Sunday, November 28, 2004
THREE COMICS I DIDN'T BUY AND TWO I DID
I'm not going to apologize yet again for the lack of updates, because I decided that if I keep apologizing for the same thing over and over it'll just be annoying. Actually I did write a short, peevish post on The Singing Detective (the TV series, not the film remake), but decided not to post it because I was starting to sound like the guy who hates everything -- particularly after Johanna Carlson linked to my complaint about Jason, and brought me at least sixty extra hits. (Who knew that there were so many people waiting to see someone put Jason down? Not me, that's for sure.)
Over the past year, I had several chances to buy the highly-praised fourth volume of the anthology Kramer's Ergot; but every time I looked at it, while there were a couple of pieces that looked good, I could never persuade myself that I was likely to get twenty-five bucks worth of enjoyment out of it. I'm even less inclined to spend thirty-five bucks on volume five, which just came out. I'd have been more likely to buy both volumes if the Ft. Thunder/Highwater group of artists didn't basically leave me cold; but as it is, there's too much stuff in volume five that interests me only marginally or not at all. I would have liked the chance to purchase the David Heatley and Souther Salazar pieces for a more reasonable price, but I'm sure they'll eventually show up elsewhere.
There were a couple of other books I also passed up the chance to buy when I was up in Chicago this week. I didn't buy Julie Doucet's My New York Diary for half price: to be honest I lost interest in her when she cleaned up her art, and her autobiographical stuff doesn't do anything for me either. I also passed up Doing Time by Kazuichi Hanawa, a memoir in manga form of prison life. I felt guilty about this one, since translated art manga such as this is just the sort of thing I want to see more of, and therefore should support; but again, when I looked through it, neither the story nor the art were compelling enough to persuade me it would be worth twenty bucks. (These latter two were both at Comix Revolution in downtown Evanston, on Davis St. west of Chicago Ave., in case anyone is interested, though I can't guarantee that they'll still be there.)
Among the comics I did buy were Go Back in Time and Fix Things and Feeble Attempts, both minicomics collecting strips and drawings by Jeffrey Brown (the former containing pre-Clumsy material, the latter recent work). I won't make extravagant claims for Brown; but I will say that his seemingly simplistic art gives me more pleasure than a lot of more highly touted alt-cartoonists. (I picked these both up at Quimby's, by the way.)
I'm not going to apologize yet again for the lack of updates, because I decided that if I keep apologizing for the same thing over and over it'll just be annoying. Actually I did write a short, peevish post on The Singing Detective (the TV series, not the film remake), but decided not to post it because I was starting to sound like the guy who hates everything -- particularly after Johanna Carlson linked to my complaint about Jason, and brought me at least sixty extra hits. (Who knew that there were so many people waiting to see someone put Jason down? Not me, that's for sure.)
Over the past year, I had several chances to buy the highly-praised fourth volume of the anthology Kramer's Ergot; but every time I looked at it, while there were a couple of pieces that looked good, I could never persuade myself that I was likely to get twenty-five bucks worth of enjoyment out of it. I'm even less inclined to spend thirty-five bucks on volume five, which just came out. I'd have been more likely to buy both volumes if the Ft. Thunder/Highwater group of artists didn't basically leave me cold; but as it is, there's too much stuff in volume five that interests me only marginally or not at all. I would have liked the chance to purchase the David Heatley and Souther Salazar pieces for a more reasonable price, but I'm sure they'll eventually show up elsewhere.
There were a couple of other books I also passed up the chance to buy when I was up in Chicago this week. I didn't buy Julie Doucet's My New York Diary for half price: to be honest I lost interest in her when she cleaned up her art, and her autobiographical stuff doesn't do anything for me either. I also passed up Doing Time by Kazuichi Hanawa, a memoir in manga form of prison life. I felt guilty about this one, since translated art manga such as this is just the sort of thing I want to see more of, and therefore should support; but again, when I looked through it, neither the story nor the art were compelling enough to persuade me it would be worth twenty bucks. (These latter two were both at Comix Revolution in downtown Evanston, on Davis St. west of Chicago Ave., in case anyone is interested, though I can't guarantee that they'll still be there.)
Among the comics I did buy were Go Back in Time and Fix Things and Feeble Attempts, both minicomics collecting strips and drawings by Jeffrey Brown (the former containing pre-Clumsy material, the latter recent work). I won't make extravagant claims for Brown; but I will say that his seemingly simplistic art gives me more pleasure than a lot of more highly touted alt-cartoonists. (I picked these both up at Quimby's, by the way.)
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