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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.

(Also known as reviews of Emiko Superstar, Janes in Love and The New York Four.)

I read Emiko Superstar and Janes in Love back-to-back on the train returning home from MoCCA (which tells you how long I’ve had them — they were giving them out for free). I more recently read The New York Four.

Emiko Superstar Preorder from tfaw.com

Emiko Superstar, written by Mariko Tamaki with art by Steve Rolston, follows Emi, a slightly overweight and awkward half-Asian teenager in Canada as she finds herself drawn into an underground group of performance artists. I like Emi – I liked her geekier tendencies and her introspective nature. I didn’t exactly buy the whole performance artist scene – I didn’t believe that a guy who looked a lot like The Dude from The Big Lebowski would truly be able to get a group of young people to perform in a warehouse space, nor did I find Emi’s object of admiration, Poppy Galore, to really have that much going on. Her tentative, possible romance with Henry has a sweetness about it.

I did like the way everything unraveled, though, and how Emi realized everyone has secrets and can be surprising, including herself. Rolston’s art has a curvy softness about it that compliments the cuteness of the story well. But ultimately, I found Emiko Superstar to be fairly forgettable.

Janes In Love Buy from tfaw.com

Janes in Love picks up where The Plain Janes left off, with the same creative team of novelists Cecil Castellucci and artist Jim Rugg. I think it’s basically pointless to read this if you haven’t read The Plain Janes first. To me, it was more of the same. The Janes are now dealing with the fallout after the bust-up of P.L.A.I.N. and find themselves drifting apart as boys enter the scene. The main Jane seeks a way to continue making public art while dealing with her mom’s reluctance to leave the house after a friend dies from an anthrax attack. I noticed a very subtle shift in Rugg’s art, emphasizing the various Janes’ ethnicities (I did a side-by-side comparison and the style isn’t that different, but it’s there). This one fell a little flat and felt a little unnecessary to me (I’ve read there will be a third one). Whereas the first book was about the girls’ self-discovery, they didn’t have enough to do in this one. The conclusion and reunification of the Janes came across as a little too neat for me.

And after I finished this one, I realized something about Minx: all the books have the same sorts of rhythm. They all emphasize some Big Important Life Lesson. They all share the same sort of pacing and the characters all have the same sort of epiphanies and self-discoveries. They all seem to learn that in the end, it’s best to be true to yourself.

I do think that’s an important message and one that teenage girls don’t hear enough, but the more I read of the Minx books, the more preachy they feel. Instead of being art or even entertainment first, they seem to be lessons in self-esteem. They seem to be more the sorts of books well-meaning adults and comic book bloggers (myself included) think teenagers should be reading. (I did a quick bit of research on some message boards where teenage girls hang out – I didn’t spend too long because I didn’t want to be creepy – and I didn’t find any mentions of any of the Minx books. I’m not sure if teenage girls are actually reading these.)

But I still keep picking them up. I keep giving them a chance.

The New York Four Buy from tfaw.com

I was surprised to see that The New York Four comes closest to what I think Minx can be capable of. Coming from Vertigo veterans Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly, the story follows reclusive Riley as she reunites with her sister and tries to make friends during her first year of NYU. The New York setting feels like the real New York (I like Wood’s little asides in his NYC 101 lessons) and not just some “exotic” tacked on locale. This is the New York where people actually live. Riley is an interesting heroine and as it’s delightfulas she breaks out of her shell. The rest of the “New York Four” – Merissa, Lona and Ren – feel a little undeveloped but I get the feeling Wood and Kelly plan to continue this story. While I think Kelly draws the girls a little too sexy, with over-emphasized lips and prominent bustlines, his art has an attractive grittiness to it.

But while Riley has her share of disappointments and Big Life Lessons – and, of course, discovers it’s best to be herself – this book felt different. There was drama. There was anger and love. There was uncomfortable situations. There was, in other words, the sorts of things teenage girls encounter every day.

I know that Karen Berger said that Minx is “real stories about real girls in the real world,” but I can’t help but want it to be more like the manga series Nana. Granted, in its own way, Nana is about as far from reality as you can get, despite not being fantasy, but underneath its rock-star melodrama, it feels real. It’s heartfelt while still being escapist. I want to feel the same way after I’ve read a Minx title.