Tops And Bottoms 18th February 2025.

Welcome back. Another run through the top and bottom of my reading pile this week. A day early.

Over at the ACP we had Shane Connery Volk on for a chat. We’ve been digging his work recently on ‘Prairie Gods’ and thought it was about time he explained himself! Any regular readers of this column are fully aware of how much I have been enjoying this carefully linked anthology series. It’s also Shane’s first comic writing gig so big props to him there.

We also have a Drink & Draw this coming Friday (21/2/25 @7pm). This is a semi-regular event that is always a laugh. Held over Zoom and through the evening people chat, laugh and show what they are working on. Everyone is welcome and you don’t even have to turn your mic on. If you fancy coming along you will be most welcome, just hit me up for a link. 

Favourite Small Press Book of the Week.

Written, Drawn, Edited and published by ‘Don’t Sue’ this made me chuckle over the morning coffee. If you inspect the back cover the game is given away and you’ll spot the involvements of those dudes at Black Ink Comix.

Parody and Satire are all we have left right? Sometimes I feel that is true. So having ‘AssVenture Time’ and ‘The Gimpsons’ ticked a few of my boxes. Go find these degenerates and buy some of their comics asap. 

Tops.

Written by Sarah H Cho with art by CP Smith. Cover by Alison Sampson.

This got me thinking. It is not by any means a perfect comic. The cover especially, but also the interiors, are far too photo referenced for me. They can seriously suffer with a lack of real movement, or any genuine personality or emotion at times. But the story was still sufficiently interesting. It tells a semi-autobiographical tale of a woman who, after a psychotic break and near suicide attempt, takes to ‘Cam Girl’-ing. She becomes extremely popular and is paid in ‘tips’ when performing sex acts online as well as just casually interacting with customers on her phone. But inevitably, and as almost a cliche, she gets a stalker and it works kind of as a whodunnit, albeit not a very good one as there are so few suspects. But, as a first person narration it is well written. 

We see into what appears to be a real person on the page. Flawed and greedy, needy and manipulative, but also a victim. Nuanced in its approach. You do finding yourself judging her as her friends in the story do, as well as judging her customers as she does. There is a moral vacuum and a big gap between the notion of transactional capitalism and caring for other vulnerable people on show here. You can pull back and see the story as a whole and feel it is a little one-sided? But that’s the nature of First Person right? 

It wasn’t going to be my pick, but played on my mind overnight. Of the AWA sex thrillers we have been seeing I’d say that ‘Casual Fling’ has a better story but this has a rawness that hits well. Maybe a comic from the point of view of a customer may be a nice sequel?

Bottoms.

A new event. A massively underwhelming first issue with art that looks like it’s been traced and a storyline that fails to live up to its promise. I won’t stay too long here but is that really any way to visually introduce a team? I can’t really make much out on the page as it is all flare effects and the big masses of white space draw the eye too much. (For those wondering this is ‘One World Under Doom’ issue 1.)

Save your money.

Thanks for reading. See you soon.