Luggage tags from David King are on my shopping list. A $2 steal!

One of our favorite publishers of fine indie comics has been diagnosed with cancer. Evidently, for a second time. Can I get a “not fair?”

Dylan Williams is a man with enough on his mind. As one of the planners for the Portland Zine Symposium, he just saw the 11th year of that event wrap up, plus he’s the sole person running Sparkplug Comic Books, and now he has to deal with this major health issue (and bills). It’s unfortunate, unfair, and inspires a sense of melancholy from someone living so far away who isn’t sure how to help.

Actually, there is something you can do for Dylan at home.  It would be enormously useful and encouraging if you would go now to the Sparkplug Comic Books website and finally buy the copy of Lemon Styles you’ve been waiting for, or take a chance on another title that’s sure to please you.

Thanks to Rob Clough for getting the ball rolling on this one.

Here is the three-part interview we ran with Dylan back in 2008: 1 | 2 | 3

Here are some links to reviews of books published or distributed by Sparkplug we’ve run here on the Cross Hatch:

• Eschew #1 – 2 by Robert Sergel
• Whirlwind Wonderland by Rina Ayuyang
• Danny Dutch by David King
• Jin & Jam by Hellen Jo
• The Hot Breath of War by Alixopolus
• Reich #1 – 2 by Elijah Brubaker
• Edison Steelhead’s Lost Portfolio: Exploratory Studies of Girls and Rabbits by Renee French
• Asthma by John Hankiewicz
• Tales to Demolish #1 – 3 by Eric Haven
• Bookhunter by Jason Shiga
• Big Plans # 1 – 3 by Aron Nels Steinke
• You Don’t Get There From Here #5 by Carrie McNinch
• My Alaskan Summer by Corinne Mucha
• Neverland by Dave Kiersh
• Nurse Nurse #1-2 by Katie Skelly
• PS Comics by Minty Lewis
• Nine Gallons #1 by Susie Cagle

- Sarah Morean

Robert Sergel was born in 1982 in Boston. In 2005, he graduated from New York University with a degree in photography. You can view some of his photos on his website robertsergel.com. His comics often, beautifully, contain evidence of photo referencing.

He’s drawn a weekly online comic since 2005 for the Transplant Comics collective, and recently self-published the first issue of his book, Eschew. Sergel continues to update his comics site idiotcomics.com and is working on the second issue of Eschew which will be published by Sparkplug Comic Books. He currently lives in Cambridge, MA, and recently contributed to the Boston Comics Roundtable’s anthology In Bound #3.

His books are available for purchase through his online store or in the Secret Acres Emporium.

-  Sarah Morean

Danny Dutch
by David King
Sparkplug Comic Books

David King has created a book in which the art and dialogue unite almost at random.  It’s a kind of comics poetry, and it’s done well.

The “av” elements spend most of their time on the page like twins separated at birth — alike and related, but with personalities completely informed by their disparate environments and experiences.

The art is g-g-g-gorgeous.  King’s little characters, with their miniature limbs and classic, but over-the-top hairstyles and outfits, are easy to spend time with.

There’s no real plot, just a current of ache that moves through the book. The characters wear bewildered expressions, lack confidence, and almost treat each other like objects in a room passing time rather than as friends or lovers.  It lays a strange mood on the reader, and even though I’ve re-read this book enough times to know what that mood is, I can’t quite put a finger on it.  It’s really unique.

I’ve seen people try without success to reach this level of dull malaise, but in Danny Dutch, King is the first cartoonist I’ve seen in awhile who really nails it.

The art and handwriting and word blocks and balloons marry nicely in each panel.  The page layout is set up as a four-square grid, and dialogue flows between panels and pages, never really stopping to conclude, or mark the beginning of something new.  I’d love to tell you what the book is about, but the truth is that it’s not about anything in particular beyond tidbits and musings on life.

Danny Dutch was published by Sparkplug Comic Books, and I’ve gotta say, they craft some fine books.  The art looks clear on the page (No bitmapping! Hooray!) and the uncoated pages have a nice, substantial quality.  The size of the book is somewhat unusual (8″ square like the Kochalka sketchbook diaries), but I love that size, and with the uncoated cover and interior pages, the whole handling experience is really enjoyable.  The colors used on the cover are interesting, and post-apocalyptic in a way: lime verging on yellow tinged with a grapefruit-inspired pink. Strange and foreboding and not unlike what you’ll find inside.

I’m not fond of the endpapers, which have kind of an argyle pattern that skews the author’s commentary to a strange right-sloping angle on the back page, but overall it’s just an excellent book, or a really successful experiment.  I’m a die-hard fan of self-publishing, but I really appreciate seeing a book that has clearly been assembled by a company of people who know what they’re doing and took care to represent someone else’s work well.

Danny Dutch is 28 pages long and costs $5.50 from the publisher.

- Sarah Morean