Paul B Rainey - There's No Time Like The Present Part 8

There’s No Time Like the Present Part 8 is another excellent read in this series. In this episode Barry is very depressed after his long time prostitute retires and plans to throw away his lifetime of science fiction collectibles. Lots of new details are revealed and some of the gaps from the previous comics are filled in so the story is coming along nicely. Paul Rainey says this episode has ‘sexy new printing’ and he is right, the colour cover has come out very well on fancy glossy paper. This episode has come out very quickly so I hope Paul can get episode 9 out for May as he says he plans to in the back of the comic.
You can buy it from Paul Rainey’s website.

My Website

You may have noticed that my website is getting a bit out of date. It was described by The Daily Crosshatch as 'careful.. it's very nineties...' Also my two newest comics '8 Stories' and 'Bog Wizards' are not mentioned on it (if anyone would like these please e mail me, '8 Stories' is £2.50 and 'Bog Wizards' is £2). Now I have a new computer I'm going to re-do the whole thing over Christmas and hopefully launch a brand new 21st century sort of website in the New Year.

Joanna Hellgren - Mon Frere Nocturne

Wow this is a very beautifully drawn book. Joanna Hellgren is Swedish, from Stockholm. Her drawing reminds me a lot of Anke Feuchtenberger which is a very good thing, especially in the girls complicated hair. Also she does a lot of painting with brushes and black ink to show the dark night brother. The book doesn't have any panels and is more like an illustrated picture book with one or two pictures on each page and all the text painted with a brush so it becomes part of the drawings. The story is about a young boy called Jakob who fears that like his brother he will die on his tenth birthday. While learning to play the piano he makes friends with a girl called Miranda. A really very good book.

West Coast & East Coast

Just sorted out that the very excellent Sparkplug Comics are going to be distributing 'On The Banks of The Mighty Croal' from the cartoonist filled city of Portland, Oregon. I hope they sell well there...

J C Menu - Lock Groove Comix No. 1

A month or so ago I thought i'd buy a bunch of the comics that won prizes at Angouleme to treat myself cos I passed an exam at work. Sadly since then the pound has crashed against the euro so they ended costing me more than i thought, boo hoo hoo. Never mind.

Here's the first one, J C Menu's 'Lock Groove no.1'. There's the cover above, then the back cover 'Vinyl and Papier forever' he says on it, which seems to be the theme of this comic, a celebration of vinyl records. He talks about records he bought when he was little like the Beatles, Carl Douglas (of 'Dance the Kung Fu' fame) and Sparks, then he talks about going to concerts and clubs, doing a DJ set, seeing Neil Young and Pere Ubu and ends with a kind of record review section. It's all very good cartooning and it's great to see something new from Menu. It has such a lot of energy in the drawings, and he goes to see Fugazi too!

The third picture is Mini Mune, Menu's contribution to the Pattes de Mouche series of minicomics from L'Association. This ones a bit old (from 2003) but I bought it cos it was very cheap. It's got funny stories from all Menu's different characters like Meder and Lapot.

Peter Beare - Dangnabbit 4

Peter Beare writes really good one or two page gag strips. In this comic he also does a 9 page story called 'Junior'. The cartoons are very well drawn with a lot of drawing craft evident. Well worth a look. Dangnabbit

Francesca Cassavetti - The Most Natural Thing In The World

I traded Francesca this book for some of my comics. It collects all the issues of 'The Most Natural Thing in the World' into one softcover volume. It's really good, even if you don't have any babies yourself. It's a great looking book, and very well drawn. It's very warm and funny, full of stuff about how having a baby totally changes their lives even though at first they think they will be able to carry on as usual and still go out.
Have a look at it here Fabtoons