MadInkBeard | Derik A Badman

I wrote a few months ago about Matt Madden’s idea for a comics pantoum. I finally decided to take on the challenge for an episode of Maroon. While this episode is not due to be published for a few weeks in the sequence of Maroon, I’m offering it here, early. Maroon, Episode 32, Pantoum [Edit: [...]

King-Cat #65: Places by John Porcellino. Spit and a Half, Oct 2005. $3. A new issue of King-Cat is always a cause for celebration. John Porcellino’s stories are filled with a sense of wonder in the everyday. His comics are composed with a beautiful simplicity that is either very carefully considered or the product of [...]

This was the year I discovered comic strips. Having paid very little attention to them before (even as I kid I remember reading the Sunday comics, but not having any particular favorites that I followed), I’ve discovered a lot of great classics this year. Much of this was thanks to a number of websites and [...]

Hicksville By Dylan Horrocks (1998) Drawn & Quarterly, 2001. 260 p., 6″ x 9″, $19.95. Hicksville is a book that gets much praise from comics readers. On many levels it is rightfully deserved: it is a layered work with an excellent structure of stories within stories, the drawing is dynamic, and the story is engrossing [...]

John Allison’s Scary Go Round is a long running webcomic that is kind of beyond description. There is a large cast of characters who live in a British city, and the storylines are all over the place from sci-fi and horror to politics and romance. It’s often really funny (or at least quietly amusing). His [...]

Teratoid Heights by Mat Brinkman. Highwater Books, 2003. unpaginated (it’s 3/4″ thick), black and white, 5″ x 6″, $12.95. Mat Brinkman is one of the founding “Fort Thunder” artists, which might mean something to you, and it might not. Either way, there is a certain opinion that the work is a kind of new wave [...]

Unstable Molecules by James Sturm (writer) and Guy Davis (artist) (2003). Marvel, 2005. 128p, color, $13.99. I don’t read a lot of superhero comics. Sure, I started out on them as a kid, but now only the rare one appeals. In this case, I’d heard enough good things about James Sturm’s take on the Fantastic [...]

My review of Posy Simmonds’ Gemma Bovary, an interesting comic that combines comics panels with prose, is up in the new edition of Scott Esposito’s Quarterly Conversation.

Modesty Blaise: The Black Pearl by Peter O’Donnell (writer) and Jim Holdaway (artist). Titan Books, 2004. unpaginated, b+w, 8.5″ x 11.5″, $16.95. This volume (the fourth in Titan’s series) collects the daily Modesty Blaise strip from December 12, 1966 to January 13, 1968. The title character is some kind of spy (in the adventures here [...]

Mister O by Lewis Trondheim (2002). NBM, 2004. 32p., 8.5″ x 11.5″, color hardcover, $13.95. MIster O–a circle with stick arms and legs, two dots for eyes and a line for a mouth–comes to a crevice. He wants to continue on his way, but he must cross the crevice first. He tries using whatever or [...]

One Hundred Demons By Lynda Barry Sasquatch Books, 2002. 9.5″ X 6″, 224 p., full color, $17.95. I used to read Lynda Barry’s “Marlys” strips in the back of the local alt-weekly paper. While I’ve never been a big fan of stories about childhood, something about the way the stories seemed to be written as [...]

Cut Flowers by Pat Palermo. 2005. 30 p., 8″ x 10.5″, $5. Available from the USS Catastrophe Shop. I’ve been ordering small batches of mini-comics lately, often selected on some random whim or because I’ve seen the creator’s name somewhere or other. Often they are complete letdowns but most often there is something interesting about [...]

Satisfactory Comics #6 by Isaac Cates and Mike Wenthe (2005). 28p., b+w, 5.5″ x 8.5″, with a mini-mini (18p., 2.75″ X 2″) and 8 cards (2.75″ x 2.25″). $3.50ppd from Isaac.Cates AT liu.edu Isaac Cates and Mike Wenthe love to collaborate and experiment. They do all their work together and often they include ideas, art, [...]

Phase 7 #4: “Graffiti” by Alec Longstreth. 2003. 44p, b+w, $3.00. Phase 7 #5: “Basewood: Chapter One” by Alec Longstreth. 2004. 28p, b+w, $2.00. Both available from the author. Alex Longstreth’s Phase 7 won the Outstanding Mini-Comics Ignatz award at Small Press Expo this year, so I ordered his two most recent issues. Issue 4 [...]

SPX 2005, edited by Brian Ralph. Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, 2005. 188p., b+w, $12.95. Just got this in the mail, the annual collection to come out from the Small Press Expo and as a benefit for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund… Marc Sobel covered this at CBG earlier in the week, and I [...]