October 2006 Comics

Brief comments on the month’s arrivals, mostly disappointing:

Mother’s Mouth by Dash Shaw (Alternative): Already reviewed. The highlight of the month.

Premillenial Maakies by Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics): The first five years of the weekly Maakies strip. I am conflicted about this strip. Millionaire is a skilled cartoonist who makes some wonderful images (his clouds and ships alone are worth the price of admission), but I find his humor verges from very funny to extremely unfunny. The strips rely too often on really disgusting style humor for my tastes: excrement, vomit, etc. On the other hand a lot of the bleak alcohol and suicide humor is not only amusing but an interesting counterpoint to most comic strips. Alas, I keep reading it. Millionaire’s use of a small strip across the bottom of the main strip is formally interesting and hearkens back to much older days (Krazy Kat and Ignatz got their start at the bottom of Herriman’s “Family Upstairs” strip).

Complete Peanuts 1961-1962 by Charles Schulz (Fantagraphics): I haven’t read this yet, but… it’s Peanuts. You know what to expect. I’m waiting to savor it.

Following Cerebus 10: The Neal Adams issue, which consisted of an extremely long narrative by Sim about a trip to Niagara Falls with Neal Adams and family. Lots and lots of Neal talking about his scientific theories about the formation of the earth. I have no idea what those theories are, as I skipped those sections. Lots of Sim talking about his admiration for Adams, but somehow managing to never really say what made Adams so great. A little analysis would have been nice.

C’est Bon Anthology (c’est bon): Victim of another interesting sounding anthology that ends up being a bore. Kikuo Johnson’s strip impresses. I find the more I read of his non-Night Fisher work the more I appreciate him (while still thinking Night Fisher was dreadfully and vastly overrated).

Mome Fall 2006 (Fantagraphics): And again another disappointing anthology. Not even any David B to pull this one up, and the usually interesting Gabrielle Bell is not so interesting with a too-autobiographically comic. New contributor Tim Hensley offers a Archie-esque story that doesn’t rise above the pastiche. Damn them (the editors) for putting Trondheim in the next issue, else I’d have dropped this.

The Comics Journal 278: This issue was of almost no interest to me. I’m not sure what it was (maybe the interview with a comic artist/writer I’m not familiar with or interested in learning about, or the excessive number of Lost Girls reviews) but I barely found myself interested enough to read any of this. Oh well. Looking forward to the Joost Swart stuff next issue.

Baobab 2 by Igort (Fantagraphics): Have you noticed a theme this month. I found the first issue of this series intriguing enough (though unsatisfying) to try issue 2. This one’s outright dull.

A more pleasant highlight that came direct from the publisher:

Cold Heat #2 by BJ and Santoro (Picturebox): This’ll probably get a review later.

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