Tim Bird - 'The Great North Wood'

I enjoyed Tim Bird's new book 'The Great North Wood'. It's just come out from Avery Hill. It's all in colour with a nice pallette of pink, blue and brown. It's about the big wood that once stood in South London between Croydon and Deptford.

The book uses a fox as a framing device, the fox wanders around in the modern remains of the wood, and looks into the past when the wood was much bigger and more magical. The book has some good stories from the wood about gypsies who lived there and told fortunes, and bandits and outlaws who hid in the woods and robbed passers by. It talks about how the names of the places came from the woods that once stood there like Gipsy Hill, Honor Oak and Norwood.

I liked the drawing a lot and especially the use of colour. Here's Tim's website.

Lydia Wysocki - 'Everyone With a Nose Should Picket'

This is a collection of comics Lydia made while on strike in the University and College Union strike for fair pensions. It was in February and March this year, so it was very cold and snowed a lot. It seems a very long time ago now, but the pensions dispute is not settled yet.

It was a proper strike with picket lines and placards, and signs saying 'Beep for the Strike'. Some people are very nice to the strikers, others make excuses. It's a diary type of comic going on for the first fourteen days of the strike, mainly with stick figures and very nice stamped lettering. They worry that no one will turn up some days as the snow gets really deep, but they carry on picketing. It's very good and interesting.

Here's Lydia's website and shop.
 On the website is the whole series of her diary comics of the strike so you can carry on reading it after the pages from the comic, for all the rest of the strike.

I've never had the chance to go on strike, we had one days strike back when I was a student but all we did was go to the pub early in the morning and then stayed there all day.

Simon Moreton - Athens (Αθήνα)

I liked this little square travel zine Simon has just brought out about his holiday in Athens. It's lots of different kinds of drawings and a few photographs. The sink fellow on the front cover is a nice character. I went to Thessaloniki last year, which was my first time going to Greece, so its fun to look at the drawings and see if I recognise similar things. He also sees a tortoise and a hoopoe and I never saw any of those.
Highly recommended, I really like the square format, it works very well for these drawings. Here's a link to Simon's shop.

Fraser Geesin - The Cleaner (Man of Destiny) Issues One and Two

I really enjoyed these two comics from Fraser Geesin. I hadn't heard of him before but I saw some recommendations for them on twitter, and then that he was having an October sale.

The comics are mainly about his job as a cleaner, which he has been doing for about ten years at the time of  the first comic. He mainly cleans peoples houses and doesn't have to go back if they annoy him too much. It sounds quite a good job. He goes off on a lot of tangents and daydreams, talking about other low paid jobs he has had, such as traffic surveying, street sweeping and selling tickets to fairground rides. The comics are very funny and interesting too. Comics about people with different jobs are cool, and he has plenty to say, even if it's only about how boring bits of his jobs can get. Highly recommended.

Robert Wells - Back, Sack & Crack (& Brain)

 I really enjoyed Robert Wells new graphic novel 'Back, Sack & Crack (& Brain) which has just come out. I leant it my brother, who doesn't read a lot of comics, and he really liked it too.

 As it says on the cover it is 'a rather graphic novel about living with embarassing health problems'. Robert has lots of awful problems and chronic pains with his balls, his digestion and his back and unsurprisingly gets really depressed at times as he tries to deal with them. He has terrible trouble trying to find out what is wrong with him. He goes to see loads of doctors and specialists and they all treat him very differently, some don't believe him at all and think he's making the whole thing up. Others give him perscriptions for many different drugs or send him for operations, some of which seem to make things worse.

It is written with a great sense of humour and is very funny, even though it has the most drawings of balls and the most and harshest descriptions of chronic ball pain I have seen in a comic.

I really liked it, very highly recommended. It is the best comic I have read so far this year.

Jim Medway - Playing Out

I really enjoyed Jim Medway's 'Playing Out'. It's for sale here, from Blank Slate.

It's a really good looking book, nice and big, like a European album size. It's about three kids, Connor, Kieran and Jamal, wandering around Manchester at the end of the Summer holidays. Connor is the youngest and is going to be starting big school after the holidays. They walk around the shops, getting thrown out of most places for not buying anything and look at all the 'weirdoes'. The drawings great and its cool to recognise all the places. I always like Jim's cat people and the book really captures the particular day in time very well. Highly recommended.

Simon Moreton - Grand Gestures

Here's Simon Moreton's new comic which was published by Retrofit Comics. I was not sure about this one before I bought it, would it be too abstract for me and not have enough story? I do still like a story.

The first part 'October' looked really nice but seemed the same as the rest of Simon's recent work. Then I read the second part 'Sales Fair' and was blown away. The character buys coffee and then goes to look at a flock of geese. Its really beautiful and moving. I really loved the page where the character is buying coffee and your brain just fills in the rest of the service station from just a few lines of the coffee stall. The third part 'November' is good too but the second part was the one I really liked. They all fit together though to make a good story.
Very highly recommended.

Bryan Talbot - 'Grandville' & 'Grandville Mon Amour'

I enjoyed Bryan Talbot's two Grandville books that I read last week. My brother got them out from the library and he liked them too. They are good adventure stories, nice and exciting, and don't take themselves too seriously. Another good find in the library, but I'm running out of comics to get out from there, which is a shame. I hope they get some more books in next year if they still have any money. I've hardly bought any books this year so the library has been really good.

Jesse Moynihan - Forming Volume 1

I enjoyed Jesse Moynihan's 'Forming'. This is the first part of a trilogy and has been published by Nobrow Press. its the first Nobrow Press book I have bought and as expected the printing, binding and book design are lovely. These all came out as a webcomic first.

The drawing is great and I love the colours. Its a mythological kind of story with all sorts of space aliens and superbeings from Zoroastrian, Christian and Dogon creation stories all landing on prehistoric earth. Then they all start mating with the earth people, messing around and fighting each other. Everyone talks in American stoner talk, a bit like in Multiforce or CF's work. 'Let me take him Dad, I'll unravel his balls into long parallel lines' says Cain. I'd like to find out where he goes with Volume 2.

Posy Simmonds - Gemma Bovery

I got this out from the library and read it last night. It's great, really smart and really funny. I'm not sure why I have never read it before, I'm sure I meant too. Anyhow I'm going to get the Tamara Drewe from the library next as soon as they have it in. Her drawings of people are brilliant.

Posy Simmonds books were some of the first comics I read come to think of it. My mum and dad had some of her Guardian collected books on their shelves, and also her 'True Love' book.

Garen Ewing - Rainbow Orchid 2

This was very enjoyable. I was going to buy it at Leeds but was too poor so I got a cheap copy off Amazon. Garen draws the action and excitement really well, with very cleverly set up fight scenes. It's all going to finish in the next episode so I'm looking forward to that. I think it will work really well read through all at once, just like a Tintin book. Here's a good review of it from Paul Rainey's excellent new review site Comics on the Ration.

Oliver East - Proper Go Well High

This is Oliver East’s second book. It’s really good. There’s a fancy review of it here from Richard Bruton.

Oliver spends a lot of time trying to draw things in new ways, such as wind and rain. I really like the way he draws wind in this book, as little spirally things. There are some very beautiful pages in here, especially the buildings in Manchester near the start and the pages where he draws paths going round buildings on otherwise white pages. Those are really good. Some of the pages are really hard to decipher as to what they are, it makes you slow down when you are reading it so it lasts a good while. There were a few I couldn’t work out at all but not very many.

I’m looking forward to his next book which is set in Berlin. I’ve never been there so there won’t be any of the pleasure of recognising things I get from his other stuff but I really like his idea of getting other artists to draw the graffiti on the pages, so that should be cool.

Garen Ewing - The Rainbow Orchid Part One

Hurrah, this has been coming out for ages and ages but I've finally got it. This is another comic where I've read it online before. It's much better in print, I was distracted reading it online by my various bosses at work wandering through hassling me to do things. I much prefer to read things in print. It's a lovely looking book, set up to look like a Tintin book. Drawings great, and the story is fast and exciting. My only problem with it is that it's only 48 pages (like a Tintin book) and now I'll have to wait till next year to get the next part...