Morning Shoppers!
That was a busy one. If you’ve listened to the recent ACP you’ll have heard that I fitted in a trip to the comic shop, a visit to a cheeky exhibition and a stroll round an Illustration Fair all on Saturday. I’ve also read a wheelbarrow full of comics and recorded a couple of podcasts.
Meanwhile during the rest of the recent ACP we had our old buddy Bob Fingerman popped in to chat about his new release Printopia and a whole lot more. Who knew he was now a movie star!
Here’s how the publisher, Cosmic Lion Productions, describes the comic. ‘Printopia, Bob Fingerman’s first all-new graphic novel in over a decade, is a smart, satirical, story set in NYC, featuring a cast of eccentric creators unleashing their visions on the world. Part Ghost World, part acid trip, experience what Matt Groening described as “Brilliantly written… masterfully drawn… funny as hell.”’
The NIA podcast was back with some Christmas vengeance. The episode should have just dropped as you read this so go check your Pod-Catchers. Myself and Alan Henderson sat down to chat about the use of Santa in comics. It gets a bit lively and I accuse Toy Man of being a NONCE. (You may have to look that one up). Alan also makes certain claims about Santa’s balls. Who cares! It’s almost Christmas!
We also centre in on, surely, the most iconic Superman artist of them all Mr Curt Swan. I make a case that Johnny Sack from The Sopranoes should play him in a movie. Yes, I know he isn’t a real person. I’m not nuts.
Onwards with the job at hand dear fuckers.
Small Press Comic of the Week.
The Patsy Papers by Rachael Ball.
I know that this is a comic by a past collaborator of mine and a buddy. But Rachael Ball is both of those things because I admired what she does in comics. Full of quirky personality and attention to structure, form and a special kind of cartooning The Patsy Papers is an ongoing and developing project. This release is a little taster of what is to come and well worth investigating/investing. Find more about Rachael and her work here.
Tops.
Prairie Gods is a loose anthology series with one character showing up from issue 1 to give a thread of continuity. This particular story has all the feel of a strange seventies sci-if story that maybe somebody like the New English Library would have put out. A soldier laying near death in a Great War No-Man’s Land sees a portal open in the air above him and a space suited space-person looks down on him. It goes to unpredictable places and was a fresh feeling read in an otherwise Big-Two barren weekend new comics landscape. Jump on it if you see it. I also feel that Shane Connery Volk, when he’s not making music, is a writer/artist to keep an eye out for.
Bottoms.
Excommunicated X-Men – Back again like non-sexual crotch-itch is one of the new and totally predictable X-Men titles. How do you fit so much boring into a single issue.
Honestly, the X titles feel like an exercise in producing stories so vanilla that surely nobody looks forward to reading them.
Avoid that one.
Tip of the week – If you look like a sex offender you nearly always are one!
Thanks for reading. Catch you soon.
Never Iron Anything - The Comics Review Website 