Archive for the 'Reviews' Category
Interview: Nate Powell Pt. 1
Swallow Me Whole caught me off-guard. I was largely unfamiliar with Nate Powell’s work when I first picked up the Top Shelf book, and as such, didn’t have particularly high hopes, beyond his very clear talents as an artist.
More than just a standard tale of a brother and sister growing up in a southern town, [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 6 Comments
Tags: Arkansas, autism, Donnie Darko, Nate Powell, schizophrenia, Swallow Me Whole, Top Shelf
Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle
Burma Chronicles
By Guy Delisle
Drawn & Quarterly
If there’s a major complaint to be levied against Guy Delisle’s new book, it’s a simple matter of unfortunate timing. When the Myanmar’s government was reluctantly thrust into the world’s spotlight by outrightly refusing aid following the devastating effects of Cyclone Nargis, many US residents were sadly left to our [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 8 Comments
Tags: Burma, Burma Chronicles, Drawn & Quartely, Guy Delisle, Myanmar
Pockmarked Apocalypse #1
by Jeff Lok
American Stronghold
There’s something funny about the Center for Cartooning Studies. What others might call a book, a project, or even more accurately a portfolio, CCS dubs a thesis. A thesis? Really?
Completion of the CCS thesis does not require research or compare/contrast methodology, like so many theses before it. There is [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 5 Comments
Tags: mini-comics, Jeff Lok, Center for Cartooning Studies, CCS, Pockmarked Apocalypse
Little Things by Jeffrey Brown
Little Things
By Jeffrey Brown
Touchstone
Jeffrey Brown’s stories tend to defy convention. He’s a fantastic storyteller, and much of his strength lies in the way he foregoes the need for set ups and finite endings. In his world, life is constantly moving, making it all one big middle.
Brown achieved fast fame with his debut graphic novel, Clumsy, [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 2 Comments
Tags: Jeffrey Brown
The Heroic Mosh of Mary’s Son
By Malcy Duff
Malcy Duff’s an excellent creator-one of Britain’s leading comics artists-and this book show’s him at the top of his game. He won’t appeal to everyone-he’s one of our more avant-garde creators. Anyone who can spend 16, nine-panel pages hypnotising us with a character moshing to his stereo deserves [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 1 Comment
Tags: Malcy Duff, The Heroic Mosh of Mary's Son
Fatal Faux-Pas
by Samuel C. Gaskin
Secret Acres
‘Maybe I shouldn’t review this,’ I thought for a month. ‘Sam Gaskin is ripping off a lot of people. He could get into some trouble.’ However, it’s all done in the spirit of parody, so give the guy a break.
The title alone is a Faux pas. There’s no dash in [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 0 Comments
Tags: Fatal Faux-Pas, gag comics, Samuel Gaskin, Secret Acres
Bellen No. 5: Happiness is an Elusive Bastard
By Box Brown
Self-Published
Love has wrought some horrible things in the world of sequential art. Without unwavering explorations into the emotion, the form would be robbed of such groundbreaking works as The Family Circus, Ziggy, and, of course, Love is… Absent these essential entries into the canon, it’s hard [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 1 Comment
Tags: Bellen, Brian Brown Box Brown
Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell
Swallow Me Whole
By Nate Powell
Top Shelf
Growing up, of course, is never simple. But for the bright kids—the artists, the thinkers, the introverts, the social outcasts—said complexity is oft times unwittingly compounded, as resistance toward conformity, be it conscious or accidental, does battle with bodies in a state of constant physical, social, and emotional flux. Tackling [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 0 Comments
Tags: Nate Powell, Top Shelf
The Alcoholic
By Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
Vertigo
Admission is, of course, the first step on the road to recovery. Where penning a graphic novel on the subject falls amongst list of steps, however, is a bit tougher to say. As plenty of past autobiographical comics have shown us in the past, the process can be incredibly [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 0 Comments
Tags: Dean Haspiel, Jonathan Ames, The Alcoholic, Vertigo
Neverland by Dave Kiersh
Neverland
by Dave Kiersh
Bodega
The artwork of Dave Kiersh is so distinctive, it would be an embarrassment for anyone else to try and mimic his style.
Just don’t judge a book by its cover. What you’ll find inside is more blackened, cross-hatched, smudged and labyrinthine than its cover would portend. Neverland is a complicated maze of shapes and [...]
Filed under: Reviews | 0 Comments
Tags: Bodega, Neverland, Dave Kiersch
-
rss
-
contact
