(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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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