Want List – October 2008

Part visual reminder for me, part interesting look into what I fancy over the coming months….

October 2008:

November 2008:

December 2008?

Feb 2009

sometime in 2009/ 2010?:

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Crack by Ed Hicks

Crack Volume 1 Issue 1

by Ed Hicks

Bloody hell, this is a strange one; Our lead character, Edward walks us through his shared house of weirdness in this oversized, full colour comic. On the way we meet a set of the most un-friends-like housemates you may ever see. Gary (naked bloke), Nigel (the clean freak), Jeff (stalking ninja warrior) and Helga, who works in forensics & has a habit of keeping her biological samples in the fridge. Which is why Edward ends up having an unusual breakfast, and no, that isn’t milk on the cereal and Edward’s just figured it what it is in that specimen bottle:

And then there’s Tarquin, the crack addict chained up in the closet. No, really. Like I said, this is one hell of a strange comic with a most unusual cast of characters. But it’s really nicely done, with full colour, polished and professional fully painted artwork and there’s a great turn of phrase in the dialogue. Maybe it’s a bit in yer face provocative, packing in the shocks with each new character for deliberate effect overall but it’s still put together well enough, dropping the laughs and the sharp dialogue in between the shocks. It’s a very good comic indeed.

No signs of a second issue yet though so it might be that this is all you’re going to get. Pity. I’d have liked to see where Ed was going with it, because from this first issue there’s just no way of telling, what initially seemed a straight weird bit of talking heads student life quickly took a big detour into strange and then we’re just left hanging for the next chapter. You can read the whole thing for yourself over at Ed Hicks’ website: Crack.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: The mini-comics of Sally-Anne Hickman

Sex, Drawn & Rock-n-Roll and A Stinky Tail

By Sally-Anne Hickman

More great British small press goodness. And another couple of books that only the small press could give us; A6 sized (roughly the size of a postcard) with beautifully hand-made and original covers – glitter, cut out panels, pink scrap booking paper, embossed hearts, all working together to make a special little package. Such hand-made material is delightful, obviously it’s small scale and deliberately so but it’s lovely to see that, although the intention behind the comics is non-professional, the books themselves are both of a really high quality.

(A Stinky Tail by Sally-Ann Hickman.)

A Stinky Tail is practically an all-ages rhyming short story of 13 pages, telling the tale of a particularly foul smelling dog and his revenge on a village not too tolerant of his unique pong. It’s fun, silly, rhymes well and has all the gross out comedy needed to make the kids guffaw. By the time the villagers burn the poor thing at the stake you’ll be glad of the ending where our day has his day. A great little comic.

If A Stinky Tail is fun, gross out comedy that children could potentially read then Sex, Drawn & Rock-n-Roll is definitely a grown up thing. Sally-Ann has done a few of these diary comics, with this one covering February 2006, each page a day in 4 panels. It’s a candid and funny look at Sally-Anne’s life, trying to get enough money to make the rent by working two or three jobs whilst juggling band practice, going out and lots of drinking. The pretty pink cover and the delicate tracing paper frontispieces definitely give the wrong impression of this one. It’s autobiographical comics done with obvious nods to the work of Julie Douchet, another cartoonist not afraid to paint herself in a non too flattering light. But Sally-Ann does it very well, with a relaxed, easy going art style perfectly suited to her conversational storytelling and natural dialogue.

(The start of a month of work, little sleep, burning candles at both ends and the inevitable health problems. Sex, Drawn & Rock-n-Roll by Sally-Anne Hickman)

As with all of these beautiful, idiosyncratic bits of British Small Press weirdness I’ve been reviewing lately, you can pick Sally-Anne’s comics up from the Camden Comics Stall every Saturday in London. Aside from that, there’s e-mail, a rather old and sparse blog or a search on facebook for Sally-Anne Hickman will get you in touch with her.

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog – Sally Anne Hickman

More in the set of small press reviews over at the FPI blog right now – this time it’s the mini-comics of Sally Anne Hickman

PROPAGANDA @ the FPI blog – Crack by Ed Hicks

Latest in the small press reviews going up on the FPI blog now:

Crack by Ed Hicks.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: Ninja Bunny by Phil Spence

The Adventures Of Ninja Bunny

by Philip Spence

Ninja Bunny is about as small as you can make a comic and still enjoy it, with just a single panel on each of it’s 66 10cm x 9cm pages. (That’s pretty much actual size in the picture above). But that doesn’t matter as this is just as much object d’art as it is art, the quirkiness of it’s tiny dimensions makes it desirable to those looking for something a little bit different and fun. It’s reassuring to know that something unique and personal as this can actually find a place. I asked Philip about the reasons for the size of the comic and he kindly emailed his reply:

The size of the books are actually a little smaller than I originally intended though I always wanted them to be a square 1 panel per page format to reflect the style of the webcomic. During my self publishing print process however the pages shrunk a little.. I quite like the small size, in a way it makes the comic appear delicate and draws more focus on each panel than if they were just all cluttered together in the regular A5 format. Despite them not really fitting on a shelf with the usual comics the small size of them is something people are drawn to, so it’s probably helped me sell them at conventions.

Inside; the tiny, playful and wonderfully expressive art with almost no dialogue tells of Ninja Bunny’s quest across the “desert of doom” doing battle with a mysterious bandaged bunny and then a ninja cat along the way with only a magical bucket of seemingly endless weaponry to defend himself with (including, but not limited to; throwing stars, swords, Piranha fish & dynamite). In page after page and panel after panel Phillip tells a thrilling and funny little story, fast and furious and packs his art with far more emotion and expression than the minimalist characters should really be capable of.

(This four panel section had me smiling from ear to ear. After trying the shuriken to no effect, Ninja Cat taps sword in menacing way. Ninja Bunny taps empty, swordless pockets in desperate way. So much emotion and comedy in the body language – loved it.)

The Adventures Of Ninja Bunny is 66 pages of all out fighting bunny action, one panel per page, and each and every page is lovingly drawn and delightfully told with a confident, easy art style. It might not be commercial, but it’s definitely worthwhile. It’s fun and light and silly but it’s great entertainment and as such, great art. You’ll read it, like I did, from cover to cover with a huge smile on your face.

You can get this or Philip Spence’s previous Ninja Bunny book (16 pages this time) as well as a couple of very funky Ninja Bunny badge sets direct from the artist at www.ninja-bunny.com or email at phil@ninja-bunny.com . There’s an awful lot more Bunny goodness at the website as the Ninja Bunny webcomic has been running for over 3 years now. Or you can pick up his books from the Camden Comics Stall and the forthcoming Birmingham Comic Show, along with a host of other hand-made and eclectic comics. Phillip’s also just finished his first autobiographical comic: Fool’s Errand. Expect the review here soon.

PROPAGANDA @ FPI blog: Ninja Bunny by Phil Spence

The small press reviews continue…..

Phil Spence’s Ninja Bunny.

Most definitely a mini-comic. But a darned good one.

PROPAGANDA Reviews – Ben Powis

Whale Hunt : An Adventure On The High Seas

by Ben Powis (2007)

Whale Hunt is another British small press comic that manages, once more, to expand the scope of what the small press is all about. Because this defies all expectations you may have about what a small press comic should be. It’s a lovingly presented black and white tale adapting Moby Dick. But there’s no spin, no twist, no embellishing, modernising, altering or general mucking about with it. It’s just the simple tale of a boat going out to track down a whale. It’s actually more illustrated story than comic to be honest but hopefully we’re big enough to be able to get around that little classification problem and move along?

It’s a strange yet beautiful book. Or should that be strangely beautiful? 21 pages of just lovely drawings, one per page, with text sitting underneath telling us of the sailor’s journey and their hunt. So many things contribute to making it such a satisfying thing. Start with the cover; with a laminate feel and the look of a strange children’s book. Or the font; Travelling Typewriter, which gives it a unique old fashioned feel in this modern age of computer fonts. Then there’s the artwork. Nearly every page is a barren sky and a simple sea, just a few concise lines to distinguish the two, with the whale picked out in line and the ship a harsh blot of ink on the page. Simple yet beautiful.

But whatever it is, and it’s most likely all of the above, Whale Hunt is just part of a growing body of quite wonderful work by Ben Powis, as I discovered when I visited his website. I found myself clicking away and getting more and more impressed at the talent of this young newcomer to comics.

As lovely and inventive and beautiful as Whale Hunt is, his more recent full colour work is more. His 8 page Turtle Guitar from earlier in 2008 is available in full at his website; it’s a gorgeous tale of a farmer tending his dying, barren land who discovers a turtle whose song is so beautiful it can bring life to dead earth. A simple and slight tale but the artwork is just spectacularly good (rather reminiscent of Maurice Sendak I thought).

(Art from the Turtle Guitar, 2008 (c) Ben Powis)

There’s an awful lot more examples of Ben’s artwork over at his website, a few examples of which are below, but his latest comics work is Where Grows The Bitter Herb, this time he’s attempting a 36 page full colour comic. I’ve yet to see the finished article, but the cover and the sample pages look just as good as Whale Hunt and Turtle Guitar, possibly better. Ben Powis looks very much like one to watch for the future. I shall be keeping you updated. In the meantime go to his website and tell him we sent you.

(Second Time by Ben Powis, from his website)

(Late Dinner by Ben Powis, from his website)

PROPAGANDA @ FPI Blog: Ben Powis

Latest review up on the FPI blog is the first in a week long look at some great UK small press stuff:

Ben Powis is first up. Incredibly good stuff.

PROPAGANDA Reviews: The Leather Nun & Other Incredibly Strange Comics

The Leather Nun & Other Incredibly Strange Comics

by Paul Gravett & Peter Stanbury

Aurum Press

(Published in the USA by St Martin’s Press as Holy Shit! The World’s Weirdest Comic Books – but personally I think we got the better end of the deal as we get the great Charles Burns cover)

Okay, to get it out of the way, this is obviously, blatantly, blindingly obviously a novelty book from Gravett & Stanbury. You want serious discourse over comics? Go elsewhere, try some of Paul’s other books for a start. This is all about the weird and wonderful comics that have existed at various points in our medium’s history. It’s no coincidence that Jonathan Ross gets the cover quote as it’s exactly the sort of thing he’d have made a Channel 4 series out of a few years ago.

And that cover quote pretty much covers exactly what this book is for. It’s a stocking filler, the unusual gift for strange Uncle George. Of course, this is not to say that it isn’t a very enjoyable stocking filler indeed. Part of the fun is going through it and seeing all the weird comics and imagining what sort of a wonderfully weird world the creators lived in. Another fun thing is seeing how many of them you’ve either seen or read. Try it, it’s fun.

For example I’d completely forgotten Longshot Comics by Shane Simmons. An incredibly fun comic with 160 panels per page, 3,840 panels in total from 1995 which features nothing more than dots to represent the characters. As I recall it took ages to read and was genuinely quite funny and certainly excellent value for the price of a regular comic. And marvellously, in the course of writing this I’ve discovered that Shane Simmons is still around and still doing comics. For an example of what Longshot Comics was all about here’s a recent entry in his website’s “Films in longshot” series:

Now imagine that for another 3,836 panels with a huge cast of characters and I think you can see just why Longshot Comics warrants entry in this book.

The Leather Nun And Other Incredibly Strange Stories is 128 pages of the strange, weird and downright bizzare comics that have been published in the last 50 or so years. Each double page spread covers a single comic, write up on one page, cover on the other. All firmly tongue in cheek and continually asking the question; What in god’s name were they thinking?

(Leather Nun by Dave Sheridan, published by Last Gasp, 1973. Amputee Love, cover by Brent Boates, published by Last Gasp 1975. Just a couple of the offerings from the US Underground scene.)

The great thing about it is that Gravett and Stanbury have cast the net far and wide to find not just the obvious titles from the Underground comics movement (Leather Nun, Amputee Love, Binky Brown meets the Holy Virgin Mary etc) but have looked at some more wholesome comics that, with the benefit of hindsight, are perhaps the strangest of the lot. Take for example Hansi; The Girl Who Loved The Swastika. Not, as you may expect, some nasty propaganda book on behalf of Hitler’s Germany, but a well meaning look at how a good bible and a healthy dose of Christianity can save anyone. Or maybe it was a nasty propaganda book after all? Published by Spire Christian Comics in 1976. Archie meets Nazis.

Or what about PM; The Preventive Maintenance comic book published by the US Army and drawn for many years by the late, great Will Eisner. The blonde heroine would regularly purr seductively to her GI readers about the benefits of keeping their equipment in good condition and no doubt made a far greater impression than any dry technical manual ever could.

(Hansi, The Girl Who Loved The Swastika from Spire Christian Comics 1976. PM by Will Eisner, published by the US Army)

And it goes on in this vein, page after page of wonderful entertainment, the trippy, alternative undergrounds, the incredibly innocent and sweet romance comics of another time (Just Married – Should a Jewish boy and an Irish girl fall in love?), the bizarre instructional manual type comics (Saving Can Be Fun, Driving Like A Pro), the social comics to tempt wayward teens from lives or crime, drugs, illicit sex and worse (that would be Communism). From Purple People Eaters, through the Gospel Blimp and right on through to Steve Ditko’s exercise in Ayn Randian Objectivism of Mr A. It’s all here, in all its glorious strangeness.

(Purple People Eater, based on the Sheb Wooley / Barry Cryer hit, by Terry Trwoell, 1958. Mr A, the comic that really showed us how strange Steve Ditko’s philosophy could be from 1973. Alan Moore is a huge Mr A fan, as you can see with the Rorschach character in the pages of Watchmen.)

The Leather Nun a great little hardback package, slightly smaller than comic sized, and perfect to fit into anyone’s stocking this Christmas time. The Leather Nun was published 25th September 2008 and should be available from all good comic shops and bookshops and is, of course, available here at the FPI webstore.

Weird Uncle George will thank you for it. But do yourself a favour – have a good look through yourself first, it’s well worth it.

Paul Gravett’s website.
Recent interview with Paul by Joe Gordon here at the FPI blog.
There is an exhibition related to the Leather Nun at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts from November 13th – November 26th as part of the Comica Festival, directed by Paul Gravett.