Guts Power #3

By Paul Jon Milne

http://cargocollective.com/pauljonmilne

http://gristtothemilne.blogspot.com/

So yeah, who would have thought that grad school would get in the way of writing more or less anything? Plus I'm dead lazy. Anyway yesterday I scanned a whole bunch of zine covers. I would promise that more reviews or coming, but if you read zines you know that promises of more timely content are a dime a dozen. And I mean, it's only been three months since the last time I posted a review...

This is the third issue of a pretty strange science fiction comic set in Scotland in the "future" of 2003 about unemployed people in a world where time is a mental construct, and even horrible monsters have to deal with bureaucracy. 

In this issue the bizarre possessed sentient Segway thing that exists has become a giant mutant thing, and the thee main characters have to take a train to Deadinburgh in order to get replacement parts. Of course, as most of them are broke this is harder than it first seems. Plus they have to deal with monsters, government agents who follow them, and horrible tourist shop owners with Australian accents who keep trying to sell them novelty swords and kilts. I told you it was weird.

I read the other two issues ages ago, but this one seems more coherent in it's narrative, though perhaps that's just because I now have a better grounding in what type of world this comic is set in. I do wonder what people with no understanding of Scottish slang/accents would make of this, as I'm pretty sure some of the dialogue ("This guy's a richt heid-the-baw...") would be completely impenetrable to them.

Guts Power 2

By Paul Jon Milne

http://cargocollective.com/pauljonmilne

http://gristtothemilne.blogspot.com/

It is the futuristic year 2003 and the UK is all messed up due to a time travel incident or something. Nobody really seems to know exactly what happened, other than it was an event called "the Body Riot". At any rate, time no longer really happens, there are weird monster things everywhere, buildings seem to be made of decaying....something, and horrible government agencies generally just try to make people more depressed (just like now!).

In this world are Bebox (human?), LoveLaffs1820 (part ober-dominensional sentio-gas), and Dearth (human?), and they'll overthrow the government and make things right! Well, once they manage to get back on the dole (unemployment) and get some money so they can go clubbing first.

This comic is _weird_. I get the feeling that Milne has a whole history set up that explains all the strange stuff going on, but at the same time they could just be making it all up as they go along. Either is entirely possible.I generally enjoyed the weirdness in this comic and the random asides and injokes that happen. A robot version of Robert Burns called Robot Burns? Genius! Someone who's mom (or one of their moms) is a sentient gas that appears to live in a flower vase? That's great! But at the same time some of the things that appear are kind of gross and grotesque and I'm just left going "What is that?"

While I enjoy some aspects of the art, like the thick lines around the characters, I found other parts to not really be my thing (though that could just be the "ick" factor). I would be really curious to see what this world and these characters look like in colour though.

The Robot's Cat

By Jen DesRoche
monasterylane.tumblr.com

I recently helped my partner print her first minicomic. It's a really sweet and funny series of stories featuring a robot and its cat, told entirely without words.

While I am slightly biased, I think it's pretty awesome and that you should check it out! You can see some of the artwork for the comic, plus lots of her other drawings and comics, on her tumblr. She'd really appreciate it!

Robots and Electronic Brains number 14

Edited by jimmy possession
www.robotsandelectronicbrains.co.uk

This music zine is packed full of reviews, interviews, and articles about music and bands. Unlike most zines of this type it doesn't focus on one particular genre and the content can go from discussing Welsh language hip hop to the bands influenced by '60s French pop music.

Writing about music can be a pretty difficult thing to do, and I think even the best writers are writing it for people that read music writing. Thus, as someone who doesn't know that much about music I often felt a bit lost when reading some of the content here, which perhaps can be said to be aimed at the sort of people who spend their weekends searching through crates of records at garage sales in the hopes of finding that one amazing seven-inch.

However, some of the interviews were pretty good, and it came with a compilation CD with loads of different music on it (everything from hip hop to indie to weird cut up spoken word bits featuring Vincent Price), and it's worth it just to get hold of that.

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).

Sunday of Apples and Blood Oranges

By Beth Hetland
www.beth-hetland.com

While I'm sure it took a lot of work, the nature of the cover (with the apples and oranges being cut out and stuck onto a white background) made me think that this would be a really boring slice of life style comic.

And the first page and a half inside didn't really disprove me of this thought, but then oh my gods there's a talking snowman and a robot shows up later on in this comic and now I really like it. I mean, if there wasn't a robot here I wouldn't care about this girl's shopping trip, but there is a robot and he has a pet cat and complains that humans can't deal with robot emotions, and I really like robots and don't judge me.

It's not like the robot is just there acting like a human, it's clearly part of society, has it's own feelings and goals in life, and plays a roll in the story. It's the contrast between the normal (going to the grocery store, waiting for a bus) and the abnormal (a robot cashier, fruit yelling at you, a melting snowman trying to bum money) that creates humour in these situations.

Hetland's art is probably what you would expect from indie autobio comics, so it's extra surprising when totally bizarre things happen in the comic. I like the contrast, but I feel as though I'm explaining myself poorly. I had a couple of drinks earlier, and my room is really hot even though my window is open. This is what happens when I try to review something every day. This is a good comic though, I read it when I was sober.

Fanzine Ynfytyn Thirteen

By Emma Jane Falconer

If you've ever read any of my zines (hey, maybe I should make a page on this blog for those, thoughts?) then you'll realize that I usually have a pretty good theme going on for each zine I make (ie. an account of a specific trip, reviews of stuff) and that I don't really do the traditional perzine thing with anecdotes, flashbacks, and stuff like that.

This isn't to say that I don't like that type of zine or even that I haven't written that type of zine, just that I haven't made copies and given them to anyone else. I guess I just don't see why anyone would want to know about what's going on in my life generally, or perhaps I'm terrified of opening up to other people and letting them know that I have feelings and am not an emotionless robot.

By this long intro you can probably guess that Falconer's zine is about her life. She talks about shows shes gone to recently, how everyone that lives in the UK is a "functional alcoholic", a list of small pleasures in her life, tales of learning ballet and acting in bizarre plays from her childhood, a cake recipe, found art, and more.

It's all well written, and I enjoyed the tales from when Falconer's was younger. The ballet story ends on a pretty great quote ("my mum bought me a cheap supermarket doll, whose legs soon fell off, and who I pretended had been involved in a terrible horseriding accident on a My Little Pony"), while the account of the performance of The Rivals sounds like something I might actually want to see since it sounds so horrible and hilariously inept. That it was probably only 15 minutes long and that I don't actually have to see it are amongst the reasons why I want to though.

Plus there is a picture of a robot. A surefire way to improve any zine!

Things: A 24 Hour Comic

By James Wilkinson

I reviewed another 24 hour comic recently, and in my review I said that they can often degenerate into nonsense. This one really doesn’t take very long to do so as after three pages of plot it degrades into stick figures and other poorly drawn characters making bizarre jokes and metatextual statements (at one point a character even asks “You really think there are still people reading at this point?”).

Eventually it becomes incredibly self-referential and Wilkinson starts drawing other people at the 24 hour comic event he was attending. As such it’s an interesting look into the thought processes someone creating a 24 hour comic goes through, but perhaps not as effective a comic. It’s too bad as I liked the first few pages.

(Oh, an idea. I’d love to see someone do a Joe Sacco style journalism comic about a 24 hour comic event. That’d be pretty neat.)

Wilkinson included a letter along with the comic when he sent it to me. In it he explains that he spent forever drawing the first few pages, and then had to rush through the rest. He says that he “found it a very useful excersize for [...] creating comics, rather than agonising about creating something that’s perfect and therefore creating nothing.”

True words. So when’s the next 24 hour comic or zine event? Someone invite me to one so that I can get off my ass and make something.

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.)

Uncle Tex' Down by the Bayou Good Time Home Country Kitchen presents Good Time Chilli Brownies

By Tom Hunt
www.misprintcomics.com

Quickly, name some of my favourite things!

If you said monsters, comics, and cooking (or baking), you will already know why I love this comic/recipe.

The recipe is good (I just made some! My parents demand more), and it's easy enough to follow. The ingredients are all in grams, which I'm in favour of since I now own a scale and just learnt this week that cups differ from country to country (ie. Canada, the USA, the UK, Japan, and probalby other places all have different definitions of what a cup is. Canada's is best btw).

The comic part isn't very long, but it features a tiny cowboy and his dog (or possibly a normal sized cowboy and his giant dog) wondering how to make their brownie recipe more amazing. Suddenly Xipe Totec shows up and aw yeah, I love Aztec gods. Hunt's version of Totec is pretty awesome.



Though in general I really enjoy Aztec gods as they look awesome and are incredibly insane. Just read this guy's wikipedia entry: "Xipe Totec is represented wearing a flayed human skin, usually with the flayed skin of the hands falling loose from the wrists. [...] It is likely that sculptures of Xipe Totec were ritually dressed in the flayed skin of sacrificial victims." Holy fucking shit. This guy was a god of agriculture (amongst other things). I want an entire comic about him.

Some of the text on the inside is a bit hard to read, but you can read all the instructions and ingredients. My only big "complaint" is that they're not vegan, but I'm sure I can figure out a way to fix that.

Hunt also draws a pretty good robot, though I can't find it online. Apparently he has more of these recipes planned, I just hope they're all as good as this one.

The Regular Issue number Somethingorother

By Leo Rogers & John Mandrake

I really love zines created by kids. They’re usually completely bizarre and filled with whatever they were thinking about when they make them.

This one has a pretty rad picture of a pet beast (wings and body armour!), drawings of other weird monsters, an amusing cartoon about stick figure prejudice that I laughed out loud at, insults at the expense of David Cameron, and a story that features a robocrow.

I wish more zines had stories that featured robocrows. Beep beep caw caw!

Monstress 00111000

By Una Crow
www.etsy.com/shop/MonstrousIndustry

Monstress was one of the first zines I ever bought. I remember exactly where I bought it and the weird double take I did upon walking into a shop in Toronto and recognizing the guy working there. It was also the first zine I ever bought through the mail after I realized I needed all the issues. I kept up to date with new issues for a while, but then I moved to South Korea and while I stayed in touch with Una Crow, I didn't get any more issues until this year, when I realized she'd kept putting them out.

So it was with some amusement that I opened up this issue and discovered a letter I'd written five years (and how many countries) ago was printed inside.

But there are reasons to read this other than that I have a (terrible) letter printed inside. Monstress is one of my favourite zines, and each issue takes one specific type of monster (in this case robots, which isn't technically a monster) and builds an issue around them, using a number of different recurring features. There are random "chapters" (1-2 pages) of weird genre fiction stories (this time it's a noir detective story featuring Mecha-Godzilla), some comic strips, "Ask Wiremother" (which is just depressing and kind of scary, read the graphic novel "Wire Mothers" by Jim Ottaviani and Dylan Meconis if you want to know more), and the "What I remember movie reviews", where Crow writes what she thought about various movies (from the '20s to the present) featuring the title monster, regardless of how well she remembers about them.

This issue also has an account of a trip to Tokyo written by one of Crow's friends, how to count in binary (though for whatever reason I can't use it to understand that the issue number on the cover is 8), a pretty interesting piece on Thea von Harbou (Nazi party member and writer of both the novel and screenplay of Metropolis), drawings of robots reciting poetry, an account of going to the Toronto International Film Festival, and memories of one of Crow's friends (the creator of Infiltration, another zine I really like) who had recently died.

There's lots of good stuff in here, and the idea of taking one specific thing, and building a zine featuring lots of different content about that one thing, is one that I've been meaning to steal for years. I'm working on one now!

All the issues of Monstress that I've read have been good, but if you're looking for one from Crow's Etsy to pick up, I'd go with the Godzilla/kaiju/giant monster issue. It was the first I bought and got me hooked all those years ago.

Smoo #2 1/2

By Simon M.
smoo.tumblr.com

This issue, according to the back cover, features "odds, sods and discarded ideas" and is filled with seemingly random pieces of art and short comics. It's kind of unfortunate, as I enjoyed the art, but the content seemed a bit light. Also: no skeleton doctors inside. Disastrous.

What we do have is an autobio comic about eating horrible food in a hotel room instead of going outside, some reminiscences from childhood and holidays, and a piece on guilt that has some amusing drawings of simon dressed in clothing from varous historical eras and an awesome picture of a judge that kind of reminded me of the Alice books for some reason.

There's also a reather strange piece where Simon's head is filled with either nothing or ghosts. Odd.

But still, I enjoyed this, the pieces with plots were enjoyable, and the art is really quite good. Simon draws a lot of lines in his artwork to give his pieces more details. Sometimes the lines are used in a way similar to grey-toning, creating shadow and depth, while at other times they add texture to the images. Also there's lots of drawings of cute ghosts, and a pretty rad robot. Congratulations all around.

Last Bus Issue Two

By Patrick Lynch
www.patrickl.net
www.cardboardpress.com
3 Euro

Hey, what does Matthew love? That's right! Robots!

I'll be totally honest I picked this up for the awesome one page comic strip called "The Continuing Adventures of Paddy and Giant Robot". This page is supposedly episode six, but I think that's part of the joke and it's just a one off. I'd like to read more though.

In this comic Paddy wakes up, talks to the giant (four stories sitting down) robot chilling' outside his house, and gets the latest Facebook gossip from him. I really loved the idea of having a giant robot as a personal assistant and just using him for completely menial tasks like checking Facebook and warming croissants. Stellar.

The other comics are (sadly) lacking in robots. Instead they deal with a family that seems to be on the rocks relationshipwise. A woman has gone back to visit her dad and taken the kids (who don't really understand what's going on) with her, and it was pretty good even if there weren't any robots in it. Maybe I can pretend the grandfather was one...

People I Know #10

(Thanks to Timothy's site for the cover image.)

By Timothy Winchester
www.timothywinchester.com

Ooooh, a flip comic! How exciting! This one takes the interesting idea of taking the same story and ending it in two different ways: "How it was" and "How it should have been". What this means in the simplest terms is that there are actually quite a lot of repeated panels. In fact the first two pages of both comics are identical. However, that's not a deal breaker as the rest of the comic diverges quite a lot and we have two very different endings.

The story starts off with the cover character hanging out in her space ship, talking to her robot, and trying on various outfits for the bounty hunter awards (as she is a space bounty hunter, no I did not guess that from the cover either). Soon she gets some sort of space-video-hologram-phone call from her boyfriend and she rushes off to see him on the planet Platurn for one of two very different reasons depending on which side you're reading.

I actually read the "how it should have been" ending first, and I'm kind of glad I did, as the "real" ending was far more exciting and violent! The "good" ending had more robots and monsters though, a conundrum.

I think part of the appeal here is that Winchester's character designs are quite cute and the characters seem excitable and happy, so seeing them (or at least imaginging them) be bounty hunters and do horrible things to people is kind of shocking to the reader. Even if that's not the reason, it's pretty amusing.

Oh, and if you go to his site there's lots of comics featuring Thundercats, Lady Gaga, and other weird popculture things.

Why We Call Them Robots

By Sarah Becan
www.jakze.com

If you've read this site for more than five minutes you know that I Love (capital intentional) monsters. However it may just be possible that you were unaware I also Love robots, it's just that there seem to be more monsters in the zines and minicomics I seem to review than there are robots.

This comic is all about robots! Hurray

Becan tells about the origin of the word "robot" and how it came to mean what it does today. She tells of Karel Capek, a writer from Eastern Europe who wrote the now-famous play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), how he created the new meaning of the word, a description of the plot of the play (I really need to get around to reading it at some point), and information about Capek's life and death (he was "vehemently anti-Nazi", hurray!).

The art is mostly photos that have had their contrast increased so there is only black and white visible. It works for a comic such as this which is basically just short bio about a specific person, though I've found photo comics to be annoying sometimes when used to tell narratives. Also, I'm not totally enamored with the design of Unit 09011-2, but it's still better than all those fleshy meat bags.

10 Things To Do With a Fake Moustache

By Leah Riley and Will Woods

www.willrad.com

You can probably see on the cover (if I managed to actually get the image online) this zine originally came with a fake moustache on the cover, a genius marketing move if I've ever seen one. Unfortunately the problem with libraries is that you can't really lend out a fake moustache to everyone, and even if you could I wouldn't want it...

Inside this zine are the titular ten things you can do with a fake moustache, none of which is actually wearing it as a moustache. The things range from the sort of sensible ("Accentuate your eyebrows"), to the absurd (I'm not sure how well a moustache would stick to an octopus). Each of the suggestions is accompanied by a drawing, which is usually self explanatory, but at times needs the text to explain it. I honestly would never have guessed those things on the robot were moustaches if that wasn't the name of the zine.

So if you are seeking out things to do with your fake moustache you should get this zine.

Nu Earth

By Failboat Press

2000ad is kind of a strange beast. Barely known in North America, yet in the UK it is an institution with a devoted following. I’ve probably read more of it than most people who lived in North America, mostly through reprints of Judge Dredd I’ve hauled out of quarter bins, and the collections that 2000ad has been putting out for last few years.

I’ve bought a few issues since I moved to the UK, but there generally wasn’t enough to make me want to come back next week or I had no idea what was going on in the stories (for those that don’t know, it’s an anthology title with rotating characters and creators). Actually, the real reason is because I found a shop in Euston that sold a bunch of the graphic novels for £2 each, and if my choice is one of those or the newest prog I know what I’m going to choose.

But anyway! 2000ad is also notable for having the closest thing to doujinshi that exists in the western comics scene, in that there are a number of fanzines coming out that are at the least accepted if not encouraged. You can buy them in some comic stores, some people have actually produced content for both, and 2000ad doesn’t seem to be suing anyone.

With all that lead in you can probably guess that Nu Earth is a 2000ad fanzine, however it’s extra awesome because it was created by the same people that made the Songbird/Birdsong anthology which is just packed full of awesomeness and features comics by three different people I’ve reviewed on this blog and really enjoyed.

This one doesn’t have exactly the same line up, but it does have a beautiful Rogue Trooper story by Will Kirkby, that I think will be completely unintelligible to anyone who is not already familiar with the characters, a Nikolai Dante strip by Matthew Taylor that seems like it could have been a one off in that universe (and features cyborg warbears!), an ABC Warriors strip where I didn’t really get the joke, but which has really nice art by WJC, a cute 2000 A to Z by Ryan Taylor, and lots of other cool stuff including an appearance by Doctor Who.

This is something fans of 2000ad should definitely pick up, and considering the price is free (to create exponential thrills Earthlet), it’s probably worth getting even if you’ve never heard of the comic before. I mean, check out that swank cover, it's printed on gold paper!

The Infinity Cascade

By Nich Angell
www.nichangell.co.uk

The first page of this comic states that it’s “for those who like giant robots and girls”. I think if you were going to put me in a demographic that would be pretty accurate.

Generally I’m a big fan of comic artists who take their inspiration from... well I would say “everywhere”, but what I clearly mean are “video games, European sci fi comics, and manga” which is _almost_ everywhere, but if you’re into the indie comics scene you probably know what I’m talking about. Anyway, it's clear where Nich takes his influences from.

This has robots (a shock to you I know), space bars, weird architecture, questionable hats, and diagrams. What more do you (I) want from your (my) comics?



How about this awesome poster for one of Nich’s newer projects.



Killer.

The Robot Zine

By We Are Words and Pictures
Website

Robots? And comics!? These are two of my favourite things! To be brutally honest, I will probably put up with any old crap to be exposed to robots (robots!) because they are so rad and clearly my life goal, however the comics collected here are actually good! Super bonus.

The first comic is done entirely with captioned photos, and clearly I should start using this method to make my own comics. No drawing skills necessary! It’s a first person tale about a robot, and the style and way the dialogue is presented (in narration boxes, but surrounded by quotation marks) makes it seem like it’s adapting a song by some tweei indie band or Looper.

“My robot doesn’t need a vast memory / Nor does it need to be fast / My robot does not need to be the latest model / Just as long as my robot works / But my robot does need to have one thing, above all... / My robot must have a heart.”

(I even googled it and it’s not an actual song. You should clearly record it.)

The second strip is kind of brutal (if you dislike violence against innocent robots) and made me go “oh no!”. Sure it ends with a “hurray”, but I still felt sad at the end.

The final comic is about a robot at a party and kind of feels like every time I’ve ever gone out. Robot sees cute girl, girl is like “yeah, we can dance I guess”, robot goes home with girl, girl hits robot with baseball bat, girl does horrible things to robot. Why must you be so cruel to robots girl? Why?


Despite all the robot sadness and destruction this is totally worth picking up. Robots! Comics! Alcohol!* What is not to love?

*Okay, that might just be that I am currently drinking. Shhhhh.