Graffic Traffic
Leave Your Cape at the Curb
by Ryk McIntyre
Every once in a while, I get so sick of reading what is likely to be another in the 99-in-a-hundred super-hero comics suck pile, that I just gotta try a different flavor. This month, we’re gonna order the sampler-pac. The first thing I gotta tell you about, I wasn’t even inside a comic store when I encountered. It’s a single-page, folded lil’ rant-sheet called circle #1 (by StArviNg aRTIST/394 cOuntryRd., ashby ma, 01431). It’s from a small typewriter, given the print size/style, and the copying ain’t state-of-the-art (tho’ the creator does have a stamp of a fire hydrant!), but the content is pure. StArviNg aRTIST (I tried to type the name as it appears, but actually the S in StArviNg is actually an upside-down 3… I just thought you’d wanna know…) gives air to ruminations on “Life,” “Fear,” “Movement,” “Why I Don’t Do Drugs,” and other bits, interspersed with quotes from Thoreau, Caesar Gonzalez, and a particularly good one from the movie Dead Poets Society. The insights are powerful and mature, lean and pretty much all dead-on, but a few times it does read like blunt objects are being thrown at blunt targets, as in “D.I.Y. Or Die,” in which we learn that Society Is Bad – Underground Is Good, and verse-visa. Not inaccurate, just a bit obvious. Of course maybe I’m just an old bastard piece of jade after all. I do hope we see more of this and that it expands with more visuals and longer essays, and keeps its anticopyright/ distribute-at-will purity of heart.
Well, I said no heroes today and I lied. It’s just that I have to tell you about Coober Skeber – The Marvel Benefit Issue! (Highwater Books, PO Box 1956, Cambridge, MA 02238/ Edited by Tom Devlin/ various artists). Sporting a jaunty “Original X-Men and their X-Foes” cover by Seth, it’s full to bursting with great and sometimes hilarious strips from various small- and micro-press creators. This is an earnest offer to help the ol’ Evil Giant through it’s recent B&B (bankruptcy and buy-out) which, you must admit, is a nice gesture on the part of the Little Guys. Special amongst the offerings here is James Kachulka’s slapstick 4-pager in which the Hulk meets an enemy he can’t defeat and gets mud on his pants. Ooh! Scary! I also liked Mike Luce’s “kon” as well as Tom Devlin’s angst-festy “Guardians Of The Galaxy,” especially Vance Astro’s woosie origins. Y’know, sometimes it doesn’t get better than this….
Also from creator James Kachulka comes Paradise Sucks (James Kachulka/P.O. Box 8321, Burlington,VT 05402), the simple story of a painter, some monkeys, GOD doing His Genesis thang, insect angels (the dark one is Lucifer), a whole lot of naked Charlie Browns (well… that’s what they look like!), a lil’ fall from the garden stuff, and a wonderful summing-up in which GOD asks the painter, “How do you like Paradise?…” What? You want the answer? G’wan, read the book! It’s from one of the five best creators in self-publishing today, and the work really does speak for itself.
A couple of things that were good about Art Spiegelman’s Maus, like the totality of its world-scenario, the completeness of its characters, and the fact that they’re all anthropormophized critters, are also right-on about Steve Lafler’s BugHouse (riffs’n’raffs – Steve Lafler/CatHead Comics, P.O. Box 576, Hudson, MA 01749). The story concerns a fledgling jazz band of friends, Jimmy Watts and Slim, their addiction to BugJuice (this drug they cook-up then plunge their antennae in and get all wiggly), their fortunes and Slim’s death… ahh, it’s all here and I shouldn’t ruin it for you. In particular, check out how Lafler illustrates drug-highs and music-jams, it rocks. This trade paperback has the first four issues worth and issue 45, “Blues For Julie,” is also out. As of press time, there may be even more! Go look, we’ll meet back here…
It is a writer’s betrayal at the hands of his lover that fuels the story in midnight muse #1(Moonstone /words – Joe Gentile, art – Drew Tucker/ 582 Torrance Ave., Calumet City, IL 60409) and it is the Muse-as-Hand-That-Heals that lifts this above your usual b&w indie-book. Both words and art flow together in an almost Dreamscape that draws you along the story’s path, and where so many would just crash you, this one soars at the end. It’s a nice feeling.
Antarctic Press offers up (amongst other stuff) a sea-faring Warrior Nun – Black and White #1(words – Herb Mallette, art – Lyon & Wong) in which the art and story-line gust about a bit (there’s this boat with sails, and demons attack, but then the recently dead crew comes back as zombies and people get killed and rekilled. Much more interesting is the 7-page superhero back-up story (I know, but at least he doesn’t have a cape…). After all, it has a dinosaur and a Vietnam flashback. I mean, it’s not the dinosaur that has the flash… awww, just skip it, it’s not that important.
Also this month we revisit Leave It To Chance #8 (Image /words – James Robinson, art – Paul Smith and Jeremy Cox), for yet another thrilling episode of a most enjoyable book, one that appeals easily to young and old readers alike, a kinda Nancy Drew meets Jeff Smith’s Bone (and keep your mind out of the gutter on that one, please…). Here, Young Chance finds herself in a private girls’ school as her father believes this will keep her out of trouble. Well if it did, it’d be a dry, dry narrative. Fortunately, there is a mystery, a pirate ghost, some spiked milk, an evil Head Mistress, and the revival of an old pirate method of execution.
Well, it wouldn’t be a complete comic overview without some porno, and this time it’s Euro-Porn to boot. From the damp raincoats of NBM come (and I mean it)The Phoebe Chronicles (words – Keith Leonard/art – Jose Varese);Lolita Vol.3 (by Belore);A Night In A Moorish Harem (various artists illustrating the old Lord George Herbert’s titillating story-telling); and finally Tobalina’s Spanish Fly Vol.3. While the clean-line drawing style of Lolita and Spanish Fly is very attractive, even given the structural improbability of female form, the story-lines of rape-as-intro-to-consenuality really bug me in their mucking together of sex, violence, and male domination. No doubt a comic for boys of all ages. Only A Night In A Moorish Harem avoids this theme and with the help of art by Colleen Doran, Mike Dringenberg and Shea Anton Pensa, it truly is the most erotic of the lot. The only problem is the way the pages keep sticking together. Must be that humidity the weatherman keeps talking about.
