Comicsgirl

Like I said, I’m going to give equal time to the men whose comics I purchased at SPX!

(I do think there are more comics — including the ones my boyfriend will let me borrow — that will be forthcoming, but this will likely be the last SPX-related post.)

Ghost Rabbit – Dakota McFadzean
It’s a bad idea to read this comic when you’re both physically and emotionally exhausted. Don’t get me wrong — Dakota McFadzean’s meditation on life and death told through a cartoon rabbit and a little girl is both beautiful and heartfelt, but it will sneak up on you. And if you’re like me, you’ll finish the comic and burst into tears. McFadzean’s art has an intimacy and expansiveness — he makes the moments of this comic feel personal and insignificant and that lends a poignancy to the quiet story he’s telling here. More than anything else I picked up at SPX, I was surprised and effected by this comic. I’m happy to read what else McFadzean does, but I think he’s already figured it out. (Even if he did make me cry.)

Space Office #2 – John Green
Why would you dislike this? This is your life. Fine, you’re not in an office in space, but this is still your life.

John Green’s take on office life is both preposterous and utterly accurate. Yes, you don’t work with robots, but maybe you might as well. His drawings have a playful, animated quality that’s easy to relate to. Our hapless hero Xander just wants to do his job but has to deal with offended aliens and surly staple bots. This comic will make your job seem not so bad after all. Or at least it will make you laugh.

Luke Holds Off – A Love & Sex Story – Jeremy Nguyen
Jeremy Nguyen’s sensitive tale of a high schooler deciding to wait to have sex with his girlfriend may seem to fall into the typical introspective “real-life” comics at first glance, but there’s definitely something meaningful and evocative about it. Nguyen’s art is bold, simple and lovely. His characters look and behave like real people and he does a masterful job of communicating the intimate conflicts of living. I admire his ambition with this comic more than I like it, though — I know where he was trying to go comparing Luke’s desire to hold of sleeping with his girlfriend with his father’s infidelity, but I don’t know if it quite works. Overall, though, it’s a thoughtful story about a moment of growing up and I can’t find much fault with it. Nguyen has a winning style and a distinctive voice. Even if this comic isn’t exactly what I wanted, I know others will be.

Pope Hats #2 – Ethan Rilly
I have not read Pope Hats #1, but I didn’t feel lost reading this. Franny is likeable and easy to relate to — a young woman who doesn’t know if she really wants to be on the career path she’s on — and Ethan Rilly renders her with sensitivity and grace. I loved following her and I absolutely wanted to know more about her. The other stories feel a little less effective, though. While Rilly’s art shines clearly, the extended monologue of “Gould Speaks” come across a little rambling and while I liked seeing Franny as a child, it’s a story that feels a little added in.

But really, as soon as Pope Hats is complete and collected, I am going to be lining up to buy it. My complaints are little ones.

Welcome to Oddville! Buy on Amazon.com

I loved Welcome to Oddville! (AdHouse Books, 2011) so much I was emailing friends telling them to buy it before I was even done with it.

Jay Stephens‘ Oddville strips follow the adventures of a young superheroine Jetcat (who, in her “regular” life is named Melanie), her “friend” Tod, a grumpy snail named Petty, and Jetcat’s annoying step-brother, Avery. Oh, and a random collection of other characters, like the vampire-like mosquito, Mr. Suckley, a snowman named Sloshy, and the floating head of Boris Karloff.

It’s all silly fun. There isn’t really much sense in describing it any other way. Sometimes I was left with the impression that Stephens (who will be, by the way, a guest at Small Press Expo this year) was mostly making it up as he went along, but that’s not a complaint. There is a joyous freedom here. Stephens’ tendency to just go with whatever joke he had in mind is entirely playful, whether it’s following the adventures of a bandage (yes, that’s right — that happens) or Jetcat joining up with the superhero team The Two-Fisted Five.

Stephens’ style feels very retro while still remaining modern. He was clearly influenced by classic cartoons, especially much of Hanna-Barbera (not surprisingly, many people probably know Stephens’ from his animated series, The Secret Saturdays and Tutenstein) but his bright colors and witty sense of humor stop these strips from feeling like a throwback.

There are a few longer story arcs contained in the book, but for the most part, each strip can more or less stand alone. Each is individually funny (of course, as it goes, some are more funny that others). That makes it a fun book to just flip through to read strips at random. Even with Stephens’ obvious love of classic movie monsters, there are no real scares here — everything is played for innocent laughs. While there are a couple mild instances of gross-out humor (Avery glues Melanie to a toilet in one strip, and there are one or two snot-related gags), there’s almost nothing objectionable. Everyone from little kids to adults will love this. As they should.

I can’t promise you’ll be emailing your friends telling them to buy it before you’re done with this book like I did, but seriously, who wouldn’t love Welcome to Oddville!? It’s that much fun.

The book should be out in your better comic book store and will should show up in other stores/Amazon soon. I did include an Amazon link with this one, but as always, I still recommend you buy it directly from AdHouse.

Copy provided by the publisher.

If you don’t like Lamar Abrams‘ Remake by now, you really need to start.

Admittedly, I was pretty late to jump aboard but I think we’re all still at a point where if you like it now, you’ll still be on the cutting edge. When all your less-cool friends start talking about this awesome comic, you can say “Yeah, I knew about that a while ago. Where have you been?” This is your chance!

OK. Yes, I’m being pretty silly about this. But I’m not being silly about how you should, in fact, like Remake.

Remake Special (AdHouse Books, 2011) is maybe not as inventive as the original Remake book, but it also shows Abrams’ growth as a storyteller. Now, granted, that story is about a monster made of poop (I would never claim that Remake caters to the more mature mindset — but that is kind of what makes it great), but it’s a complete story nonetheless. Max Guy, Magma Boy and Rick venture into the sewers to defeat the Poop Monster (the lovely waitress Sybil and Max Guy’s roommate Cardigan are too smart for this) and there’s a bunch of action-packed, juvenile humor in the ensuing battles (there’s also an alligator who’s a DJ, which is more than awesome).

Abrams’ art is inspired in equal parts by anime, manga and video games (yes, really, those are all entirely different things) and his action sequences are amazingly silly entertainment. He has an eye for movement and scene-setting that’s more skillful than it would need to be. Like I’ve said before — with all the love Cartoon Network has shown to indie comic creators recently, I don’t know why they’re not knocking on Abrams’ door.

Our “hero,” Max Guy, is pretty much a naive idiot, but we like him all the same and probably relate to him more than we should. He means well, after all, and the other characters stick by him despite his flaws.

While I wouldn’t necessarily hand this to a child (although maybe leave it out where they could find it, but that’s different), the kid-like qualities of it make it joyful. And I would hand it to all the adults I know. Abrams is having fun making this comic and you’ll have fun reading it. And really, what else do you want?

(No Amazon link on this one — no one buys from my Amazon links, anyway, but with this: If you want it, buy it from you better comic book stores or directly from AdHouse Books. It’s better they have the money than me.)

The Downsized Buy on Amazon.com

No matter how close or how distant you are with you family (both emotionally and physically) nor how big or small it is, family reunions are always going to be a bit of a strange thing. People who only know each other in certain ways get have to interact with each other. It doesn’t matter if these people are related to you (or in some cases, people you’ve close enough to they might as well be relatives) — sometimes they can still be strangers.

Matt Howarth‘s The Downsized (AdHouse Books, 2011) takes place during one such family reunion. Howarth presents a family that loves each other despite everything. Not just that, they (mostly) like each other, and that’s refreshing. There’s conflict, certainly, and it’s not all fun, but the connection these people have with each other is strong.

The “kids” (in this case, basically just the second generation of the family) are happy to go sneak off together to smoke pot away from the ever-watchful eyes of their older family members. They may not always get along, but the family is happily devoid of drama overall.

I don’t mean to make it sound boring. Howarth gives these characters all kinds of quirks — Roli’s job writing for porn magazines to Kay being the mayor of a small town in Alaska to Pauli naming her cat Leia — and he may go a little overboard with some of that. But once you realize this isn’t necessarily meant to be a true slice-of-life portrait, those things do keep the book fun.

I did have some trouble of keeping track of how some of these characters were related to each other, but in the end, I don’t think it mattered so much who was a sibling and who was a cousin. What mattered is what they meant to each other.

And these things actually make his observations on being adrift in life, regardless of what age you are, that much more poignant. While the book is set in Michigan, which was obviously hit hard by the economic downturn (and before, for that matter), much of this does feel universal. We’re all ready for change and are fighting inertia.

Howarth’s art is stylized and cartoony — Roli’s T-shirt in the first chapter has ever-changing messages, various over-the-top character designs, especially with Uncle Marty, who got lung cancer from asbestos and not because he was a life-long smoker. Howarth isn’t striving for realism here, and the playful quality of his lines actually makes the work all that more poignant. It’s easy to just be enjoying the wit of both the art and dialogue while the meaning of what’s being said settles in.

Having said that, I do think the end, however powerful, doesn’t quite fit in with the tone of the rest of the book. It initially felt like Howarth didn’t quite know how to wrap things up, but the more I thought about it, the more I was OK with it. Howarth’s ultimate point seems to be that we need to appreciate what we have and who we love while we have them. He maybe could have gotten there a bit more gracefully, but I think it works out just the same.

I was actually surprised at how sad I felt to let the characters of The Downsized go. They’re not my family, no, but they still feel familiar.

I think I’ve actually been to the VA Comicon before. Or at least, I’m pretty certain I’ve been to some comic book show in this very hotel (but that was at least 15 years ago, if not longer). It all seemed very familiar.

I wouldn’t really define this as a con, personally, but I suppose they can call it whatever they want. It’s one room of people selling comics — mostly back-issue type stuff, but a few small press people.

Small press people including, of course, AdHouse Books, which is mostly why I went (I figured if I wasn’t going to MoCCA — I couldn’t exactly afford it and it seemed like a hassle — I should still get to have some comics-related fun). I make no secret of my love for AdHouse. I love the diversity of books AdHouse publishes — even if they’re not all going to be to my taste, I know they’re going to be intriguing and original. Publisher Chris Pitzer just obviously loves comics and that shows in the books he releases.

So yeah, I basically just went there to see Pitzer and pick up some AdHouse books and to drop off some copies of Magic Bullet #2 for distribution in Richmond (the people behind the registration table looked at me a bit strangely when I asked if there was a freebie table, then eyed the copies suspiciously. It’s a comic newspaper! It’s cool!).

I tried to hand-sell Remake to two different people. The first young teenage boy wearing a Nightmare Before Christmas hoodie, so I figured he was the target audience for this comic. But he seemed a little put-off by my insistence and ran off with his friend. Then we tried to sell it to a young woman by telling her “It’s like Scott Pilgrim!” After she informed us she didn’t like Scott Pilgrim, I said “It’s better than Scott Pilgrim!” I failed there, too. (It’s not like there was anything in it for me — it’s not my comic. I just like Remake. Sadly, Remake Special wasn’t ready for this show).

I wandered the rest of the show a bit, but it wasn’t that big (about what I expected) and mostly various back issues. Since I just cleaned out a bunch of comics and I’m not a collector anymore, there wasn’t anything in particular I was looking for. But I like shows like this. I liked the few people who actually came in costume. After all, I grew up here, and while Richmond is a different and cooler place than it used to be (or at least, that’s my sense of it), I also know it’s not always easy to find where you fit. If there’s a sense that other people like what you do, that can go along way.

Would I go out of my way to go to this show again? Probably not, but it worked out nicely that I got to go.