Panel 14: Panel of Horror

It's kind of crazy how influential old EC comics are. I mean, they're referenced constantly despite not actually putting out that many issues. The horror comics EC are known for only existed for a few years in the early 1950s, and none of those series even made it to 30 issues. It's possible there are more X-Men or Batman comics put out every month than original issues of Tales from the Crypt!

Yet, something about them has clearly stuck in people's heads, as they get referenced over and over again (and both of those examples are just ones I've made!).

This is an anthology comic that features several "horror" stories. The opening story by Craig Bogart is about a musician who is destined to learn the last new song ever. It features a Greek muse, people chained up in cellars, and a twist ending (of course!) that I actually thought was pretty good. The final story is written by Dara Naraghi and drawn by Andy Bennett, and is a little cliched, but also a fairly effective creepy story about a guy who thinks his dentist is out to get him.

The other stories didn't do that much for me. There's a werewolf story where I saw the twist coming on page two, a comic about various classic Hollywood monsters driving cars that just goes on forever and doesn't have an ending or much of anything (like backgrounds), and a weird story about a picnic basket that has art I enjoyed (see below), but not much of a plot.

Of course, the worst thing about this comic is that the giant ant on the cover doesn't appear anywhere inside. Boooooo.

Double Think

By Matt Aucoin

roastmutton.blogspot.ca

This looks like it's going to be a week of comic anthologies! This time it's a solo effort as Aucoin presents a number of pinups and comics with no apparent theme. The opening piece Godman (the one with the mermaid) is subtitled "A Wild Romp Through a Messed Up Dreamland", and doesn't make a lot of sense as I think it might actually be based on a dream. The main character just goes from event to event with connections that don't make any sense, and really weird stuff being treated as totally normal. It's kind of strange, but then dreams often are.

Next there are a couple of "teen romance" comics. One of which is about someone who's kind of horrible, and one that is about someone you think is horrible up until the ending. I preferred the latter, as I'm not really a big fan of reading about people doing jerk-y things. There are a number of other comics, from seemingly true worm rescue stories, to a bizarre historical piece about US independence.

One of the most interesting things about this comic is how Aucoin really varies his art style between each story. Some use thick lines and are incredibly cartoony, others use a thinner line, scratchier inking, and a more realistic style. It's interesting to see an artist do this, and I'm wondering if it was because Aucoin was still trying to find his own personal style, or if he thought each different story could be better told with a different kind of art. For whatever reason he chose, Aucoin manages to use the style differences effectively throughout this comic.

Dumb #0

dumbzine.blogspot.com

Aw snap, I missed an update yesterday for the first time in a couple of months. And as I'm just starting to write this at 11:59 pm on Tuesday it looks like it's going to be two days late. Still! There will be three reviews this week. Promise : )

So why did I forget to update? Because of Magic: The Gathering. Yeah, super nerdy, but if you expected anything else from me I'm not sure if you've ever actually read this blog. Magic is super fun! And as I'm not interested in having "competitive" decks I can have totally terrible/ridiculous theme decks. My friend just sent a library-themed deck and it is pretty wonderful/hilarious/horrible. I played my roommate three times yesterday and I don't think I managed to damage her once. But it's still so great to play (I mean, I am in library school after all).

Um, so yeah, this comic! It's an anthology, but it doesn't list who any of the creators are. Showing my utter genius it was only the second time through that I realized that each comic was down by a different person. This is despite their radically different styles. Sigh. Did I mention I only got four hours of sleep last night?

So there are lots of different comics, but there doesn't appear to be any theme or anything. I liked the one with a kid wondering through a destroyed city (see below), the one were a bat bites a dog and turns it into a vampire, and the one were the fairy godmother creates a horrible amalgam of man and horse that I think poops diamonds for Cinderella. Sure there were some that I didn't care for, but there always are even in the strongest anthologies.

Paper and Ink: Broken Hearts and Broken Bottles Vol. 1

Edited by Martin Appleby

www.inpursuitofexpression.com

Reading the introduction to this lit anthology I realized I was the wrong person to review it. Appleby writes that "The theme of this issue is heart break. A subject that most people can relate to and empathise with. I find something extremely cathartic about tales of lost love, of hearts being ripped out and shattered into a thousend [sic] peices [sic]."

And sure, I can relate to heart break, I've been in relationships, they've ended, sometimes sadly, sometimes not. But that doesn't meant I want to read about relationships, functional or not. Romance in fiction generally bores me to tears, and I frequently try to avoid it. I mean, it's not like the concept of romance is a complete anathema to me, I've read stuff that I've enjoyed, but I generally find it trite and banal.

I'm sure all of this makes me seem like a horrible person (or at least a horrible person to be in a relationship with), but it's not like I ignore the idea of romance in my own life. I guess I just find most portrayals of it to not connect with either my experience or my ideas concerning the topic.

Layout-wise I found the fonts that changed for each piece somewhat jarring. I personally prefer zines to have a more consistent design style throughout, though I can understand why people might feel otherwise. Some of the margins are too close to the edge of the page, but I did think the cover was pretty good.

So yeah, this zine has some poems and short stories about heart break. They're fine I guess but, as I've said many times in the past, poetry isn't something I'm really a fan of reading, and I find it pretty impossible to judge its quality. If you're into catharsis and heart break maybe you'll like this zine, but I can't say it did much for me (which is perhaps more of a failing of my own interests and views than the zine in question).

Pants: an anthology

By Ben Juers, Jone Fine, Emily Steele Sauter, and Nomi Kane

bjjuers.wordpress.com

jonlfine.googlepages.com

sexandweather.blogspot.com

brewforbreakfast.com

This is a comic book anthology about pants. Not pants in the UK sense, but trousers. Kind of a weird idea for an anthology, but at the same time it's broad enough that you can have lots of different types of stories that still fulfill the mandated theme.

The stories contained in this zine include one were a cat turns into a tree after putting on pants, a historical piece about early adopters of bloomers, the existence of nantucket reds and horrible yuppie society, and a giant, talking spider who thinks they're not getting jobs because they're naked.

I think I liked the spider story the best, just because it was so bizarre. How can a spider even wear pants?! (The answer is revealed to readers!) I would have ranked the story about bloomers higher, but the historical section has an (autobiographical?) framing device about some anxious artist and his partner who he's infatuated with that I found really boring.

Possibly the neatest thing about this comic is that the back cover has a glued on "pocket" that includes a smaller comic called "Shorts". I thought this was a really cute idea, and the only thing that sort of mars it is that only have the comics in it are actually about shorts. But while I actually liked the non-shorts based comics here better (who can't love the idea of a "denim hoodie jumpsuit"?), I still love the idea as a whole.

Two Fisted Librarians

You know, I was so busy not updating this blog at all (and then writing reviews for it), that I completely forgot to post about the new anthology zine that I'm editing!

Two Fisted Librarians is a collection of fiction, comics, and art created by librarians concerning libraries and librarians. The deadline is April 30th.

We’re looking for stories that fondly recall the pulp magazines of the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s, and comics of the ’40s and ’50s. Mad science, weird fantasy, occult horror, spicy mysteries, noirish romances, thrilling adventures, and whatever else.

Want to write about a library that uses steampunk technology, a cataloguing system so obtuse that it drives those that try to use it insane, or a librarian who has to track down a Nazi zeppelin in order to get an overdue book? Go for it! Send an email or check out the blog for more info.

Bear Pit Zine #1

bearpitzines.tumblr.com

This is an anthology of Bristol, UK based comics artists and features work by several comic artists who's stuff I've read, reviewed, and enjoyed before (namely Lando, Simon M., and Nick Souček).

The lead comic by Simon M is a simple idea, but executed well. It features a single scene of a bridge and a town, but presents it at various intervals throughout time. What happens to the bridge and the town in these pictures may not tell a full story, but it does gives hints of bigger events in the surrounding events.

Souček's comic focuses on the absurdity of trying to live each day as if it were your last. Would you go to work? Of course not! Would you plan for tomorrow or have long term goals? By definition you couldn't. Souček decides that while he may not have been making the most of his life before, he can focus on working on smaller things, as long as they succeed in making him and his friends lives slightly happier lives. (Of course as he's currently cycling across Australia by himself, I guess he decided to work on larger projects too.)

Lando's comic is similar to many of his others, in that it is set in a seemingly post-apocalyptic/alien setting filled with tiny details, snake people, skeletons, and giant floating credit cards. It doesn't really make a lot of sense, but it makes me incredibly curious about the world, and just what the hell is going on in it.

Of the remaining pieces Dani A. does a pretty neat piece on graffiti artists and their interactions with the police in late 1980s Bristol, while Deemo's features giant mutated sea monkeys (see below).

There are some things in here that I didn't really enjoy, but that is to be expected with anthologies, and for the most part I liked everything in here. If only more anthologies focused on urban decay and existentialism.

Panel: "Sweet" 16

Published by Ferret Press
600 Markview Road
Columbus, Ohio
43214, USA
www.ferretpress.com

I reviewed one of these anthology comics last year, and while I found the stories of varying quality, there were a couple that I enjoyed.

While that issue was about superstition and bad luck, this one is about a substantially different subject: romance and relationships. This is an area that I am less interested in. Or rather, the ways in which it is presented here didn't appeal to me.

Several of the pieces were about marriage and children, concepts I generally find boring and dull, while another shows a relationship that seems to be based mostly on material wealth (it's supposed to be comedic, but instead succeeds in making me sad). I also took issue with one of the comics that said that the alternatives to "monogamy over a 70-year lifespan" are "really awful". This person might want to look into monogamish relationships.

The best story in here was by KT Swartz and Brent Bowman (who illustrated the comic I liked in the other issue I reviewed). It's more about the titular sweet sixteen (a concept that both mystifies and terrifies me) than relationships, and is kind of Hunger Games-y. I don't think it really works as a complete story by itself, and functions more as a Future Shock type story, but I found it more interesting than the other content in here.

Halifax Comix Jam #11/12

It's the end of the month, and so it is once again time for me to "review" an old issue of the Halifax Comix Jam comic in order to promote the comic jam happening tonight at Roberts Street!

Honestly, I think jam comics like this are probably more valuable to the people that made them than to random outsiders. This is because these comics rarely make any sense at all.

(If you're not aware of what a jam comic is, they're comics where one person draws a panel, and then someone else draws the next panel, and so on. They usually don't have any real narrative flow, and the art styles can change drastically between panels.)

Still, I think they're neat because the jam sessions themselves encourage people to draw and be creative, which is something I think more people should be doing.

But yeah, go to the Comics Jam at Roberts Street Tuesday, February 28th (tonight!), 7-10pm. It will be fun! I promise. There will be cookies.

The Filth Issue 2

thefilthsubmissions@gmail.com
www.wix.com/the_filth/zine

I feel kind of bad saying this, but the thing I liked most about this anthology is the sewn binding (you can see it on the edge of the cover, it seems to have been done by a sewing machine). It’s kind of a weird thing to like, but I appreciate it when people have gone to the extra effort to do things like that.

The actual contents, however, don’t really appeal to me. There’s your average mix of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and some other stuff, and like any anthology or magazine you’re not going to like all of it, but in this case I didn’t like any of it.

This isn’t to say that the content here is necessarily bad, just that it wasn’t really my thing. I mean, I do read a fair bit (I generally finish at least two books a month, but I tend to prefer genre fiction (I’m reading Mogworld right now and really enjoying it!). At the same time, I do have a degree in Russian Literature, and read a pretty varied range of stuff, but I tend not to read stories about drug addicts, junkies, and people who like endin’ a lot of their sentences with apostrophes. (That is the weirdest complaint ever, but it’s true.) Why have I gone on about this so much? Because the two longest pieces in the book are about minor criminals and drug use. Not really my thing (I didn’t even like The Wire though, so what do I know).

I’m also not really interested in people telling me about how they became a single parent with four children. I just cannot understand their mindset in any way, and the piece doesn’t really delve into why the person actually had their children.

In fact, the most interesting thing in this zine, to me, was one of the characters talking about a prescription medication I’ve been on. And that was more of a “oh, I recognize that pharmaceutical name and very few of the others mentioned” than anything else.

Actually, that's not true. There was an interview with a musician that interested me enough (ie. it talks about how awesome robots and comics are) to look him up online, but, alas, I can find no mention of Music to Defend Reality from Marauding Hordes of Inter-dimensional Hostiles Volume 1. (Edit: Oh wait, apparently it was sent to me, I just found it in my "box of zines to review". It's actually pretty good. )

Again, I will say that none of the work here is necessarily bad (well, some of it is), just that the content matter really doesn’t appeal to me as it (mostly) lacks spaceships, monsters, humour (at least a type I enjoy), and characters I can relate to. But maybe you’ll like it.

Panel 13

Behind the neat cover (both sides open like doors) lies a a comics anthology put together by a group of creators in Ohio. They function like a writing group, getting together every few weeks to show each other what they're working on and to give constructive criticism. Twice a year they put out an anthology, and this is the 13th. Impressive!

This anthology is based around the theme of superstition and bad luck, and, like all anthologies, the contents are up and down with some comics just leaving me confused as to why they were even created. (Though I suppose that could just because because I don't really see the appeal of baseball.)

The two comics I liked the most were one by Craig Bogart that told of the unfortunate ends of the various contributors to this "unlucky" book. Each person is given a panel and their fates are revealed as everything from being forced to see the world like Thomas Kinkade to being burnt alive. No fun!

The other piece I liked was by Molly Durst and Brent Bowman and was a sort of pre-World War II adventure piece that recalled stories like The Shadow. It features a mansion, fencing, chemistry labs burning down, and the Spider King! How can you not love a giant centaur like spider goblin? I wish this comic was longer so that we could have seen more of him.

And so, once again, Matthew's love of monsters triumphed over all.

Every Reason #4

Edited by Keith

You know, the only way to get better at writing (or anything) is to do it every day. Do it all the time and you will improve. I've really been slacking on that front, but I feel like I've turned a corner and am doing zine stuff again (I've already posted more reviews than last month!).

Thus the importance of zines like this, which provide amateur writers with somewhere that they can submit their work to. I'm pretty much stealing this idea from the introduction where the editor says that he sees the zine as social work and wants it to promote writing and give more people the opportunity to read work (and to have writers have their work read). And yeah, what's the point of making a zine if nobody's going to read it?

Mostly though, the content of this zine didn't really leave much of an impact on me. There's a bunch of poems, which generally go in one ear and out the other when I read them. I did like the first one, though mostly because after a mention of Bukowski in the introduction I heard it like this piece in my mind.

Other than that I didn't really dig anything in this anthology. I feel as though I can't even critique the writing quality as the styles and story content aren't things that really interest me. The characters in the fiction pieces act in ways that I don't really understand, and clearly have different goals and thoughts than I do. So yeah, this is pretty much a non-review as I think all I can say is "not my thing".

Automatons in Love

By Jesse Durona, CJ Joughin, Kevin Uehlein, and Carl Mefferd
kevinuehlein.wordpress.com
piratesvsquid.blogspot.com

Robots! Robots! Robots! I love robots so much. And this zine is beautifully put together, with a silver cut out cover, pages printed on clear plastic, and occasional spot colour. It all looks really nice!

The four stories in here are pretty varied, and while all of them feature robots, not all of them really fulfill the title criteria. I was a little disappointed by this, as I've recently been reading Pluto by Naoki Urasawa. It's a fantastic comic about what it means to be a robot and a human, artificial intelligence, and how the two groups would interact with each other as robots get steadily more advanced. I've just read the first six books and I'm (im)patiently waiting for volume seven to come in at the library so I can finish reading the series.

So back to this comic! The first story, by Durona, appears to be from their webcomic that no longer exists. It's a cute little story about a robot who befriends some monkeys. Rad! I like the way the various apes are drawn, though I don't enjoy the human's designs as much.

Joughin's comic is an interesting one about consumerism and wants vs needs. However, while I liked the idea behind the comic, the actual story didn't really grab me. The pencil only (I think) art didn't reproduce that well either, so maybe Joughin should work on either their inking or digital manipulation skills to ensure better reproduction next time.

Uehlein's comic was my favourite out of all of them. The art is reminiscent of old funny animal cartoons (in no small part because most of the characters are animals in fancy clothes), and the plot of a robot performing cello in an orchestra seems like something that would fit right into an animated short. The comic is almost entirely silent, and one of my few wishes is that Uehlein had made the entire comic without anybody speaking. Still, it's pretty awesome in general.

The final comic, by Mefferd, features some really good robot designs. However the story doesn't really grab me for some reason. Maybe it's the pages of build up for what turns out to be a fairly old joke.

Overall though, this is a well put together anthology that features a variety of different styles. It's worth checking out even if you're not a huge robot fan (or a fan of huge robots).

Khyber Komix Jam #2

Edited by Kyle

A comics jam is an event where a bunch of people get together and draw collaborative comics. Usually each person draws a panel, and then passes it on to the next person (who in turn passes on the comic they'd been working on). You spend an evening hanging out with other comics artists, and at the end you have a pile of usually bizarre, generally nonsensical comics.

While these are great drawing exercises for the artists, both to get them to actually draw something and to draw within a certain period of time, they results are generally incredibly uneven. You have some participants who try to continue the story started by the previous artists, but others who go for random jokes and non sequiturs.

You also have an incredible variety of art styles, and while a few of the artists here are quite good at drawing something within the allotted time, others are not. My favourite comic had to do with a horrible jelly fish attack, both because jelly fish (or at least the idea of flying ones) terrify me, and because on average I think it has the best art. I guess jelly fish aren't that hard to draw.

Ultimately though, I think the biggest problem is the lettering. I can't even read a bunch of the dialogue! I'd be really interested to hear of any comic jams have used a writer/letterer who would write the dialogue/captions in advance and have the artists draw things to try and match up with that. I don't know if it would work better, but at the least the produced comics would (probably) be more coherent.

The Matter Second Issue Preview

If you look at the cover of this zine you can figure out why it was made. The Portland Zine Symposium was about to happen and apparently they didn't have all the content ready for their second issue. But the problem with previews is that they're often kind of lacking in content.

This one features excerpts from a number of comics and prose pieces, but half of them are actually the second part of stories that began in the first issue, this means that the first issue is a more effective gauge of what will be in the second issue, and, since it includes complete chapters instead of excerpts, will give you a better idea of what the second issue will contain. (Though to be honest I'm not even sure if the second issue came out, as the website address listed in here no longer leads to anything.)

Still, I like the cover (I love that typographic style), and there's an introduction to this piece about what zines are that is kind of interesting. It's interesting to think that zines are _everything_. They can be comics or prose or poetry or art or photography or recipes or music or travel or personal or educational or anything. The only thing that really unites the people that make them is that they don't just want to make something, they have to, and they'll go to all extents to create and distribute what they've made.

Speaking of which, have you seen my zines? Want one? Email me and we can work something out.

Tales of Diversity

This is a slickly produced (full colour! Glossy paper!) comics anthology created by Eastside Educational Trust and funded by the UK government. Or the last government at least, I doubt the new one would ever give money to something like this.

It features contributions from about twenty teenagers living in London (or at least I assume it's London), and it's neat that they actually are pretty damn diverse. The photo on the inside front cover features more diversity than seemingly the entire town I grew up in Canada (not that that would be that hard really).

The comics that these kids have created are pretty varied in a number of ways, namely quality and content. Some of them are quite accomplished, while others are kind of terrible. Since there are so many different strips in here I'm just going to comment on a few of them.

The opening piece (The Dollhouse by Leke Adekanbi and Shantel Cherebin) is about acceptance of people with different sexual and gender identities to the norm. It's a good message (though an old one for me), but is more notable for the use of colours (each page uses only one colour, giving the comic an interesting look), and the kind of bizarre way some of the characters speak. I guess this second thing is probably more due to the fact that I don't hang out with many East London teenagers.

The second piece is by Charley Hayter and is kind of a strange thing to be created by a teenager as it starts in 1980 and features some school kids discussing what they want to be when they grow up. Cut to the present day and they meet up again, where one has achieved her dreams and the other hasn't. It's, uh, kind of depressing (the person who hasn't works in retail). I do like the art style (sort of amerimanga influenced, and no, I never thought I'd use that word either), and someone's job is a beekeeper. Awesome!

After this strong start many of the other pieces in here aren't so good. Some don't seem to make any real sense, some aren't really comics but are really more just pin ups, some don't seem to have any connection to the theme at all, and one (the longest in the comic!) seems to miss the entire point of the project and features people going on holiday somewhere, complaining about the food served, and then getting sick after eating it.

That's not to say they're all terrible, several of them have some merit (either in theme or art), and one by Nickita Patterson is pretty awesome. Matching high contrast black and white photos with text the piece (it really isn't a comic) talks about the African diamond industry and the brutal rebel groups, child labour, and general exploitation involved in its running. It's nicely laid out, and has a powerful message, even if it might not "properly" match the theme of the book.

One interesting thing I saw through these pieces was how terrible the lettering generally was. Only a few of the pieces used digital lettering, most preferring to do it by hand, but either way it frequently looked bad and was hard to read. So I guess aspiring comics creators should take note, spend time working on your lettering as well as the other parts of your comic. It doesn't matter how amazing your story is if nobody can read it.

Loserdom #20

loserdomzine@gmail.com
www.loserdomzine.com

As with most punk zines this issue of Loserdom is filled with reviews of 7 inch records and other zines, interviews with bands, and scene reports.

However! It is important to note that even if you have no interest in those things at all, this zine is still worth checking out for a number of articles and interviews on some pretty neat and interesting things.

The first of these is an illustrated piece about a food co-op and a discussion that they had concerning vegetables from Israel. To boycott or not to boycott was the question that concerned them, and while both sides of the argument are represented here the author makes no secret of what side of the argument they fall on. The author talks to a number of other food co-op members and asks them about the idea of a boycott and why they thought it, at least initially, failed. It's interesting to look at things like this and I wonder if people are becoming less political than they have been in the past. You read about things like boycotts of South Africa in the 1980s and political songs getting airplay and I find it puzzling; have people just became apathetic or has our society changed in some other way? Hmmm...I feel like I need to discuss this with someone in person.

The second piece is an interview with one of the people that works at La Fanzinotheque, which seems to be a pretty rad library/art gallery/social centre type place in Poitiers, France. It's pretty inspiring that a place like this has been around for over twenty years! My only problem with this (and a couple of the other interviews in here) was that it seemed to reprint everything that the other person said/wrote, and I think parts of it could have been edited a bit.

There are also pieces on digital storytelling, winter cycling/swimming (horrifying!), a comic about how punks really can't seem to stop drinking, and an interview with a guy from Poland who runs a distro/label in Ireland that is pretty interesting, even if you're not into the scene, as it discusses some of the economics behind that sort of thing (ie. don't start a punk label if you want to get rich).

MC2 Strip Tease

By Ryan Taylor, Laura Howell, Tony McGee, Giuseppa Barresi, and Nigel Lowrey.
www.comicscollective.co.uk

As you can tell from the cover this is a preview book collecting two page samples of work by a number of comic creators in the midlands. The comics range from fantasy to sci fi to one page gag strips to survival guides, though there all pretty damn geeky.

Previews are tricky things to pull off. If you're doing a longer narrative do you just use the first two pages of your comic or do you choose pages from later on that more accurately show what your comic is about. One of the previews here really fails to show you what the comic is about at all, isntead giving you two silent pages of a kid leaving school, walking into a shop and picking up a comic. Ooooh, how thrilling, I definitely want to read more of this (end sarcasm). As it is I have no idea what this comic is about, or even what genre it fits into! As a preview designed to make me want to read more it has failed on pretty much every level.

Of the other previews there's a one featuring some half animal people in Texas (one of them seems to be a cowboy minotaur), one that has two girls scavenging junk yars in the future that seems interesting, two one page gag strips by Laura Howell (who's comics I've enjoyed before) that made me laugh out loud, and two pages of anime con survival tips that seem to be part of a longer work.

This last one was fairly amusing, but also horrifying. I remember I went to an anime con in Vancouver a few years ago (my friend got me in for free!), and the con booklet included tips like "bathe" and "don't touch people you don't know". I really have to wonder how socially incompetent you have to be to need tips like that. This also reminded me of the cat piss man who used to come into the comic shop where I worked, who had the worst body odour I have ever smelt. Ick! Nerds, get it together.

I'm not desperate to read the continuations of any of these comics, but two pages generally isn't isn't enough to grab readers. It's important to note that the two samples that I think worked most effectively were the two without a long form narrative. Something for creators to take note of perhaps!


(Art by Giuseppa Barresi.)

Big Sexy

(Cover art by Colleen Frakes.)

Edited by Daniel Barlow, Colin Tedford, and Anne Thalheimer
www.offshorecomix.com

It’s Christmas! A holiday I grudgingly celebrate for my family, but generally dislike as it celebrates two things I’m not an especially big fan of (religion, capitalism). So clearly, what better time to review porn comics?

Big Sexy is a fat (over ninety pages) anthology of porn comics from a bunch of different creators, many of whom are involved with the Centre for Cartoon Studies. When I look at something like this I’m really left with just one question, why not get another couple of submissions, get it professionally published with a spine and release it as a book? I mean, I love minicomics and zines as much as the next person (or more than, as the next person probably has no idea what they are), but I also know that they limit your potential audience. You’re not going to get rich doing comics of any type, but at least with professional publishing and a spine you can get yourself onto bookshelves in shops around the world (except Canada, who generally won’t import porn comics) and gain access to a larger readership.

Perhaps someone got a great deal on copying. Or the CCS has their own print shop and so they could run these off for cost. I don’t know, it just confuses me a little.

But none of that is talking about the actual comics, which are porn! Penises! Vaginas! Breasts! Penetration! Cum! Yum! The stories here range from sexy to sweet and even verging into a bit creepy (sometimes all at the same time). The art styles are many and varied, and like all anthologies some of the works are better than others.

Rachel Duke’s comic (see below) manages to be both funny and sexy in its treatment of oral sex. Denise Warren’s tale of her time as a phone sex operator barely counts as comics, but is still interesting, and oddly sweet. While Meagan Frappiea’s adaptation of this song is perhaps not what the original creators had in mind, but manages to be sexy, though no doubt in part due to my fetish surrounding space girls. *swoon*

That’s just scratching the surface though, as there’s more than a dozen other stories, featuring both gay and straight sex, lust, longing, desire, a whole lot of sex toys, and a few more unicorns than I expected.


(Art from Kitty vs. Kitty by Rachel Dukes.)

Field Guide to Cartoonists

By the Trees & Hills Comics Group
www.treesandhills.org

I had a comics-loving friend come visit me recently, and he said it was interesting to see how many cartoonists were now coming out of the Centre for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. I mean, it makes sense. If you want to be good at something you study it right? And if you want to study it why not go to school.

It's not as though I recognize every name in here (there are a lot!), but I do recognize some of them, and I'm sure other names will now pop up when I go looking at other things over the next couple of years.

Now, because this minicomic is a collection of people from a school/area with no overarching theme it is incredibly scattershot. You might think that coming from a group called "Trees and Hills" and being called a "field guide" that this would be an anthology of comics about nature, but it's not. For good or ill there are comics featuring superheros, twinkies, ninjas, and even a few (okay, a bunch) about real life and nature.

Coleen Frakes does a cute short comic about a space ninja fighting a zombie, Jennifer Omand does one about the toys she collected as a child (er...baby bird), Mark Gonyea does some nice woood-cut style "excuses for missing homework", Bryan Stone had a cute (yes, I overuse this word) little story about a girl and a fox that was quite fairy-tale-y, Colin Tedford does a simply drawn story about a bug who rides a bicycle, and Megan Baehr draws a nicely illustrated, silent story about walking through the woods (hey! Some of the stories are about nature after all). Plus loads more!

There is, like most anthologies, some stuff stuff I didn't care for, and even comics I don't really understand. But overall the standard is pretty high, and I liked a bunch of the comics here.


(Art by Jennifer Omand.)