“Did You Hear What Eric Powell Done?” New graphic novel from Goon creator Eric Powell matches his formidable skills with one of the foremost serial killer biographers to chronicle one of the most infamous crimes of mid-20th century America It’s not an exaggeration to compare discovering...
Read moreReview: The Strange Tale of Panorama Island
The Strange Tale of Panorama Island (Panorama-tou Kitan) — Last Gasp, 2013 Now-classic manga novel from Mr. Arashi’s Amazing Freak Show creator Suehiro Maruo echoes the decadent era in which its source story by Hirai Taro (aka ‘Edogawa Rampo’) was originally written, while anticipating one of...
Read moreFree Comics College With Stephen R. Bissette
Wow Cool is proud to welcome Stephen R. Bissette to our roster of contributors this month, and we can guarantee that things will be extra Halloween freaktastic. After that, things might really run off the rails! Look for his first review for us in just a few hours. In the meanwhile, set your...
Read moreAustin English’s Windy Corner Magazine, Volume 1 Review
(This review was originally published in 2007.) Reading Windy Corner Magazine #1 was a special pleasure because I’ve always found Austin English’s taste to be impeccable as a critic and now as an editor. It was a bonus to see so much of his new work as an artist as well. What makes...
Read moreDerf’s True Stories Volumes 3 and 4
In his True Stories comics, Derf has been going further back in time with each issue. In volume three, he covers 1996-2001, which was the height of alt-weekly newspapers. This is years before his career-defining comic My Friend Dahmer and his switch over to long-form storytelling. His stock in...
Read moreTrevor Alixopulos’ Mine Tonight
Those that follow the minicomics scene will observe that geography plays a large part in forming artist support groups. These groups provide encouragement and critique for young artists and play a part in their development. The recent development of a sustained book publishing beachhead in the...
Read moreKatriona Chapman’s Follow Me In – Review
Follow Me In is Katriona Chapman’s debut book from UK publisher Avery Hill. It details a transformative trip to Mexico with her then-boyfriend and focuses on the details of the trip as well as her ambivalence toward her boyfriend thanks to his alcoholism. Best known for her autobio...
Read moreHellen Jo’s Jin & Jam – Review
There’s little that’s quiet about Hellen Jo’s Jin and Jam, a Sparkplug Comic Books release. In the tradition of cartoonists like Charles Schulz, she’s clearly exploring different aspects of her self through her various characters. Jo’s characters are very much...
Read moreLiz Suburbia’s Egg Cream #1 – Review
Note: This review contains major spoilers for Egg Cream and for the proceeding work Sacred Heart. Egg Cream #1 is Liz Suburbia’s compromise between working non-stop on a new book and doing a one-woman anthology on the side. This series will anthologize the follow-up to her book Sacred...
Read moreDavid King’s Danny Dutch – Review
In small press comics, the output from a publisher tends to reflect their own personal aesthetic, even when they exert no editorial control over them. That shows through in things like design and format, creating a sort of house style, especially when a publisher puts out a limited number of...
Read moreAntony Huchette’s Brooklyn Quesadillas – Review
It’s not inaccurate to say that Antony Huchette’s surreal fantasy/slice-of-life comic Brooklyn Quesadillas is self-indulgent wish-fulfillment. At the same time, such a statement is missing the point. This isn’t so much a serious narrative as it is a waking dream scenario...
Read moreAustin English’s Windy Corner Magazine #3 — Review
What I like best about Austin English’s Windy Corner Magazine is that it seeks to clarify the artist’s relationship with memory and the narrative that we form from our memories, and how this is different from nostalgia. That theme was particularly evident in this issue. We are given...
Read moreChris Cilla’s The Heavy Hand – Review
Reading Chris Cilla’s The Heavy Hand, I felt a tremendous sense of déjà vu. Each page felt like one I had already read somewhere, even though I hadn’t. One reason it may have felt so familiar is that The Heavy Hand is the ultimate “fusion” comic...
Read moreK. Thor Jensen’s Cloud Stories – Review
If Red Eye, Black Eye was K. Thor Jensen’s version of a comics senior thesis, then his short story collection Cloud Stories was his PhD. dissertation. The former had all that young cartoonist energy, for good and ill, especially as a work of autobiography. There were plenty of times where...
Read moreK. Thor Jensen’s Red Eye, Black Eye – Review
K. Thor Jensen’s Red Eye, Black Eye (Alternative Comics) is the work of a young cartoonist. That is literally true, as the book was published in 2007 after being serialized online, but the tone and content is very much of a man in his mid-20s trying to figure out his life. As such, a...
Read moreJason Shiga’s Bookhunter – Review
One reason why I love comics is that I occasionally run into a creator producing art that would only work as comics. I prefer not to use reductive terms like “pure cartooning”, but I have a great appreciation for many artists who rethink this idea of making marks on paper for a...
Read moreAnnie Goetzinger’s The Provocative Colette – Review
It is interesting to consider what Annie Goetzinger, “la grande dame de la bande dessinée”, chose as the last two projects of her life. After many years serving as the illustrator for most of her projects, she wrote and drew her last two books herself. Dying a few months after her...
Read moreOpen-Ended: Olga Volozova’s The Airy Tales – Review
Something I’ve noticed as a recent trend in comics is a style that somewhat trades in primitivism or outsider art on the surface, but in reality is a sophisticated integration of word and text. The plastic qualities of text are not something separate to be read in the comic, but instead...
Read moreEleanor Davis’ Stinky – Review
Eleanor Davis’ first book was Stinky, which was released in 2008 by Toon Books. It won a number of awards and deservedly so, because it’s brilliant on any number of levels. What’s interesting about her kids’ and YA books is that they are chock full of eye...
Read moreJulia Gfrörer’s Flesh And Bone – Review
Revisiting another Sparkplug classic, here’s my original review of Julia Gfrörer’s debut book, Flesh and Bone, from 2010. Julia Gfrörer’s Flesh And Bone takes fairy-tale and folk legend tropes and both turns them on their heads and gets at their true roots. The plot of the...
Read moreThe Art of Kids’ Lit: Eleanor Davis & Drew Weing’s Flop To The Top – Review
Writing a children’s book that both children and adults can enjoy is a tricky proposition. Aim too far over a kid’s head to reach an adult, and you risk alienating the target audience. (And at $12.95 a pop, this is an expensive risk to take!) Going too far in the other direction...
Read moreDIY Therapy: Eleanor Davis’ You & A Bike & A Road – Review
One reason why Eleanor Davis is such an intriguing cartoonist is because her output is so unpredictable. While she has explored everything from science fiction to kid lit to satire and beyond, there is a constant theme running through them: mental health. That includes the ways in which...
Read moreFranchise Lost: Eleanor Davis’ The Secret Science Alliance – Review
If Chris Ware were to do a book aimed at preteens, it might look a little like The Secret Science Alliance. As a long-time fan of Eleanor Davis (I still vividly remember the micro-mini-comics vending machine she brought to SPX), I was stunned to see her completely reinvent aspects of her visual...
Read moreA Joke Telling Itself: Eleanor Davis’ Why Art? – Review
It’s important to note that Eleanor Davis’ hilarious and mind-bending new book Why Art? was originally a presentation for ICON: The Illustration Conference 9. The first half of the book is a send-up of didactic lectures about the nature of art, undermining accepted conventions and...
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