Comicsgirl

Side B Buy at tfaw.com

Side B: The Music Love’s Comic Anthology
I was excited to pick up Side B (2009, Poseur Ink). After all, I love music and I do love finding out how other people relate to music. Despite the substantial cover price ($23), I was more than happy to buy this at MoCCA.

While I know, for the most part, anthologies can be hit or miss by their nature, this was more “miss” than “hit” for me, sadly. It is, by no means, a bad anthology. I think I was just expecting something else.

Music is a huge topic and that seemed to be only guideline given here. Some creators used the topic to discuss their favorite band or a pivotal moment that occurred around music. For the most part, those stories worked the best for me. I loved Cristy C. Roads’ “Redemption Day,” which was more of an illustrated story than comic about how Green Day opened up a new world for her. While I’m not a Green Day fan, I could easily relate to the idea of finding that first band that meant something to you. Also great was Dave Crosland‘s wildly sketched tale of awkwardness around a crazy girl he was crushing on at a Modest Mouse show, “The Mouse, The Model, The Horse.”

A few people take a little bit different approach, like in “Torso,” written by Kat Vapid and drawn by Ryan Kelly. In this simple story, a punk singer finds solace at a country karaoke bar after being kicked out of her band. Kelly’s art reminds me of traditional superhero comics, with his crisp lines and strong, expressive faces. Vapid’s characters are quickly and well-defined. It’s a satisfying story, but I’d love to see more of these characters.

Still, Side B has too many meandering stories, like Josh Rosen‘s “Same Old Song,” which is just a Rosen analogue talking about music for three pages. His art is fine, but there’s no point here. And as charming as Katie Shanahan‘s “Musical Misfit” was, with its playful art, I didn’t come away with feeling like it really gave me any insight.

And I think that’s the problem with a lot of the stories in Side B. I understand completely that music is very personal so these stories are going to be personal. But “personal” doesn’t necessarily translate into “interesting.” I think it’s worth reading to an extent, and I certainly don’t regret buying it, but it’s not really an anthology I’ll return to. I think I’m going to end up passing this along to a friend.

First Harvest: Trees & Hills Comics Volume One

Trees & Hills is a network of cartoonists and comic book artists in Vermont, New Hampshire and western Massachusetts. And for covering such a small geographic area, there is actually a surprising amount of talent there.

First Harvest (2009) collects several of the smaller anthologies the group has put out over the past few years. The diversity of comics here ranges from the simple to the ambitious, from the personal to the pretentious and the whole thing is a lot of fun.

I think I liked this mostly because it was different. When you read a lot of anthologies, you see a lot of the same names over and over again. And if you don’t, at the very least, you see a lot of the same type of comics over and over again (by which, I mean, urban twentysomethings dealing with love and life, although I do think a lot of indie comics are moving away from that). Instead, here, the vibe isn’t so much about impressing anyone with hipness as it is about expressing a personal worldview.

The pair of comics by Megan Baehr are probably among the strongest — they’re both wordless and deal with overcoming adversity and redemption. Colleen Frakes‘ “Space Ninja vs. Zombie” stories are hilarious and her simple art belies her understanding for the medium (I meant to pick up her Woman King at MoCCA, but then I both ran out of money and forgot).

Of special note to me was Tim Hulsizer‘s “House of Freaks, which is an illustrated recounting of one of the most brutal and heartless crimes I know of in recent history. He tells the story of the murders of musician Bryan Harvey and family in Richmond, Va., on New Year’s Day 2006. The images aren’t graphic but the words are and the juxtaposition is effective. As heartbreakingly awful as this story is, I’m glad Hulsizer told it.

I can’t get through this review without mentioning Jade Harmon who is a good friend of mine. We actually did a comic when we were 17 (no, you can’t see it) and it delights me that she’s in this book and I get to point out to everyone I know “I know her! I know her!” I realize I’m biased but her comics are among my favorites here — I love how “La Fenetre” unfolds and expresses the power of music to take us somewhere else (I think this would’ve been a good one for Side B, personally).

I couldn’t find a sale link to First Harvest on the Trees & Hills site, so I hope they have it available soon. It’s a great look at talent that I didn’t know existed.

You can read the first six pages at Comic Book Resources. Kevin Melrose at CBR’s Robot 6 has a few criticism, such as the speed dating bit, but he’s pretty sold on it. I am too. Despite everything — the bad pitch, the bad publicity, the terrible cover, even the contrived situations in these initial pages — it works.

I like the tone so far — these are smart, capable women who still have some realistic lapses in confidence (I think the scene where the more popular superheroines show up is fun). I think whatever melodramatic twists and turns this ends up taking, I think Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Tonci Zonjic will handle them with wit and grace.

Expect a review of the first issue next week (probably Friday, maybe Saturday. Doubtful on Wednesday, but it’s possible).

You’ll Never Know Book One A Good And Decent Man Buy at Amazon.com

So I’m averaging about one post a week now. Awesome. And I’ve even been a very bad Twitterer. But I hope things will settle down and you’ll get to hear from me more.

It’s Father’s Day and I think it’s a perfect day to review C. Tyler‘s You’ll Never Know Book One: A Good And Decent Man (Fantagraphics Books, 2009), her exploration of her father’s history as a World War II veteran and how it affects her current life.

The style of the book is beautiful. Done in soft watercolors (and watercolor pencils, from the looks of it), there is an old-fashioned airiness to the book. Many pages reminded me of antique, hand-painted postcards. The pages in which she tells her father’s story are done in a traditional/scrapbook format — handwritten text on the left, images on the right. Here, the images are done in sepia tones, mimicking old photographs.

While this is clearly the sort of material that could easily turn into “You screwed me up, dad!” Tyler avoids that. She obviously loves her father, for all of his flaws, and is proud to tell his story as well as learn about the events that shaped him. She doesn’t shy away from her father’s darker side, though, discussing his distant attitude when she was growing up and trying to make peace with it.

In the midst of recoding her father’s story, she is also coping with her estranged husband and raising her teenage daughter. Both parts of the book are neatly integrated. I always felt like I understood why Tyler wanted to do this at this point in her life. It’s her father’s story, certainly, but it’s also her story, and her mother’s, her daughter’s, her siblings. Her family’s past is echoed in the present and has shaped the choices she’s made and that her family has made.

The book ends on a dark note — the fun days of when Tyler’s father first joined the Army and met her mother are behind him and the specter of bloody fighting in Europe loom while Tyler herself faces more disappointment in her personal life. I can’t exactly call it a cliffhanger, but it did make me realize why this “Book One.”

But even taken on its own, You’ll Never Know is a touching and unflinching tribute to Tyler’s father. It’s a personal story, sure, but I think there’s something we can all relate to in discovering the histories of our own families.

Mess Of Everything Buy from tfaw.com

I was a teenager in the mid-to-late 1990s.

In a lot of ways, I think it was a pretty lucky time to be a teenage girl (if there ever is a “lucky” time to be a teenage girl). I got to listen to a lot of smart and/or women musicians, like Tori Amos, Courtney Love, Liz Phair. I got to see girls who were kind of like me on shows like My So-Called Life and later, Daria (and yeah, if I had watched it at the time, someone like Willow on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer would’ve been on this list). At the time, it was kind of cool to be a slightly strange, smart girl.

But none of this meant it was an easy time for me and the others like me.

Miss Lasko-Gross continues to share her experiences growing up a strange, smart girl in A Mess of Everything. Along the way, she deals with the universal struggles of family, grades, friends and boys.

Lasko-Gross tells her story in several short vignettes. They’re connected, but they can also stand alone. The early stories introduce readers to the characters — Lasko-Gross herself, her rebellious friends, her family — before launching into her downward spiral as she begins to get into trouble and her grades slip.

She presents these years in a matter-of-fact way. There are no apologies for smoking pot or her experiences with boys. Lasko-Gross shows that all these thing were part of her growing up and have made her who she is. while who she is now sometimes shows through, she captures the immediacy of adolescence in amazing detail.

Lasko-Gross’ art is appealing, with a fluid, elastic feel, giving her the freedom to present both realism and more abstract, emotional scenes. With a washed-out color palette that’s mostly grays with a few pops of color — Lasko-Gross’ red hair, a blue sky — the look works for a tale of adolescence, when everything felt a little bit darker than it should have.

I was much more of a good kid than Lasko-Gross was, but I could relate easily to her experiences of growing up and trying to find out who she is. Even though the ending feels a little too neat, she ends up in the best place for her and makes peace with those she’s left behind. It’s a satisfying place to leave her after we saw all the turmoil she went through. A Mess of Everything was ultimately a comfort to me, a fellow strange, smart teenager in 1990s.

Plus a review of a mini-comic I forgot about due to losing it (it’s possibly here, but I checked all my bags for it and didn’t see it. I’m still unpacking from moving so things are a little chaotic).

Next to You — Yali Lin

This is my sadly-missing mini-comic.

I remembered Yali Lin from last year’s MoCCA. I loved the comics I bought from her so I was glad to buy something else. She has a sweetly soft manga-style to her art that’s beautiful and her stories are equally meditative. This is a young woman’s dream where she’s thinking about all the things she needs — mostly simple things, like a notebook, a pillow — only to discover she already has what she needs. The whole thing has a quiet grace that really touched me (I am happy to see it’s online here so I can reread it).

PS Comics — Misty Lewis

PS Comics #4 was my favorite thing from Small Press Expo last year, so I’m delighted to have this collection. Lewis’ characters — who are, for no particular reason other than it’s hilarious and awesome, talking fruit or animals — usually end up in mundanely painful situations. She seems to intimately understand the ins and outs of office life and dealing with roommates. Her humor would still work well if she told these stories using humans, but it’s just that much funnier when they’re Yorkies. Buy this and laugh and then buy copies for your friends.

(It also came with little scratch-and-sniff cards, which were awesome.)

Little Miss May & Her Kitty, Jub-Jub — Patricia Burgess

I picked this up because I liked that Burgess had bound it together with yarn and she was sitting at the table working on crafts (she was sharing a table with fellow comic creator/crafter Megan Baehr).

Little Miss May is an odd fish-looking woman (all of Burgess’ humans have distinct shapes — a neighbor is blocky) who adores her cat, Jub-Jub, perhaps a little too much. Little Miss May faces some devastating tragedies regarding her cat but in the end finds out she’s not so alone in the world.

Burgess tells this story wordlessly (for the most part — there’s no dialogue) through six squares on each page. I liked the format quite a bit — the layout reminded me of storyboards (not surprisingly, Burgess works in animation) and her style is distinctive and fun. She told me this was her first comic and I hope it’s the first of many.

Infandum! Ad Infinitum — Molly Lawless

Lawless has quickly become one of my favorite comic creators and I think everyone needs to know about her. Her style of art is one part realism, one part cartooning with a depth provided by shading. Her faces are open and expressive and really draw me into her stories. She has a playful sense of humor that’s a little self-deprecating but also innocent. She’s a fan of old baseball so some of her comics are about that, which is uniquely fun. Her baseball history lessons have a spirit of silliness about them while still being informative. I am not a particular baseball fan — old or new — but I really enjoyed reading her comics about it.

And since she’s a fellow Arlingtonian, I think we totally need to hang out.

That’s it. The rest of the stuff is longer. I have two anthologies I may put together into one review, but I need to finish them first.