Yeah, I know Free Comic Book Day was two weeks ago, but I’ve only just finished reading some of the free indie comics given away that day. While I realize it is impossible to find a copy of every free comic given away, I still hold out hope of stumbling across free books from previous years. (And if anyone has books from previous years, I’ll buy them for a quarter each.)
But it’s still worth looking at these books to bring attention to these oft-ignored publishers. Yes, we’ll see Slave Labor Graphics and Oni, which are practically maintstream. But I still don’t read their books. And chances are, neither do you.
So, here is a quick look at the indie scene today. I’ve dropped the “Industry Image” ranking since any attention brought to non-superhero, self-published, or just plain weird books is always good for the industry. Instead, I’m using a “Monkey Rating”. Seems most of these indie books have monkeys. Rating is based on number, quality, and effective use of monkeys.
Alternative Comics: Alternative Comics #2
A second collection of strips and excerpts from books published by ‘Alternative Comics’. Included are “Peanut Butter & Jeremy” by James Kochalka, an “American Splendor” strip by Harvey Pekar and Dean Haspiel, pages from the upcoming graphic novel ‘The Salon’, and ‘A Few Perfect Hours’, by Josh Neufeld.
This works best as a sales promotion. After reading this, I am now looking forward to ‘The Salon’, a strange mystery involving the expatriate artists in 1920s Paris. Maybe it’s the way Picasso is portrayed as a testosterone-fueled lunatic. Maybe it’s because these are the only pages in the book in color. The other strips range from amusing to cute to personal to just plain odd, but each is intriguing enough to warrant further reading.
Quality: A good book on its own. I’d like to see Alternative publish this as a quarterly book.
Company: The book ends with a list of books coming out in the fall, and a checklist of all the books Alternative publishes and distributes. I don’t know why, but every time I see a checklist, I feel like getting everything on it. Maybe I just like checking off boxes. ‘Alternative’ looks like a publisher of diverse and original work. Some of it might be considered literature.
Monkeys: None, though Picasso does act like an ape.
Babon Books: A Bunch of Baboons
Baboon Books is a small publisher working out of Audubon, PA. Its contributors include Jeff Kilpatrick, winner of Dark Horse Comics’ “Strip Search” competition. This comic showcases stories from Baboon’s upcoming titles. ‘Action Figure’ by Richard Marcej, ‘Baboon’s publisher), is a collection of semi-autobiographical tales inspired by his life designing toys. The story featured here, “Classics”, tells of his attempt to convince two young comics fans that comics from the 60’s were drawn better than today’s comics. It leads to a brief b&w&red hallucination featuring an all-out comics war. ‘Wonderful’, by Jell Kilpatrick, stars a baboon in a blue collar neighborhood. Jacob Lambert, creator of ‘Cloverleaf’, gives us “trading Down”, a clever, silent strip about a fellow that always regrets buying the expensive model. ‘Hot Chick and Monster’ is Christian Patchell’s look at love using monsters as men. (Frankly, this would have looked better if Patchell hadn’t filled in every space with pencil shading. Looks terrible.) We get 4-pages of “The Sharing Bears”, a srip about not-quite-cute bears by Andrew Hoffman; and finally, robots fight with cyber-enhanced monekys in Bob Dix’s “Robotorama” preview.
In other words, Baboon Books is another group of local artists coming together to produce comics. And they’re good comics. Go to www.baboonbooks.com and check them out. I got to represent fellow PA fanboys, yo.
Quality: Good cartooning from Marcej, Lambert, and Hoffman. I’m curious to se Marcej’s ‘Bastard Tales’.
Company: Small, but with good product. It reminds me of Chiasmus, a small publisher from Kalamazoo, MI, I read back in high school. It’s gone, and I bet Baboon will fade away too. But not before giving us some good comics.
, because it’s short life span makes it beautifulMonkeys: Surprisingly few monkeys for a publisher named “Baboon Books”. Only monkeys are the baboon in “Wonderful” and the Battle Monkeys of “Robotorama”. But those monkeys look sad and depressing, not cool or funny. It’s clearly chimp torture. Not cool.
Dork Storm: The Best of Dork Storm
Four short stories from series published by Dork Storm. Of course, we have “Dork Tower”, the strip about gaming geeks and their talking dog that I get only half the time; “PS 238”, a school for the children of superheroes. In this tale, Captain Clarinet teams up with The Flea and fights an armored villain. “Nodwick” stars a team of medieval adventurers who won’t be inspiring any epic novels anytime soon. And finally, a look at the new series “Dr. Blink, Superhero Shrink”, a therapist for superheroes and supervillains.
Usually I’m pretty indifferent to Dork Storm’s comics. On the rare occasions I read them, I think they’re amusing. They’re clearly aimed at RPG players and fantasy fans. I’m neither, so I see “Dork Tower” and “Nodwick” as cute little strips about something I know little about. “PS238” is just too all-ages for my tastes.
But “Dr. Blink” falls squarely into the category of “comic book parody”. Dr. Frederick Wertham Blink, (and if you don’t get that joke, welcome to comics), helps superhumans with their unique emotional and psychological issues. In the two strips featured here, he convinces Captain Omnipotent that his desire to be a hero stems from seeking the approval of his long-dead parents and alien homeworld. So he stops helping people and everything goes to hell. Next, a villain thanks Dr. Blink for curing him of his obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now he no longer leaves clever clues and riddles pointing to his next crime. This lets him take over an orbiting weapons satellite and hold the city for ransom without anybody stopping him.
Two strips and the concept is already run into the ground. OK, Blink tries to help, but only makes thing worse. We get it! “Superguys has problems.” NO DUH! This idea felt played out when I red the strip summary inside the front cover. In fact, didn’t Rob Liefeld have a webcomic with the same idea? It was supposed to be turned into a movie starring Jennifer Lopez. Curing heroes and villains of their emotional problems isn’t funny. It’s just old. I don’t know how they’re going ot stretch it out over a 4-issue mini-series.
Quality: Three decent stories, one clunker.
Company: Dork Tower is kind of a niche publisher. I find their comics in gaming stores more often than comics shops. But then, that’s their audience.
Monkeys: No monkeys. Lots of bugs, though.
Keenspot: Keenspot Spotlight 2004
This is a digest-sized, 112-page collection highlighting many of the strips and webcomics available on keenspot.com. It’s one of three comics Keenspot gave away this year, and unlike the other free books, you can get them from the publisher. But you have to pay at least $3.95 each.
Keenspot has become the most popular site for webcomics. They have strips and serialized stories for fans of every genre. I don’t read any of them. None. My plate is full with “Sluggy Freelance”, Cigarro y Cerveja”, “Penny Arcade”, “Cat and Girl”, the comics section of Salon.com, “Bob the Angry Flower”, and online postings of “Zippy the Pinhead”. I don’t have time to read any more.
And from what’s in this mag, I’m not missing much. Most of the strips have a funny animal cast or an anime style of art and subject matter. The only strip that catches my eye is “Men in Hats”, a strange little strip about men who look like Fisher-Price figures bickering and passing the time. Let me go read some strips and tell you if it’s any good.
. . . OK, it’s six guys wandering around in a desert hurting each other. Funny.
Quality: highly uneven. I don’t think I’m qualified to judge. And I sure as hell don’t want to work out the average quality of 30+ strips. Let’s just give this
and move on.Company: Keenspot hosts webcomics. Here are some of them. Now you know what Keenspot does. Mission accomplished.
Monkeys: None. Got some talking talks, bears, a hamster, Hitler’s penis, a psychotic lesbian cat, abd a serial killer, but no monkeys. Dammit, doesn’t anyone recognize the inherent comic potential of apes, chimps, and other simians? Did Julius Schwartz teach us nothing? APES SELL COMICS!! No bullets for you!
Oni: The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: Secret Crisis Origin Files
Thank you Jud Winick! This comic tells the story of how Barry Ween, the brilliant child with no morals or conscience, met Jeremy, his hyperactive friend with an abundance of feelings and conscience. At the age of five, Jeremy already had a life-long love of giant apes and monkeys. So he’s overjoyed when he accidentally turns his and Barry’s babysitter into a giant ape. Said ape goes nuts and Barry tries to drown her. Jeremy convinces Barry to save her, and a friendship is formed.
Damn this is a funny book! I laughed jut looking at the pictures! What’s best is the dynamic between Barry and Jeremy. Jeremy’s ignorance and hyperactivity usually spark some disaster or adventure involving Barry’s inventions. But Jeremy’s basically a good person. He doesn’t let a friend down and he doesn’t want to hurt anybody. Barry feels protective of Jeremy, which humanizes him. It’s rare to find a smart guy/dumb guy cartoon couple that’s more than just “dumb guy frustrates smart guy’s plans”.
Quality: Funny book! FUNNY BOOK!!
Company: Ads for other Oni books, and a message from the editor, James Lucas Jones, in the back. He describes Oni’s other FBCD offering: Andi Watson’s ‘Love Fights’ #1, with a preview of ‘Everest: Facing the Goddess’, by Greg Rucka and Scott Morse. He mentions other comics by Winick, Rucka, and Watson, which is either an attempt to sell the books to current fans or draw outsider attention to other Oni books. Either way, it’s more than the minimum Oni could do to promote themselves.
Monkeys: Big, hairy monkey woman, and a diatribe on how King Kong was racist. Rock.
Slave Labor Graphics: Slave Labor Stories #2
Thirteen stories from people who are published by SLG. There’s a new “Street Angel” short, (Rugg and Maruca in effect!), two “Milk & Cheese” strips, (My God. They’re not funny anymore!), and 11 other short strips featuring characters from SLG comics.
My favorite is “Free Comic Book Hell. With a Pig.”, featuring the cast of ‘Bear’. ‘Bear’, by Jamie Smart, stars a talking teddy bear who is constantly being tortured and mutilated by Looshkin, the crazy cat that lives with him. Their owner is usually too lazy and fearful to intervene. My brother has almost all the ‘Bear’ issues. It is a strange, funny, and mostly original series. Think the manic energy of ‘Milk & Cheese’ combined with the weirdness and social commentary of Johnen Vasquez and the “innocence in the face of horror”-style humor of ‘Lenore’, give everyone big heads that are frequently bitten and the odd British slang and you’ve got a rough idea of ‘Bear’.
Or you could just read the book. Lazy bastards.
This comic also has pages from Marvel’s ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures’. The series was published in1992, was written and penciled by Evan Dorkin, and ran for only 12 issues. This summer, SLG begins collecting the entire series, and Dorkin’s adaptation of ‘Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey’, into b&w trade books. I recommend finding the original issues. They’re usually about a dollar each, which means you can get the whole series in color cheaper than SLG’s black and white reprints.
Quality: It’s all good, but you can’t top a cat with feathers attacking little children with his pig.
Company: Seems to me SLG makes books for teens who’ve outgrown superheroes but not comics entirely. Several strips have a goth theme, while most are just plain silly and violent. EIC Jennifer de Guzman says in her introduction, “Hey, comics are pretty neat”. That about sums it up.
Monkeys: Witch-girl sera makes a ghost monkey. Bear is mistaken for the comic book hero monkey-teddy. Bill & Ted are so dumb, I’m making them honorary apes.
Top Shelf Comics: Top Shelf Tales
8 short tales from people who have books published through Top Shelf, three of which are by James Kochalka. We’ve got the superhero parody “Bighead”, another fight between monkeys and robots, a gang of video game/pinball-loving animals, and an example of a true music pirate.
Well, the stories are all nice, but the book feels light. I mean, almost half the stories are from the same guy, so the book lacks in variety. Top Shelf represents a large number of artists, with an extensive catalogue. You’d think they’d find more than just four guys to contribute to this comic.
I also can’t help but feel this comic has been “sanitized”. Like the least offensive material has been selected. Top Shelf publishes many great graphic novels that only adults could understand or appreciate. It would have been ice to see them represented. I guess they didn’t want anything offensive in a comic that could be picked up by kids.
Quality: not their best stuff, but good stuff.
Company: Ironically, this makes Top Shelf look as small as Baboon Books. Other books by the artists are listed in the back, but no mention of Top Shelf’s other creators.
Monkeys: A short inspired by the definitive story of apes vs. machines! And though the Cableknit Gang of animals doesn’t include a simian, they do have an alligator and a goldfish in a wheeled fishtank. That is sufficiently cool.
Well, that’s a brief review of some of the independent and alternative comics publishers working hard to free your mind of the prejudices and artistic conventions calcified by years of reading mainstream super-crap. (Hey, artistic pretension and indie comics go together like lard and Joseph Beuys.) For more books, check out their websites at:
www.indyworld.com/altcomics
www.baboonbooks.com
www.onipress.com
www.slavelabor.com
www.topshelfcomix.com
www.keenspot.com
www.dorktower.com
www.nodwick.com
www.ps238.com
I left out the site for “Dr. Blink” because it’s not funny.
You can also buy books from these and other publishers at http://home.earthlink.net/~copaceticcomicsco/. Copacetic Comics is a small comics shop in Pittsburgh that sells indy and art comics. I don’t go there nearly as often as I’d like. Check them, and the section for BEM, the owner’s self-published mag.
I hope this helps you find an alt or indie comic, or just distracted you for half an hour. Either way, I’ve fulfilled my obligations to SBC this week. Now I can get back to what really matters:
Playing video games!
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