Thoughts on some comics:
I noticed Becky Cloonan’s work a while back, while trawling around on DeviantArt. It took some hunting, but I eventually found myself a copy of East Coast Rising - her story about pirates off the Jersey shore after the sea level has risen enough to drown most of what is currently coastal NJ and NY - at a comic shop in Waltham (being an idiot, I didn’t think to look on amazon until now). It’s a great book, and she appears hard at work on volume 2.
(Humorous aside: in this post, Becky supplies this photo and claims there’s nothing to fear because her Big Jar O’ Poison doesn’t have any actual poison in it anymore:
Sure… and I suppose the flintlock’s not loaded, either? Yeah, that’s what my workspace is lacking - the tools of cold-blooded murder. Arrrrrr!)
Anyway, moving on:
Another recent purchase is Vasilis Lolos’ outstanding Last Call (vol.1), in which two teenage metalheads in a stolen car inexplicably find themselves on a giant ghost train whose passengers all appear to be weird monsters or demons. The kids, ticketless, are separated while trying to avoid the terrifying conductor, and a murder mystery ensues (you can see the first 38 pages here).
East Coast Rising and Last Call are both manga-sized (like a paperback book, rather than the familiar unfamiliar comic book… although maybe I’m generalizing, as I’m sure that manga is printed at more than one size), presumably so they can be better sold in bookstores, where actual human beings shop. And but for some cussin’ and a stabbin’ in LC, both books would be pretty young-kid friendly.
After decades of reading “mainstream” crap, these books seem very fresh - they feature imagination, gorgeous line-work and excellent storytelling. The lack of spandex, hyper-realistic color, attempts at cut-rate Hunter S. Thompsonisms mixed with a few scifi buzzwords, gratuitous adult material as fanservice, or any other annoying gimmickry is a bonus.
Cloonan and Lolos have collaborated on a few things: Nebuli, previously sold only at conventions, and 5 (with Fábio Moon,Gabriel Bá and Grampá), both now available at khepri.com. I ordered them yesterday, and will post again if I’ve got anything to say about them.
Moving on again…
Paul Pope’s flickr account (ernest.borg9 - ha!) continues to be a constant source of cool stuff. I’ve read he’s going to be doing some fashion design, which I hope won’t hold up stuff like his upcoming THB work, or Battling Boy. I was also pysched to discover his convention special Comics From Mars can now be had at AdHouse Books.
Also, thanks to ngvrnd for pointing me at rice boy. Excellently weird!