Minis: Ricky Miller/Julia Scheele, Colin Lidston

The Age Of Elves #1, by Colin Lidston. This mini (published by Robyn Chapman's Paper Rocket Mini Comics) is a bit of a rarity these days: a straight-ahead, slice of life story. These used to be as common as autobio back in the 90s but it's a kind of storytelling that's fallen a bit out of favor these days. The story is going to be familiar to many comics readers, as it's about a group of friends who happen to play fantasy role-playing games together. It's set in the year 2000 and the initial focus of the story is on Sarah, one of four high-schoolers who are getting set to go to a big gaming convention. She has dreams of being a fantasy illustrator and the story begins with her showing her portfolio to her high school art teacher and then talking with her dad. There's a diner scene where she argues about the film Pulp Fiction with her friends Evan and Jamie, and then there's a montage of game-playing at their friend Bram's house.

This issue is in every sense an establishing point meant to set mood and give the reader a sense of the story's pace and stakes. It is unspoken, but it is also clearly a story of finding your tribe after not fitting in (the time period is key, as geek culture had not yet completely overtaken popular culture at that point) and finding ways to express your dreams. Evan is a familiar sort of character as the sort of Asperger's-spectrum literalist who is often drawn to gaming, and while Bram does not utter a word in the story, it's clear that he comes from a socially awkward place as well. These characters are the bizarro Eltingville Club, as their love of gaming and fantasy has become fused with their friendships in a positive way, as opposed to the possessive and competitive manner of those Evan Dorkin. It's a case of having specialized interests and knowledge and choosing to share that knowledge and spread it as opposed to hoarding it as a hard-won treasure. There is a warmth that Lidston expresses in this modest story that has everything to do with his drawing. The body language of the characters when they're gaming is comfortable and grows moreso as the evening goes on and the natural introverts fully commit to forming connections. Lidston uses a loose but naturalistic style that allows for a few grotesque flourishes here and there; none of his characters are conventionally attractive, and he takes advantage of this to emphasize their humanity and connection rather than as objects of ridicule. The verisimilitude of the dialogue is another key to the issue's success, and I imagine future issues will zero in on particular hopes and dreams of all the characters, as well as dissect the group's dynamic. All the reader needs to know with this issue is that these four people are friends who genuinely enjoy spending time with each other.

Metroland #2 & #3, by Ricky Miller, Julia Scheele, et al. The first issue of the series introduced us to Ricky Stardust and Jessica Hill, two members of a band called Electric Dreams. Jessica had a profound impact on Ricky's life in a story that might be labeled speculative musical fiction. The world as we know it is slightly different, mostly in terms of its music, which was initially revealed when a poster for a Beatles reunion tour was seen on a building. Everyone who met Jessica knows there was something strange about her, but only Ricky (who would disappear for days at a time with her) knew the truth. At the end of the first issue, we see Jessica pull Ricky through a mirror in a club called Metroland, off to what we presume is some kind of fantasy world.

As it turns out, as we see in these next two issues, that wasn't quite it. Issue two is told through the point of view of Kathy, the forceful and charismatic keyboardist of the band, who has apocalyptic dreams. Her life is kind of a mess and gets worse when Kurt Cobain kills himself...in the year 2014. She loses her job, she's worried about the band's future and her Five-Year-Club (formed by David Bowie enthusiasts who feel like they can figure out the date the world will end) is made all the more dramatic when she declares that the date of the apocalypse came to her in a dream. Meanwhile, Jessica has apparently gone for good and Ricky is increasingly despondent and erratic as a result. The third issue starts to make plain what had been hinted at, thanks to the band's roadie being hired by two members of the band to find out more information about the relationship of Ricky & Jess.

The third issue is quite a bit of fun as a result of the fleshing out of alternate music history, conspiracy theories and internet paranoia--all of which is true. As it turns out, Jessica came from the future to observe and influence various musical scenes, and Ricky became part of it. He went back in the past and "fixed" things: helping Brian Wilson finish Smile, stopping John Lennon's killer, making sure that Janis Joplin didn't die, getting Elvis healthy, etc. The problem is that in the modern day, Ricky (who became the producer Ricky Starwalker in the past) is having trouble keeping things together, which leads Kathy and others to believe that the whole world will come crashing down. Miller takes the reader down some surprisingly byzantine paths with the time-travel and reality-altering qualities of the story, but always keeps it anchored in the band's dynamics. Miller also introduces a wild-card: the fact that Jessica has a daughter who lives in the future and idealizes the music of the past like her mother.

This is the story not just about a band, but the ways in which bands are fragile, can grow and mutate and oftentimes cease to exist. Scheele keeps everything grounded with her superb character design and understanding of body language. The humor in the book is often down to the way she draws the characters reacting to one another. The contrast in pink and midnight blue as the book's two tones reflect the conflict between the dreaminess of life in pink and the darkness and uncertainty that are represented by midnight blue. This is a story about finding in-between places, creating magic in tiny pockets of time and immortalizing those fragile moments of collaboration. Ricky's story is one where he cannot be satisfied with those moments and tries to find a cheat code to make them last forever, and this issue starts to reveal the implications of the problems that come with taking shortcuts.

Give Me The Music: Dmitri Jackson and Ricky Miller/Julia Scheele

Blackwax Boulevard 1 and 2, by Dmitri Jackson. Originally and still currently a web series, these minis feature an incredibly sharply-defined set of characters who work at a dying indie record store. There's an obvious debt to Nick Hornby's High Fidelity here, but each member of the ensemble cast gets plenty of time and room to develop and prove that they're more than just one-note cartoons. While young Marsalis "Mars" Parker is ostensibly the main character of the strip, in no way is he simply a mouthpiece for the cartoonist or established as the character who's always right. Set in a decaying city, Blackwax Boulevard (the name of the store) is doing everything it can to stay in business, including stocking mainstream pop that Marsalis finds repulsive.

What Jackson does best is slowly generate stories out of character interactions; a woman Marsalis has a crush on turns out is going out with a glib street protester. We learn about the plight of the owner of the shop, who's lost a leg that he lost to diabetes replaced by an electric guitar. There are eccentric regulars and characters of various ages, genders and races. Race, gender, gentrification and other political issues are certainly addressed in this comic, but in a matter so organic that it never comes off as didactic. Jackson has an exaggerated, cartoony style that reminds me a bit of Kyle Baker by way of Ralph Bakshi. It's also clear that Jackson knows a lot about music, because the passionate arguments that various characters make come off as entirely authentic. The pace of the comic is pleasantly rambling and episodic, as though Jackson is trying to find out about his characters at the same time the reader is, but he never drifts so far as to get self-indulgent the way that so many webcomics can. This is a comic that's certainly deserving of wider recognition.

Metroland #1, by Ricky Miller & Julia Scheele. A rock 'n roll fairy tale is such an obvious mash-up that it's a wonder that it hasn't been attempted very often. Writer Ricky Miller credits the film Eddie and the Cruisers as an inspiration for his story of an alcoholic musician and the woman who took him on magical journeys through a window in a club called Metroland. The expressive character work of Scheele is an ideal match for this sort of dreamy story, especially with regard to the specifics of clothing as well as the muted pink and blue pastels that dominate the color scheme. While this is very much an introductory issue, the slow reveal of the series' more fantastic elements (the first hint being a modern-day poster on a wall advertising the new Beatles tour) turns this from simply a downbeat, slice-of-life story about being in a band into something else. Certainly, this comic is very much about that as well, and the particulars of being in a local scene are sharply observed and drolly written, but the fantasy aspects of the series take the metaphor of becoming a part of a scene as a means of escape make this comic especially intriguing. I'll be interested in seeing just what happens in the fantasy escape world, how and why the mysterious avatar of escape (Jessica) comes to leave the band, and whether the plot becomes tighter or simply revolves around the past. I also quite enjoyed the "bonus tracks" in this comic: one a flashback to how the main character (Ricky Stardust) and Jessica came to meet, and another about future, obsessed fans of the band.

Brit Comics: Julia Scheele

Julia Scheele is a young British cartoonist who's mostly done collaborations to this point in her career, though her own solo work has proven to be more powerful. Her catch-all anthology, I Don't Like My Hair Neat, is a lushly-produced affair in full color. This proves to be quite important, given Scheele's facility as a colorist. Her use of color in the "Positive", a story from the first issue of her zine that's written by Katie West", establishes the mood of the story far quicker and more effectively than any accompanying text could. The first few pages, detailing an affair a woman has more-or-less on a whim is shaded entirely with an icy blue, giving a sense of the ethereal quality of the event. That's both in the sense that it was heavenly but also that it didn't feel real, including any pretense of emotion. When she got back out to the real world, the coloring scheme switches to a fiery orange with reds and yellows giving some slight contrast; it's the light of the sun, of course, but also a revealing light. When she thinks she might be pregnant, that orange starts to get oppressive as she rushes to get a pregnancy test while lying to her partner. The ending is especially fascinating, as she's let off the hook in a way that she perhaps doesn't deserve. While the story is well-written, Scheele's own one-page "A Short History of Touches" is far more devastating, as a red arm is shown touching her in various pleasant, romantic and erotic ways--until the last panel, when it's clutching her by the throat.

The second issue features more illustrations and stories she did with other writers that look striking, like "Spells of the Kama Sutra" once again juxtaposing blue and reddish-orange, or her adaptation of the song "Like A Mountain" that gives it an apocalyptic quality. More interesting, once again, are the more personal stories. "Tell You Now" is an adaptation from a Le Tigre song, but the images speak to something else, bringing back that chilling image of a hand around a neck and the subsequent attempts at healing and simple survival. "Sinking" is a fantastic, wordless story about a woman trying to fool her nightmares into thinking she's someone else after she chops off her hair after a nightmare where she starts sinking into her bed and then has her arms and legs chopped off, like a mannequin. When she tries to go back to sleep, the same thing happens, only this time she sinks beyond sight into the bed. It's a chilling story of trying to wash horrible thoughts and memories away, only to be sucked up again by them. "Bad Omen" is another interesting story about bringing a boyfriend to a beach in Brazil after a ceremony took place that had some animal sacrifices. For her, it's a part of the local culture and her past; for him, it's an affront to civilization and she found herself have no defense against either his reaction or his arguments. The story ends abruptly, because as the title suggests, it's easy to surmise what happened after this. Here, the stark white of the beach and the bold blue of the sky create an atmosphere where gore and weirdness truly stand out.

Scheele edited The Heroines Zine, which asks each contributor to write about, draw or draw a story about a particular woman who has had a powerful impact on them--real or fictional. Philippa Rice's drawing of her sister and herself wearing onesies is charming and sweet, while Lizz Lunney's ode to the TV character Clarissa is heartfelt. Heather Wilson's story about British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst is all about how her consciousness was raised. Ellen Lindner's bouncy illustration of and interview with "city stitcher" Lauren O'Farrell (aka Deadly Knitshade) is illuminating both in terms of allowing O'Farrell to tell her story about how acts of creation became life-affirming in the wake of battling cancer as well as Lindner discovering yet another interesting creative trend. Alistair Bohm's essay about musician/writer Carrie Brownstein is terrific, and the accompanying illustration by Scheele is even better. Her drawing of musician Kathleen Hanna is even better, as it captures her dynamism. I'd like to see more on the comics side of things for future issues, but it's a terrific idea that's well-executed.