LOOK STRAIGHT AHEAD by Elaine M. Will

lookstraightahead.tumblr.com/

256 pages

$19.95

One of the more surprising finds in Look Straight Ahead is the idea that the introspective self-doubt of the artist bears some similarity to the chaos of mental illness. That’s not really the main crux of the narrative though. It centers on Jeremy Knowles, a kid whose experiences move from whimsical, to ethereal, and even to nightmarish. Jeremy’s tale is about the cumulative effect of marginalization to the psyche. It deals directly with his eroding sense of identity under the pressures of his sickness. Take all that, plus an initially “off” parental approach (I enjoyed the quick shots of his father finally attempting to educate himself about mental illness), some incidents of bullying at an indifferent school, along with a dash of a weak social support network, and it’s a cocktail recipe for disaster. Visually, I was very impressed with Will’s style; there’s the raw penciling ability of a draftsman like Terry Moore, coupled with the deep social awareness of a creator like Nate Powell. Those approaches lead us to believe that kids are perhaps a little more self-aware than we give them credit for. “Look Straight Ahead” may ultimately refer to the titular notion of keeping one’s eyes on the prize, acknowledging life as an endurance trial, recognizing the natural cycle of ups and downs, and rolling with them in the most present and communicative fashion we’re capable of mustering. Jeremy’s sense of control and capacity for flexibility are often at odds, interspersed with fleeting moments of clarity, brought to life with Will’s dynamic line, until a sense of balance can be achieved for the protagonist. Her visual blend depicts some color, texture-rich patterns, ornate designs, decisions to sometimes eschew panel borders, or even embrace them, as myriad tools in the artistic toolbox. One of the best examples of this intent for me was when Jeremy is trying to remember, to recreate memories through the fog of medication. As he attempts to make order of that chaos, panels appear as hastily taped together scraps. It’s a fairly brilliant display of what Elaine M. Will is capable of. While the ending may feel slightly abrupt, the overall terrific experience is capped by pin-ups from such talents as Jeff Lemire and Riley Rossmo, once indie creators, also prominent now in the mainstream. Grade A.

PENNSYLVANIANS by Bart King

www.bartaking.com

Pennsylvanians is a short story which takes a painfully ordinary couple in their quiet little residence and their typical little routine and pushes an extraordinary, or rather, an extraterrestrial occurrence upon their existence. As is revealed in the TV newsfeed, alien visitations are now the thing. In deadpan “keeping up with the Joneses” fashion, they begin to compare their first contact scenario, its duration, etc. to see how they stack up. The aliens seem to be peaceful, observant, and have a subtle sense of humor. The story is done in black and white (except for that emerald glow of the cover), but King’s dynamic line weights and terrific use of gray scale to achieve shadow, texture, and emotion is very accomplished. King is a confident storyteller, without being arrogant. As a creator, he’s now two for two, and someone I’d like to see more work from. It would be interesting to even see longer, more feature length work, because he has these shorts and overall production design down cold. Grade A.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI’S POST OFFICE by Bart King

www.bartaking.com

I’ve not read the original novel which King adapted this short from, but no worries, I can safely say Post Office is a fantastic bit of comic book craft. Even the construction technique is pure tactile objet d’art, using that procedure where you print on a large sheet, fold it in half lengthwise to double it over, and then slice the interior channel atop, fold, fold, fold, and voila, you have yourself a hand assembled mini-comic with zero staples! Post Office is beautifully dreary and downtrodden, fabulous use of color, zero exposition, and absolute mastery of pace and panel-to-panel storytelling, with emotive lines and non-verbal cues embedded in the murky panels. Whether times are up, or times are down, the postman cometh, just as he must navigate  the hellish urban landscape. With rain-soaked streets and alcohol-infused despair, it’s a hard realization that *you* are often the source of your own undoing. Grade A+.

THE CASEBOOK OF ELIJAH SNUGS #1-2 by Sal Sciandra

www.salsciandra.com

$5 + S/H

Elijah Snugs is an enthusiastic tale of anthropomorphic private detectives on the trail of a missing bejeweled egg from a local socialite. It’s ostensibly a fun harmless adventure with several mild attempts at humor that didn’t quite connect for me, but some may enjoy, and a fairly emotive art style. Though I do think a price point of $5 plus shipping and handling might be cost prohibitive to some potential readers for a 24-page pamphlet, beautifully colored covers and a short back-up strip do accompany the black and white interiors. Grade B.

GREY AREA: ISSUE TWO by Tim Bird

www.timothybird.co.uk

www.averyhillpublishing.com

28 pages

Avery Hill Publishing is a small press publisher I was not previously aware of, so I was excited to check out one of their offerings. Additional research soon revealed that they’re also publishing another book that appears very interesting called The Megatherium Club by Owen D. Pomery, whose work I very much enjoyed in his series Between The Billboards, so that certainly bodes well. Grey Area begins with a deceptively simple raison d’etre, celebrating The Great British Motorway System. We often hear from would-be armchair cultural anthropologists about how traffic is a living breathing entity, but rarely do we consider the highway itself, the arteries used to navigate much of our existence. Tim Bird’s thick-bodied and robust line weight is not only great at depicting claustrophobic tangles of cars, but also lends emotional heft and resilience to the mannerisms and characters sitting in boring business meetings, dreary hotel bars, or contending with the often contentious motorway system. It’s funny that the motorway system, or the highway system, the freeways, and the interstates, if you prefer (all the seemingly interchangeable names we Colonials use here in the US), are collectively one of those things that never gets credit for any of the positives. We only seem to remember when it sucks, traffic, accidents, potholes, detours, and more, we never recall all many the silent successes that got us efficiently from point A to point B with little fanfare or gratitude. These routes are merely the connective tissue between other more important things. It’s easy to get caught up in Bird’s words and not his art, easy to lose the magic of small non-descript dot patterned backgrounds that whiz by, making figures pop in the foreground, causing you to hang on their every word. It’s one of the most likeable visual styles I’ve seen in awhile, very welcoming, a counterpoint to the world of the weary business traveler making their way through the asphalt jungle, the language of junctions and intersections, mileage and maps, that we rarely appreciate. Speaking of Bird’s use of language and things to appreciate, I enjoy the lyrical quality of things like “From grey hills and grey skies to grey streets and grey eyes.” Grey Area takes an existential turn by the end, contemplative about our place on the road, as a thing, as an enabler, as a place where stories can either begin or end, about how snarled traffic can mirror life – “You never really know when you’re going to start moving.” The roadways connect old and new, urban and rural, friends and foe, like “modern ley lines” acting as one of the few constants in life, which we rarely think about with any degree of sentimentality. That is, until now. Grade A+.

GOING RATE by Greg Farrell

www.seizebooks.blogspot.com

www.yoburbalino.blogspot.com

$11

My only slight complaint with Going Rate is that it might be cost prohibitive for some, clocking in at $11 for 44 pages. It’s a small solo anthology, which houses quite a few pieces, though two quickly stood out for me as the best. “White Whale of The Bay” is a great peek into a subset of music culture, and the quest for one glaring omission in a record collection otherwise flawlessly hand-curated. I really enjoyed Farrell’s comparisons of San Francisco to Brooklyn, the inherent commercialization of urban areas, and how he coins the term (or at least borrows) “cultural outposts” as beacons resisting this homogenization. Ultimately, Farrell asks the question: What do you do when you finally find your Holy Grail? From there, the writer/artist touches on racial politics at a Payless Shoe Source, personal hygiene, vegetarian restaurants in NYC, his relationship with 420, or the impending death of a pet triggering a wild nervous breakdown. Farrell uses more traditional panel layouts in this effort, compared to his work Brendon anyway, and, for me, wraps things up nicely with a story about a small family run business. That was certainly something I could identify with, having grown up in the shadow of my parents’ antique business. As far as recurring themes go, Farrell seems to be concerned with retail paradigms (shoe stores, restaurants, records shops, memorabilia shops, etc.) and how the Disneyfication of society upends the strengths of heterogeneity. He makes several wise observations about collecting being rooted in nostalgia, the aging out of collectors, the way scarcity, condition, and inherent value are tied to the physical object, all while those objects rapidly disappear as a business model. I particularly enjoyed the gems about the public’s expectation for low cost and immediacy, while customer service remains an integral person to person experience pushing back on all things digital. Grade A.

BRENDON by Greg Farrell

www.prontocomics.com

www.yoburbalino.blogspot.com

$3

Brendon is billed as a coming of age story, and includes a beautiful color cover. It touches on a select group of incidents in semi-autobiographical fashion about growing up on Long Island. We’re able to connect with it because it touches on something universal, namely “that kid.” There’s always that kid that parents think is trouble, one of those kids in every school, everyone has that friend whose behavior seems extreme. They’re someone we ultimately learn from, observing the things they do and say helps to form our own identity, including sexual experimentation, even repressed homophobia, and unlikely friendships. Farrell’s lines appear in an affable and clean style, which mostly ignores traditional panel borders, but still works well because the dialogue flows so naturally. Grade A-.

DOLLMATRIX by Marc van Elburg, Crippa Almqvist, Zeke Clough

www.zekeclough.com

www.maximumschreck.blogspot.com

tellab.home.xs4all.nl

Dollmatrix is like few comics I’ve read before, a dizzying ménage-a-trois marriage of underground alternative comics, a unique brand of street art, and obscure non-linear pattern recognition that come together to form something foreign I can’t quite describe. As it eviscerates convention with things like Quantum Chinese Food, it uses an intensely enveloping experience