April 4th, 2006

Time: 12:00 am

TUNNEL by Tom K (Tom K, www.robot26.com. Also available in the Poopsheet Shop.) Reviewed by Heath Row Dark like Tomer Hanuka and dreamy like Jordan Crane, Tom K's 24-page digest combines a heavy cardstock cover and onion paper to adorn an ably inked tale about a young man who has a vision about finding a friend, becoming lost, and encountering a frightening wolf. Who the heck knows what is happening – I love this and want more. I get the feel that this is part of a longer book, and I hope that one is coming. Surreal like Hans Rickheit, but not gratuitous, this comic is well produced and indicative of a terrific talent. Get this. And Tom, please make more.

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April 4th, 2006

Time: 12:04 am

WIN TANES BRA by Clayton Noone and Stefan Neville (Oats Comics) Reviewed by Mark Campos Mysterious, disorienting. You might say that in place of the untrustworthy narrator of some novels, here you have the untrustworthy protagonists – a bunch of chummy, chatty, hallucinating street folk, for whom reality is fluid. A giant statue of a deity, or Angus from AC/DC, might suddenly manifest to confuse them. Then there is a murder, but the police (who themselves are pretty weird) don't seem to be very interested. This is so unique that the superlatives ran out and left me hanging in midair like the Coyote.

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April 4th, 2006

Time: 12:09 am

TRUE FICTION #6 by T. Motley (Squid Works, T. Motley / 1532 Elm St. / Denver, CO / 80220 USA. E-mail. Also available in the Poopsheet Shop.) Reviewed by Heath Row Collecting pieces focusing on Wilhelmina and Hector, this 28-page sideways digest – a format more creators should experiment with – largely features one-page gag strips, many quite complex. The opener, "Modern Problems," includes a couple of funny plays on words, one replacing the wonderful conversational suffix "and how" with "dot com." "On the Farm with Farmer Hector" includes tons of what Will Eisner would call "chicken fat," "The 7 Stages of Love" offers a silly look at the phases a relationship might go through, Minnie Muse introduces the idea of true love, a window cleaner gets his comeuppance, and Green Arrow and Rin Tin Tin make cameo appearances. Given the quality of the strips, it's no surprise that some of the comics collected previously appeared in publications such as Exquisite Corpse, Rocktober, Snicker, the Stranger, and White Buffalo Gazette. Good, good stuff. Great, even! Motley's got the Motts.

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April 4th, 2006

Time: 12:14 am

ROCKET RABBIT #1 by James Baker (James Baker. Also available in the Poopsheet Shop.) Wow! This comic is like something that Maggie from Love And Rockets would pick up at the store to read while dining on an entire box of Pookies. It's a boffo SF robot animal adventure: the eponymous rabbit hero, whose ears are jet propulsion tubes, seems to be getting a bit of a swelled ego, punctured periodically by his handler The Professor, a zaftig young braniac. The adolation of the masses doesn't help; but he is unfailingly there when called upon to beat down a team of riotous gorillas, led by Jack Ass, a pinstripe suited mule whose attributes change frequently with his name – Wise Ass, Hard Ass, etc. It'd be great for kids, despite a little cartoony chesecake. Older eyes might find the first few pages difficult to unbundle – James's page layouts can get a bit frantic – but once the story takes hold, it's a tale the whole family can dig upon.

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April 4th, 2006

Time: 12:18 am

OLD SCHOOL FUNNIES #1 by Doug Gray (Doug Gray, www.doug-gray.com, www.ugcomix.com) Reviewed by Heath Row You might like your comics in the funny animal and anthropomorphic or furry vein. Outside of classic Carl Barks comics, Martin Wagner's Hepcats, Usagi Yojimbo, and perhaps even Omaha the Cat Dancer (a stretch), I do not. So I approached Doug Gray's Old School Funnies with skepticism. And outside of a hilarious mirror image gag on page 13 and the inside back cover strip about hairballs and the long-running rivalry between cats and dogs, I got little out of this well-published digest. A cat and a dog get jobs guarding a butcher shop, and hilarity ensues. Go figure.

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April 4th, 2006

Time: 11:10 pm

DAVE B VS. LITTLE LEAGUE UMPIRE by David Bloodsaw (www.daveblud.blogspot.com) Autobio comic originally put together for the Mid-Ohio Con by Dave Blud.

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April 4th, 2006

Time: 11:13 pm

JOHNNY AMERICA #3 by various ($4.00, johnnyamerica.net) Johnny America is billed as "a little magazine of fiction, humor, and other miscellany." This is the Halloween issue. I love the wraparound silkscreened cover, the twine binding and the bound-in mini-comic, The Young Man + the Zombie, by Evan Saathoff and Patrick Giroux.

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