Not minicomics: glamourpuss and Maggots.

I wanted to talk a little about Dave Sim's glamourpuss and Brian Chippendale's Maggots but they are not minicomics so I put the post over on the main blog. However, they definitely are "other" so I thought I would post the link here as well.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

Tom England and others MALLARD #3

Mallard #3 by Tom England, Christopher Leahy, Joe Baddeley, Fuong Nguyen, Dan Dyer and Claire Symonds.
www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6712440425
32 pages. Black and white cover and interior.

Mallard is a comic/zine mailed over by Tom England from the U.K. It sells for one pound which, in rapidly falling dollars, could be like $75 for all I know. This book got me to thinking about my own zinester days and how much tings have changed. "Back in the day" you would make a zine, print it up, give them out at rock shows or sell them at rekerd stores and that would be it. Their life lasted a few weeks and then you forgot about them. Now with the whole introwebnet nerdtology available today these things can find an audience all around the world. The niche market is the mainstream market now and a little zine can find an audience and maybe, just maybe make a few pounds/dollars.

This book is well edited as far as anthology/zines go. The contents, pages, art etc. are all laid out very nicely. The prose bits are broken up by some funny gag comics by Joe Braddely. I assume that Tom England is the editor and he made some nice choices as to the running order of the comics and stories. The book starts off with part three of a prose piece by Christopher Bernard Leahy. I like the idea of serializing prose in a zine like this. The story itself is written well enough. The first page or so is bogged down with a lot of scenery description but once the dialog gets going Leahy shows some potential. It's hard to judge a work based on an eight page excerpt but I get the feeling it's the type of thing I probably would not make it through unless a college course grade depended on it. But, that probably says more about my tastes and attention span than Leahy's talents.

The prose if followed by a comics section. Fuong Mai Nguyen's pieces are slight but interesting. Dany Dyer has a couple of pages of college humor bases strips. The first page seems to be hastily drawn but the second is more polished and is about equal in quality to the average webcomic. Joe Baddely's comics are gag strips with talking stick figures. They are pretty funny and set a nice tone for the rest of the book. I give credit to both Baddely and the editor for doing a great job of pacing the book with a quick laugh on nearly every page.

The strongest comics of the book are by Tom England. (Sampled above.) The writing is strong. Part philosophy, part fictional diary, part humor. Somewhere between Harvey Pekar and Chris Ware. The drawing is very simple yet comprehensive. He does a great job juxtaposing the tone of the the dialog with the emotion of the drawing. I would really like to see more of England's comics.

The final piece of the book is a fun little story by Claire Symonds called The Philosophical Hog. In the story a council of forest animals is called together to decide how to deal with the disturbing noises coming from the tummy of a hog. The hog in question has decided to fast in order to empty his stomach so that he may eat the entirety of the world. It is cute, clever and slightly morbid. A fun read.

All in all I say this Mallard anthology/comic/zine thing delivers. Some pieces are stronger than others but it's a nicely edited book that more than satisfies the entertainment to cover price ratio. (Whatever that may be in US dollars.)

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

Michael Klopner's WONDERFUL SUMMER

Wonderful Summer by Michael Klopner

klopner94@aol.com
24 pages. Black and white with color cover. Magazine sized. 8 1/2 x 11 inches.

I've been aware of Klopner's comics for a while and I really like his stuff. I've previously covered his comics in my reviews of Shiot Crock 11 and 13. His entry in SC 11 was a superhero parody with some interesting erotic elements but it was his relationship based stuff in SC 13 that made me a fan. This book is a magazine sized mini and the format works well with Klopner's art. Klopner uses big thick blacks and around twelve panels per page so I couldn't imagine this stuff looking that great at a smaller size without breaking up the panels and thus breaking up the pacing.

Wonderful Summer contains a fair deal of relationship based stuff similar to the True Candy strips I liked so much in SC13 but the book as a whole is mixed bag. The book is made up of five stories and some filler. If there is a unifying theme it is nihilistic characters embracing and reveling in a lurid world. Even the most amicable characters in the book express an interest violence and perversion.

The first story, Blood Brothers, is a hard case crime noir super hero punk mash up kind of thing. It has a neat juxtaposition of styles with the detective being drawn thick and sleek and the costumed baddies being quite gritty but the story is the least imaginative of the book.

The next item is a one pager called Blue Thong that cuts right to the chase with sex in the first panel. (Sampled above. Well, minus the first panel.) This is more representative of the almost instant character development Klopner is capable of. Right away you feel you know these characters and their background. It also exemplifies that wet lurid inking style I like in Kopner's comics.

The next few pieces, Frankensteins & Mirrors, Dark Coitus and Charlotte are underground rawness meets rockabilly meets post modern punk nihilism. (Don't you just hate reviews where the writer can't think of the words to describe something so they say it's one thing "meets" another thing? Me too.) These stories deal with some very depraved yet believable characters and their extreme sexual fetishes. They are right on the brink of being over the top but Klopner's dialog and humor hold it together. Charlotte is the most ambitious of the these stories. It is a Twilight Zone kind of story about a pedophile haunted by one of his victims. The twist is that the ghost does not want revenge but instead wants a playmate. It is sick and twisted yet clever and Klopner manages to pull it off as a complete story in just eight pages.

(Click the image to enlarge. Seriously, it's a really nice page.)

The last piece in the book is a three pager called Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows. This is my favorite piece in the book. This is another story where we start with sex in panel one but it is the most positive and least violent story in the book. It's not much more than a simple day in the life of two young lovers but it's packed with all the elements I like so much in Klopner's comics; the thick wet inks, bold character design, a sexy femme fatale, rock references, clever dialog, racy pillow talk... but this short tale also allows the characters to show some vulnerability and depth not present in the rest of the book. In this story, the most dangerous element is not sex or violence but the two characters feelings for each other. The drawing and page layouts in this story are very nice and once again, Klopner manages to cover a lot of space in a few pages. I would gladly buy a big thick book of this kind of material and I hope he is working on more stories like it.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith