, sodomy, and murder simultaneously. Other good pieces are Martin Cendreda’s one-page “Matthew and Buster” comics, Kurt Wolfgang’s “Odd Petal Out”, Gabrielle’s “Mike’s Cafe” — actually, I liked everything in here except for Jeffrey Brown’s “How I Became a Cold-Blooded Murderer”, which looks like it was drawn on cocktail napkins. I’m gonna have to pick up the first two volumes.