Tough Films For The Rough Crowd

It’s always a tricky proposition to know what to say about Jim Woodring’s work simply because the depth and scope of his creative vision is both deeper and wider than the ability of mere language — even superlative-laden language — to keep up with. Which, yeah, is a roundabout way…

    There’s truth in packaging, and then there’s this: Oakland-based cartoonist Mara Ramirez’s recently-released debut graphic novel, MOAB — which comes our way courtesy of Freak Comics — is formatted to look like a sketchbook/diary with a lush moleskine cover because, well, it is a sketchbook/diary with a lush moleskine…

I first came across the work of Samuel Benson when, in fairness, he came across me and sent me a copy of his impressively strange full-length comic A Different Sky, a post-psychedelic exploration of altered consciousness, sci-fi high weirdness, and quasi-magical birds from a stoner/slacker perspective that struck a chord with its…

Hailing as she does from Stockholm, Sweden, Moa Romanova’s name isn’t one that is particularly well-known here in the US — but I have a distinct feeling that her Fantagraphics-published debut graphic novel, Goblin Girl, is going to change all that in a hurry. Toeing a tightrope-line between pure autobio…

    If there’s one comic that’s taken me a damn long time to wrap my head around, it’s Greg Stump’s singularly bizarre Disillusioned Illusions, originally self-published by the cartoonist in 2009 and later re-issued by Fantagraphics Underground in 2015. Folks are fond of saying that Seinfeld was a show about nothing,…

  If there’s one thing you can say for the work of Seattle-based cartoonist Jason T. Miles, it’s that his art is consistently challenging. And surprising. And pretty near indescribable. At times even indecipherable. And, yeah, I realize that’s more than the promised “one thing.” Still, in my own defense, if…

None of the strips in cartoonist Harry Nordlinger’s 2019 self-published “solo creator” horror anthology comic Softer Than Sunshine run more than four pages — hell, a good many of them are only a single page long — but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth contemplating. Absorbing. Soaking in. Examining your reactions…

  One of those books that take all of fifteen minutes to read, hours to look at, and days to fully absorb, it’s almost easier to catalogue what Niv Bavarsky and Michael Olivo’s handsomely-produced new Fantagraphics Underground hardback, Old Growth, isn’t about rather than what it is — but if we were…

  Originally conceived of and published back in 2015 but only recently making the rounds through some of the better “alternative” distros now, cartoonist Lex Rocket’s sturdy, riso-printed (although the cover may be offset?) mini, Mud Thief  Vol. 1, is at first glance an exercise in strict formalism, apportioned into…

  After knocking it out of the park with his flawless all-ages comic Yellow Flag Intelligence Squadron, cartoonist and self-publisher David King came back in the latter part of last year with a decidedly more – mature, I guess? – offering in the form of the magazine-sized Hercules And The Orbs…

  A collaborative effort between writer Lane Yates and artist Garrett Young that was self-published toward the tail end of 2019, The Garden is a curious and fascinating mini that weaves an utterly unique spell that exemplifies the notion of, with apologies to Dan Clowes, an iron first under a velvet…

  There are any number of “child’s eye view” memoirs competing for the attention of the contemporary comics reader, but Travis Dandro’s 2019 debut graphic novel, King Of King Court, makes the most of that particular visual and narrative storytelling “hook,” even if the results are admittedly a mixed bag. How…

    For his third release from Birdcage Bottom Books in under a year, Twin Cities cartoonist Lance Ward is once again going the autobio/memoir route, but taking more of a “long view” than he did with his tightly-focused graphic novel Blood And Drugs and it short companion/epilogue publication, The Truth…

    I’ve often remarked — no, I swear, I have! — that the best cartoonists are those with no fucks left to give, but leave it to Casanova Frankenstein (or, if you’re old-fashioned, Al Frank) to prove me wrong: You see, he’s living proof that the best cartoonists are…

    As far as studies in contrasts go, you could make a pretty compelling argument that cartoonist Keren Katz’s latest book, The Backstage Of A Dishwashing Webshow, is precisely that: Matter-of-fact, minimalist text (and even more minimalist dialogue) juxtaposed with and/or against kaleidoscopic, fluid, complex, symbol-laden artwork that eschews borders…

    It might be fairly stated that Swedish cartoonist Disa Wallander appears to have one over-arching concern running through all her work, but given that said concern is the nature of the creative process itself and its centrality to the phenomenon of identity, it’s at the very least a…

Just about any and every artist that ever lived has been plagued with periods of self-doubt and creative bankruptcy, but the truly ingenious among them have found  ways to use those dark times as inspiration — after all, if you can’t rise above it, why not explore it for all…

  When you boil the art of cartooning down to its basic elements, you sometimes end up creating work that reminds people just why they love this medium so much in the first place — provided your sensibilities as an artist are sound to begin with, of course. When it…

    Apparently in the works for several years before its debut at CAB late last year (at least if the catalogue number attached to it by its publisher, Retrofit/Big Planet, is to be believed — and why wouldn’t it be?), it’s perhaps easier to define Andrew Lorenzi’s visionary graphic…

Some comics you hate. Some you’re indifferent to. Others you like. And then there are those, all too rare it seems, that you absolutely fall in love with. Let me introduce you to the latest object of my unbridled affection, David King’s Yellow Flag Intelligence Squadron #1.     Published under…

      There’s no better “relationship recharge” for a couple than getting away for a few days (at least) together — but that doesn’t mean a skilled cartoonist with a natural eye and ear for interpersonal dynamics can’t mine such an excursion for thematically-deep, if often subtle, pathos. And…

    As a follow-up to his breakthrough 2018 graphic novel The Winner, illustrator supreme Karl Stevens has chosen a curious project — a deliberate throwback to the “solo anthology” comics of the 1990s, his new (-ish, the first issue came out late last year) Kilgore series, Floppy, is both nostalgic…

  Comprehensive in scope and immersive in its presentation, Brooklyn’s finest comic shop, Desert Island, has done a bang-up job in putting together Wildest Dream, a compact little hardcover collection of Gary Panter’s sketchbook drawings from 1973 through 2018 printed (at the tail end of last year) in suitably garish…

    Understand that what I’m about to say is being applied to an imprint that’s published Greg Stump’s Disillusioned Illusions and Gerald Jablonski’s Farmer Ned’s Comics Barn, so yeah — when I “call out” Amy Lockhart’s Ditch Life as the weirdest comic to come out under the Fantagraphics Underground label? That’s no small…