What I Have Been Reading

Here's the comics I have bought or swapped recently. I haven't been to any shows for ages but I'm still keeping up with cartoonists I know.

Paul Rainey's 'Pope Francis Goes to the Dentist' is a collection of the short stories and satirical comics he has been drawing. They are very good. The 'Pope Francis' stories are very funny as he tries to go about his papal work while worrying about his teeth. I also really like the '14 Year old Stand up Comedian' tales.

Robert Brown has brought out 'Killjoy 5', the penultimate issue of his series. It's a good story about going to Bournemouth with his grandparents. It sets up the last part of the series really well. It made me feel old though as he goes there in 1997, and is still at primary school. I was at university then.

Lydia Wysocki has brought out 'Departures' and 'Junk'. 'Junk' is a cool little collection of sketchbook and diary comics. 'Departures' is a very fancy handmade comic which opens two different ways, one way is a comic about travelling, with many airports. It is made from remixed and cut up travel sketches. The other way is sketchbook drawings from her travels. The drawings are really lovely.

Simon Moreton brought out 'What Happened' from Kilgore Books. It is some very nice poetic comics about childhood. Watching a scary film, wandering in the woods and on the beach, having a fight with a friend and sitting in a parents car listening to music.

Max Mose - Terror Terror Terror

This is a really good full colour comic by Max Mose.     It's got a spooky castle horror tale 'Castle Gorgon', a fantasy tale 'The Cap of the Wolf' and a science fiction story 'Space Terror Maggots'. They're all really good! The colour adds a massive amount to the stories and the drawing is great, have a look at the back cover above.  Here's a proper review of the comic from Rob Clough's High-Low blog. Highly recommended!

Josh Simmons - Flayed Corpse

This tiny minicomic from Josh Simmons is great. Its only very short but its very dark. It's so dark that it made me laugh, like a properly nasty horror film. Here's a proper review of it from the Comics Journal. Its for sale from Oily Comics. I bought some other comics from Oily too so I'll have a read of them soon. This is the first Josh Simmons comic I've read but I'll look out for some more.

Mardou - The Sky in Stereo

I really enjoyed Mardou's new comic 'The Sky in Stereo'. I'm glad to see its just the first part of a much longer story and Mardou is already drawing part two. I think it will be really a good long story. I will be buying part two as soon as it comes out. It's about a girl called Iris living in Manchester in 1993 and working at a burger bar at the station. She fancies a co-worker called Glen. It's definately worth buying, very highly recommended. It's 52 pages too, so a good big chunk of the story. Buy it here.
Here's a review of it from the Comics Reporter.

Ted May, Jeff Wilson and Mike Reddy - Injury 4

Its ages since I bought a new comic through the post so I was very happy to get 'Injury 4' this morning. The main story is really great, it's called 'A Birdsong Shatters the Still' and is based on a story by Jeff Wilson and drawn by Ted May. Not much happens in it, a gang of kids all in Iron Maiden tshirts get stoned as the sun comes up and then go into an all day detention at school. It's really good though as the boys try and pass the time and survive the detention without being able to speak or make a noise. It carries on from the school stories in the other 'Injury' comics which I have also really liked. You can buy it here.

Benjamin Marra - 'Night Business - Issue 4'

I got the new issue of 'Night Business' a couple of days ago. Another great issue. This time we see the crazed mayor of the city and there's a fancy double spread of 1980's sex as Johnny and the Rider get together. I hope other people in the UK are buying these too. It's got another great author photo and bio as well.

Ryan Cecil Smith - Two Eyes of the Beautiful 1 & 2

I really enjoyed these two minicomics I bought the other week from Ryan Cecil Smith. They are a reimagining and redrawing of Umezu Kazuo's 'Blood Baptism', a horror manga. The first one is good but the second one gets really great. I thought Ryan's drawing got a lot better, it gets really interesting and very creepy with all the horror scenes. The story is about a beautiful woman with a disfiguring disease who runs off to a small town with her daughter to start some sort of bizarre cure from a secretive doctor. Here's a link to his website. I'm looking forward to part three to see what happens next. They have great colour printed covers too.

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.

Benjamin Marra - The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd

This is the brilliant new comic from Benjamin Marra. I didn't know who Maureen Dowd was but apparently she works for the New York Times as a columnist. It didn't matter with the story, it was still very funny.
Maureen has to fight off assassins sent by the evil Dick Cheney and try and get her column finished for the next issue of the newspaper, while trying to be on time for her date with George Clooney. Her editor keeps phoning her up and shouting 'Where's that damn column? Wait a minute, Maureen, is that gunshots I can hear in the background, AGAIN?' It is awesome. The author photo and biography on the inside back cover are the best yet, but I'm not going to show it here, you will have to buy a copy from Benjamin Marra's website. Highly recommended.

Matt Wiegle - various minicomics

I really enjoyed all these little one dollar minicomics from Matt Wiegle that i bought at TCAF. Makes me want to do some little comics too. The gags are all funny and perfect in their shortness, if you know what I mean. Go buy some here. My favourite is 'Is It Bacon?' an excellent guide for the amateur or professional bacon enthusiast.

Josh Cotter - March Hare

The first thing I bought at TCAF was Josh Cotter's 'March Hare' which was really cool. As you can see I got a little drawing in it, and its 1 of 20 he had made for the show. Its a envelope like thing with 31 printed drawings inside. Each one has a big circle cut out of it so you can see the drawing behind it through the hole. So you can change the order around and get a load more different combinations. It's really nice and a lot like his drawing for 'Driven By Lemons' which I really enjoyed.

John Porcellino - Map of My Heart

This is a great book containing six years worth of King Cat’s (minus the long story from the first few that has already been released as ‘Perfect Example’. It’s really very good, I highly recommend it to everyone. If you have just read one or two King Cat’s and weren’t that blown away you should try reading a whole bunch of them all together, as they build really nicely and become more than the sum of the little stories.

The six years were very crazy for John, he gets marries and moves house, then he gets very sick, moves house, gets divorced, moves house again, and finally falls in love again at the end of the book. Some of it is very sad and there are some beautiful poem comics. I really like his drawing, it’s just right for what he wants to do. It made me want to draw, which is always a great sign. Also it made me want to wander round looking at things and exploring. I’d read a few of the later ones before when they came out but it’s still worth getting them as the book too. It adds lots of context, and you get John’s notes on what was going on at the time too.

Ed Choy Moorman - Dark Cloud Comin'

This is a kind of fable like a very old fairy tale, one of the ones that's old and dark and scary. A young girl lives in a little village and the priest comes and takes her baby brother away in order to give him to the giant that lives in the mountains and protects the village in return for infants. She goes off into the mountain to try and rescue her brother. I really like the drawing, all skinny people with big heads, they remind me a bit of Chester Brown's people in 'I Never Liked You'. The mountain giant is particularly well drawn, that's him on the cover above. He also uses big patches of black ink really well. You can buy it here.