Minis: Born To Die

Virginia Paine's mini Born To Die is subtitled "Dark Souls, Depression, And Making Comics." Video games have evolved to the point where their narrative qualities have elevated them above mere hobby status and much closer to an art form. One result of this is that playing certain games is metaphorically evocative in any number of ways, and Paine connects this particular game to depression and creation. Dark Souls is a notoriously difficult and unforgiving game. Its very premise is a grim one: the main player is the Chosen Undead, sent on a quest to rekindle an ancient flame by acquiring souls. The game is relentless in its gameplay and dark, but it has a compelling quality that draws a player to keep going not matter how many setbacks they face.

For Paine, the game is an apt metaphor for dealing with depression. At a certain point, one has to choose to keep grinding every day, even if there doesn't seem to be an immediate reward. Video games are supposed to be escapist fun, but Paine noted that the murky, unpleasant world of Dark Souls was not unlike living in a Portland where wildfires were raging, being underpaid at her job, walking to work in 100 degree weather, and being horrified at the news. Drawing herself as the Chosen Undead, she had it think "I'm so alone in this world" and "I'm not strong enough yet." When probing deeper as to why this was resonating so strongly with her, she realized that the physical act of playing the game was not unlike hacking away at the drawing board, wondering why she even bothered.

This was connected to chronic depression in the sense that there's no end or reward, "only more work." One creates rules for daily survival, and deviating from them creates the same kind of crisis as a simple mistake in the game. Paine keeps going because for her, there's no other choice. She is compelled. Like the video game itself, the struggle "doesn't get easier. I just get better." Surviving means developing skills, rituals, and strategies to keep the process going. Paine is a plodder. She continues to seek out relationships and believe that someone can love her, even if she feels too broken to be loved. She keeps drawing comics despite feeling that she's too old to achieve success. Her character keeps playing, even though the goal seems vague and always out of reach. There's a particular phrase she uses that snaps it into sharp relief: "It doesn't get easier. I just get better." Life continues to be full of frustration, grief, and a feeling of perpetual failure. The world never gets easier to deal with; one's own coping mechanisms only become more refined. Healthy defense mechanisms allow one to deal with obstacles head on, while unhealthy defense mechanisms are ultimately untenable. For Paine, holding on to that sense of compulsion in the face of all self-defeating logic is precisely what allows her to create, to work, and to cope with depression. The work must get done. We are compelled to do it. It's the plodder's way, as any writer knows.   

Virginia Paine's Milkyboots

Virginia Paine has been doing diary comics for quite some time, but she actually stopped after 2012 in favor of other work. At CAKE, she had a couple of other recent diary comics (all in her Milkyboots series) as well as an older issue I hadn't seen. Paine has always worn a lot of hats in comics. She's taught comics, she worked for Dylan Williams at Sparkplug Comic Books and later took over the company when he died. She chose to shutter Sparkplug last year after a solid run that produced several excellent comics, particularly from trans creators.

It's a shame that Paine abandoned diary comics when she did, because Milkyboots #14 reveals a artist who had become really good at them. While she was always adept at writing clearly about her emotions and relationships in a way that was involving to the reader, what changed was her clarity as an artist. She simultaneously grew more confident as a draftsman while mostly simplifying her line, giving her comics both immediacy and clarity. At the same time, her figure drawings of her friends (fellow cartoonists) are exquisitely expressive and naturalistic in a way I hadn't seen from her before. At the same time, her daily observations following a bad breakup are poetic, spare and shattering. There's a sense of flailing around in her observations, going from wondering about her ex to thinking about the things she drinks every day. Paine also writes about going to therapy and how having students as therapists makes for an odd dynamic at times, setting boundaries with her friends while appreciating how much they mean to her, her sadness about the death of Williams, and the ways in which she resonates with music.

Milkyboots #15 was originally a Patreon comic that picked up four years later. It reflects an artist who's in the midst of bringing Sparkplug to an end and trying to figure out her new path. There's a lot of frustration in this comic, as Paine has started to feel burdened by the concept of success and what it means. There's travel, a new girlfriend that she portrays far less intimately than she did the girlfriend portrayed in early issues of the series, and new creative plans. One always gets a sense of motion from Paine, even when she's grappling with depression and uncertainty. Despite the fact that she clearly drew these comics as quickly as possible, her line was bold and confident, even as it was sketchy and especially loose.

Milkyboots #16 was billed as the "food issue", and it was a simple, direct way of connecting certain food experiences with autobiographical experiences. The comic makes lovely use of spot color, using an open-page format instead of a grid. The coloring (from markers?) is vibrant without being intrusive. Paine recalls living in Bolivia as a child, eating flatbread, peaches off a tree and an especially delicious salad. That resonance of food and memory is a powerful one, all the more so when that memory is of something very simple but great tasting because of preparation and freshness. There are other travel memories, but there are also memories of being an adult with no money who was eating dumpstered food. She often depended on the kindness of friends, and the memory of that food donated also resonated with her because of both taste and her life at the time. This comic is in many ways more personally revealing than many of Paine's other comics, as talking about food is something that can only really be done directly, but the common experience of relating that experience makes the narrative a connective one. The consumption of food and the context in which we eat it has meaning and resonance, especially if food is scarce or not taken for granted. There's an easy charm about this issue that doesn't have any figure drawings in it, yet is as personal and revealing as any of Paine's other diary comics.

Saying Good-Bye To Sparkplug: Lee, Sakugawa, Smith, Cardini

Nearly five years after the death of Dylan Williams, his eventual successor Virginia Paine has decided to shutter Sparkplug Comic Books. In the interim, she published a few projects that had been ongoing and introduced the world to some interesting young cartoonists. She did a fine job of continuing in Williams' memory by being true to her own aesthetic and interests and published some strong work as a result. This column will review the last few original publications from Sparkplug.

Vortex, by William Cardini. This is the collected edition of Cardini's interesting four-issue series that was more about texture and shape than it was character and story. That's OK, because watching Cardini cycle through his Mat Brinkman influence by drawing the entire thing on a computer asks the reader to consider each image as an image, both in terms of its over gestalt as well as its individual component. He works so big that the dots in the zip-a-tone effects he uses are enormous, reminding the reader that what they're seeing is computer-generated. That trick offers a layer of humor to the proceedings, as the story's protagonist (The Miizzzard) at one point bites the arm of an opponent and eats it. It's more like a video game effect than the more visceral experience one might get from the "warmer" environments that Brinkman creates. The story follows the galactic traveler The Miizzzard to a planet of living weapons who beg him to destroy their central control circuitry. That's pretty much the entire plot, as the Miizzzard has to go through a series of trials that attack his sense of reality and identity, expressed by Cardini as a series of wavy lines, repeated patterns and psychedelic effects. Here, the artificiality of the line and the "cold" effect the reader feels actually advances the narrative, as the Miizzzard must break through the illusion. Only the Miizzzard is continuously depicted with a thick, defining line, befitting his status as the most solid, "real" character in the story. Most of the other characters are grey-scaled blobs without that sort of defining line, which allows them to melt and warp on the page. Above all else, what this shares most with the Fort Thunder aesthetic is that this comic is an exploration of space and environment, only Cardini finds a way to depict its total otherness and alien qualities rather than warmly taking the reader on a tour. Only the Miizzzard stands in for the reader, and he's as baffled by what he sees and experiences as the reader is. The ultimate result is Cardini's most ambitious, eccentric and amusing project to date.

Ce/Ze, by Suzette Smith. This is a fascinating, unsettling story about two high school girls who become friends and share the same dream: of one of the girls dying in a girl accident. They come to believe that they're aliens who have lived past lives, which informs their friendship, their relationships with other friends and how they act around their parents. I love the way that Smith draws each figure: Amelia wears huge, almost bug-eyed glasses, while Honey's appearance is almost always deadpan. They both have a sort of alien, almost reptilian, presence at times. Smith strikes a balance between a portrayal of the ways in which friends can develop their own language and identity apart from societal approval and understanding with a genuinely fantastical story that unspools itself, bit by bit. That said, Smith always leaves a layer of ambiguity to the proceedings. Are Honey and Amelia really remembering their past lives together? Did Amelia get murdered several times in different lives by a male, kingly figure? Are they aliens, fairies, or something else? Will the outcome be different this time around? Is there fantasy relationship a sublimation of their attraction for each other? Smith provides no easy answers, but does create fascinating connections between the characters. Whether or not those connections are real, synchronicity or pure fantasy is left for the reader to decide, but there are certainly enough clues to tantalize the reader. The muddy, murky drawings in pages with panel-less borders adds to the dreamy quality of this comic, as Smith wants a slightly strange, disorienting visual experience for the reader.

Bird Girl And Fox Girl, by Yumi Sakugawa. I was greatly impressed by Sakagawa's recent Ikebana, and one can see the leap she made from this comic to her more recent work. This comic is a sort of modern fable that begins with the relationship between the titular characters being severed, and the rest of the comic is the fallout from these events. We never learn why they were torn apart, only that it scarred both of them so deeply that they literally became different beings as a result. Bird Girl got an operation that turned her into a human, got married and had kids, which is as clear a metaphor for identity self-erasure as I've ever seen. Fox Girl becomes a model who specializes in dangerous settings, a drive toward self-destruction by way of conforming to gender stereotypes. The two eventually find their conventional lives fragmenting, leading them both back to the desert from whence they came, but their reunion only recapitulates the pain they felt. Sakugawa's voice and point of view are sharp and bold, but her line isn't quite as refined as it would later become. Simply put, there are a lot of drawings that just don't work in the context that she's trying to create, and it's distracting. An example is a drawing of Fox Girl wearing a mask, only her mouth is clearly drawn too far to the right on her face. There are a lot of images that are clearly meant to be singular and striking, but they just don't have the impact that was perhaps intended. Still, this is a fascinating comic from a thematic point of view, and Sakugawa's deadpan, almost cold narrative voice is an interesting contrast from the actual events of the comic.

A Wretch Like Me, by Ebin Lee. This is not a narrative, per se, in the sense that there's not a linear narrative on a page to page basis. However, there's no question that Lee is telling a powerful story in these pages. The subtitle of this comic is "Sad/Black/Ugly/Queer", and it's all about the ways in which feeling like the Other in a space dominated by the dominant hierarchy can be so devastatingly alienating. I'm not sure if the dysphoria that Lee refers to is gender dysphoria (feeling like one is in entirely the wrong body) or a more generalized dysphoria, a general dissatisfaction with one's own skin in general. Regardless, the above image encapsulates that sense of frustration that one can't simply choose another body to take off the rack. Another theme that Lee elucidates is being black in white spaces, with a nightmarish image of hands tearing at his head with the caption of "Can I touch your hair" indicating the way that sort of microaggression can be amplified in an unsafe space. There are images of Lee's face melting as he looks in the mirror, another where Lee is trying to rescue a black shadow of himself. Lee's images are often so dense that they appear to be etched, like in a two page spread of a "mammy" on one page and a crying face eating watermelon on the next, captioned "Trapped in the white imagination". Another page notes the pain of invisibility (erase of race, gender, and identity) with the danger of visibility in a public space. This comic is a howl of truth, flipping from painful image to painful image almost like a fever dream.

Minicomics: Burkert/Rhodes, Paine, Bongiovanni, R.Jordan, Van Sciver

Too Many Nitrous and 2 Many Nitrous, by Billy Burkert and Samuel Rhodes. These sillly and entertaining comics are very loosely based on the silly and entertaining Fast and the Furious movies. The Vin Diesel character is reimagined as a former fat kid who only takes up bodybuilding and driving as a way of getting revenge on a masked driver who destroyed his favorite fast-food joint. The comic is at its best when making fun of the ridiculous "street" lingo from the films as well as the nonsensical gearhead content relating to cars and add-ons. That latter element appears especially ridiculous as the cars are all drawn with what looks like a primitive drawing program, making the racing scenes ridiculous instead of exciting. The figures are cartoony and exaggerated, with dark, bulbous noses and rubbery faces that mimic the smirks and mugging found in the acting styles of the movies. There are absurd sub-plots (like one friend of protagonist Dom [the Vin Diesel character from the movies] going off to find ghostly racing apparel worn by his father), over-the-top slang ("Streets is up!") and other such nonsense. Fans of the films will likely enjoy the gentle pokes the comics aim in their direction, though others may be utterly baffled.

Alamo Value Plus #1, by Rusty Jordan. This is a new series by Jordan, who seems fascinated by mutating the world of low-value retail into bizarre, improbable adventures. This one features recurring Jordan character Duane and a ridiculous character named Baldemar Pretzeldorf, who recounts a harrowing tale of escaping from the Nazis with his mother while on break. Jordan's rubbery character design employs nice, fat, rounded lines and exaggerated character poses. The effect matches realistic storytelling with highly cartoony figures, not unlike a Skip Williamson drawing. Jordan actually makes the action sequence quite compelling, especially when contrasted with the adult Baldemar's bombastic speaking style ("That's the smell of another wonderful day in variety retail!") and the younger Baldemar's slang that's informed by Arnold Schwarzeneggar-style quips. This issue is packed with crazy events, yet it's really just a set-up issue. Jordan has a way of stopping on a dime and escalating the lunacy of his stories, so I'm curious as to just how demented the second issue will be, when Baldemar is confronted by his old Nazi nemesis.

Selfie, by Anna Bongiovanni. Bongiovanni's comics tend to trade in dark themes and wilderness settings, exposing the raw nerves of emotion and experience. This hilarious mini couldn't be any more different from those comics, even as it pokes at loneliness and awkwardness. The comic features a couple of friends named Riley and Sam; both are lonely and having trouble finding company in different ways. Sam is a straight woman who isn't being helped much by her flatmate Riley, an out 'n proud lesbian who is a self-described "creeper". Rather than being told in Bongiovanni's usual dense, cross-hatched style, this story is instead done in red ink with occasional yellow zip-a-tone effects and drawn in a loose, scribbly style. The only other visual effect is that whenever someone uses a phone to take a picture (like one of the titular "selfies"), an actual b&w photograph is used on the page. Whether or not that's meant to suggest that this story is loosely autobiographical or not is beside the point, because the arc of the story, featuring Riley as someone who's both swaggeringly confident and relentlessly insecure about herself, leads to some sharply-designed comedic sequences. Indeed, Riley takes a picture of a girl she instantly crushes on from afar, then winds up drunkenly running over her with her bicycle. Bongiovanni captures the desperate need for affection along with the genuinely funny tension between friends Sam and Riley, a pair that's gone far beyond the ability to truly offend the other. Bongiovanni is truly on a roll this year, and this mini is proof that she can tell any kind of story.

Kit and Luisa Stories, by Virginia Paine. This mini features three stories about a couple of teens who have a tenuous sexual and romantic relationship. Kit is a taciturn, hoodie-sporting young woman who has a serious crush on Luisa, a religious girl who nonetheless feels compelled to put Kit's affections on a string by sending her mixed messages. Paine seems to have done a lot of thinking about these two characters and knows them inside and out, which allows her to be restrained about what she chooses to show. There's a lot of deep, churning emotions and a powerful but enervating tension between Kit and Luisa, a tension that drives Kit to walk away at the end of the book even as Luisa once again is unable and unwilling to safely navigate the waters between friendship and flirtation. Paine heightens this tension by subtly introducing fantasy elements, like Luisa's ability to control fire and Kit's bizarre job involving a demented potato room. Paine's greatest asset as a drawer is her ability to zoom in and subtly depict emotions; she's on shakier ground when she tries to show dance club scenes and other, wider environments. Still, Paine's clearly hit on something here, and I look forward to seeing this story evolve as a webcomic in the future.

Saint Cole Part One, by Noah Van Sciver. This is a collection of the first 46 pages of Van Sciver's strip on his website, The Expositor. It's a typically bleak, hilarious account of a loser in over his head. In this story, a waiter named Joe has to work crazy shifts as a waiter to barely support his girlfriend and infant son. Like many of Van Sciver's characters, he is slowly undone by his own actions (boozing on the job, fantasizing about screwing a co-worker's 17 year old sister) as well as others (his hilariously shiftless, profane mother-in-law who forces her way into living with them). There's a level of grungy authenticity that's almost poetic in how Van Sciver creates a character who is unlikable yet entirely sympathetic. I can't wait to see where this one goes.

Personal Stories: MariNaomi, Rob Kirby, Virginia Paine

What's New Pussycat?, by MariNaomi. With small, spare drawings done on big pages, MariNaomi gives this story time to breathe, build and develop a certain uncomfortable rhythm. It's about her history with a particular dorky guy who awkwardly flirted with her over a period of years as they encountered each other at various work spaces. Each little vignette is separated by raindrops, with the rain getting heavier until the final vignette, when we learn the guy has met a tragic end. There's no real moral here, nor is this an excuse for the author to beat herself up for not seeing how deeply depressed the guy (Herbert) was. It's simply a solemn, respectful and honest appraisal of his behavior (he made her uncomfortable with mildly sexist remarks and actions), her behavior (she felt she overreacted when she finally rebuked him, years later) and the ways in which depression can lead us to dark territories. The images are spare, stark and beautiful, with some of her best-ever drawing. In particular, her figure drawing is simple but highly expressive, capturing MariNaomi's naivete as a younger woman and Herbert's complex mixture of despair, wit and desperation to connect. The author's epilogue provided interesting background information but wasn't really necessary for understanding or relating to the story.

Rob Kirby's Snack Pak #1, by Rob Kirby. Kirby is just a solid cartoonist overall with a light, fanciful touch. This grab-bag comic contains gags, diary strips, drawings and vignettes. Kirby leads a relatively quiet, successful and contented life, with most of his anxiety being directed at his career as a cartoonist. His self-caricature is one of the most charming in comics, complete with a slightly-upturned pickle nose. Kirby enjoys playing up his more embarrassing moments for laughs, like the time he felt sick and fainted on a plane or puked on a Mexican vacation. His daily strips can take on a slightly poetic tone, as he does his best work when commenting on how he interacts with his environment outside and how it makes him feel physically. He also has an ear for an anecdote, especially when he starts talking about the always-reliable comics convention stories. Then there are times when he's just plain funny, like his "Middle Age" strip about having a six-pack, drinking six packs and then having a bun in the oven and "junk in mah trunk" set to a funky beat heard only in his own mind. It's a great bit of exaggerated cartooning and a nice joke at a his own expense. Kirby's the kind of artist who can do just about any type of storytelling, and minis like this are clearly a way for him to stay nimble and loose while he's between longer projects, with results that are delightful for the reader.

MilkyBoots #14, by Virginia Paine. This comic represents a big step forward for Paine as both a writer and cartoonist. Though mostly a series of vignettes, drawings, profiles and other small pieces, it's all surrounding Paine's feelings regarding a rough break-up. What's remarkable about this comic is the way that Paine eschews that path of simple lamentation and instead tries to gain insight into her own emotional and existential points of view. It really looks like Paine put a great deal of effort into both the quality of her drawings and the design of the piece; it seems clear that she did a lot of drawing from life. Many of the vignettes experiment with all sorts of different layouts, with her use of negative space adding a lot of clarity and power to her individual images. Paine also spends time to establish her daily routines and support system in the form of her friends who sit out on the porch with her, all while examining deeper questions about herself: her sexual identity, her identity regarding relationships (polyamorous vs monogamous) and how to handle emotionally needy friends. It's a beautiful, powerful and altogether cohesive mini that's greater than the sum of its parts.

Anthologies: Little Heart

2D Cloud's Kickstarter-funded anthology Little Heart is uneven as far as the quality of its contributions goes, though in some respects that's beside the point. A portion of the book's proceeds went to [MN]Love, a nonprofit dedicated to marriage equality in Minnesota. As an adopted North Carolinian, enduring the results of Amendment One this past year was disgraceful, as it made so-called "marriage protections" part of the state constitution. Until the US Supreme Court rules otherwise, more states are in danger of having to deal with these barbaric and discriminatory practices. As such, one can forgive that some of the entries in this anthology either aren't comics or else display more enthusiasm than skill.

Let's take a closer look at the stories themselves. One thing that I liked about the anthology is that there was no specific requirement for the contributors to make their story about gay marriage. Indeed, a number of the stories are personal accounts from people who are single or have no desire to get married. I thought two of the better (if on-the-nose) stories came from Virginia Paine and Maurice Vellekoop, respectively. Paine talked about that even when she dated men, she never thought of marriage as an attractive option, but did say that having a choice like anyone else is important.Vellekoop, the great Canadian illustrator, interviews some friends after nearly a decade of equal access under the law in his country. It's a fascinating piece and a nice capstone to the book, as some of his friends discuss the pros and cons of marriage as well as their own mixed feelings about the institution. A couple of his friends felt it was too imitative of the straight world (a quite common claim), while others liked the idea of being part of an ancient institution and making it their own. It's a fascinating discussion of some finer points of the experience that many don't think about, drawn in Vellekoop's trademark angular, attractive style.

A couple of stories were personal accounts of deciding to get married, focusing in on specific aspects of the experience. For Emily Carroll and Kate Craig, their story focused on the simple engagement ring purchased online, which had an inscription from another couple. It's a simple sentiment, wondering about who these people were but focusing more on the present. Mari Naomi's account of proposing to her husband was more complicated, as she spoke to one queer friend whose less than enthusiastic "How nice for you, that you're able to do that" spoke to the divide between gay and bi individuals as well as the dilemma many hetero partners feel when they think about marrying. That said, the sheer enthusiasm and nervousness comes through on every page, and the splash page featuring the proposal was nicely understated, as Mari Naomi puts the image of her proposing in the bottom left hand corner, surrounded by tons of white space.

Some of the strips focus less on the idea of marriage than the experience of being queer and exploring that identity.Alex Fukui's "Footsie" for example, is a painful example of having desperate yearnings as a young person and wondering if someone you have a crush on is interested in as well, with the added layer of total fear about being a teen and being gay. Ed Choy and Sam Sharpe's "Roosterlegs" is by far the best-looking strip in the book thanks to the bold, confident lines, clever character design and interesting use of spot color. It's a strip about a young person trying to investigate the realities of what being queer means in nature and exploring the possibility of trans identity.

Other stories focus on being alone vs being with someone and the sacrifices one makes in either scenario. Christopher Adams' evocative silent story about a priest going about his day, hanging out with members of his congregation, speaks to the nature of the solitude of his position and the peace he has ultimately made with it. Hannah Blumenreich's story of a lovable pre-teen oddball who earnestly believes that she is psychic is endearing precisely because of her lack of self-awareness, even as she makes subtle shifts in attitude when reality dictates it. Joseph Remnant's excellent story about a guy crushing hard on a girl he sees at a bookstore and subsequently talks to at an art show is funny because of the quite deranged nature of obsessiveness overriding reason. The fact that this story gets a happy doesn't feel like a cheat so much as an indication that the leads occupied the same place in their circle of friends and really did find out by accident that they were perfect for each other. Noah Van Sciver's account of Richard & Mildred Loving's struggle to have their mixed-race marriage accepted in the south is especially poignant given that their union was opposed on many of the same supposed moral grounds as gay marriage is today. Jeremy Sorese's story about his divorced parents remarrying provides the structure for his own mixed feelings about marriage in an elegant and stylish series of highly stylized images. He gets at an interesting point: even if gay marriage is a big deal, why should a 23 year old be worrying about marriage anyway?

Most of the other stories are pleasant enough, if forgettable. I thought the inclusion of spot illustrations didn't do much to strengthen the anthology, especially since few of them were especially memorable. The handwritten coming-out story of Tammy Ray was impassioned but wasn't really comics, and Rachel Kowarski's poem did not fit at all. Editor Raighne Hogan likes to take risks in his anthologies and errs on the side of leaving in submissions that perhaps should have been cut. He leaves it up to the reader to decide their worth, which is admirable, but I'd love to see him exercise a firmer editorial hand. Of course, this anthology wasn't necessarily the place to do so, and erring on the side of enthusiasm in this case made sense. There's no question that it's a beautifully designed book, as all 2D Cloud projects tend to be, and I hope that it makes a difference.

Anthologies: Candy or Medicine and Brad Trip

I'll be reviewing a wildly diverse batch of indy anthologies this week. Let's start at the most DIY end of things, with Josh Blair's entry-level anthology Candy or Medicine and the Portland publishers team-up for Free Comic Book Day, Brad Trip.

Candy or Medicine #17. The previous issue was the best of the entire series, which is geared toward new creators looking for a publishing outlet and is printed in classic 5.5 x 4.5 minicomics format. This issue is more typically uneven, with a lot of lightweight, crudely drawn stories. I did enjoy the drawing in Jon Light's "Pizza Bill" strip about an anthropomorphic pizza that winds up splattered against a wall, though it does remind me a bit of the sort of thing that Jon Vermilyea does. Harry Nordlinger's strip about a man demanding to see a woman who had just been buried, only to be directed to a tower, an interminable wait and a potential reunion with her that is highly unpleasant, has a grim but amusing quality. I also liked the frantically scrawled and slightly grotesque covers by Willard Herman, thanks to their slightly awkward charm. The rest of the entries felt slight, especially the two pages that seemed to be little more than an advertisement for a webcomic.  We'll see what sort of comics Blair unearths for his next volume.

Brad Trip. This is the latest of the oddly-titled anthologies co-published by a number of west coast micropublishers.  This year, it's Sparkplug, Revival House, Teenage Dinosaur and the retailer Floating World. Printed on fairly cheap newsprint, the format favors the unusual and striking nature of the artists featured. Aidan Koch opens up with one of her smudgy, oddly paced and formatted pencil-heavy comics. The strip features extreme close-ups between two men meeting on a beach, with extended pans over to a horse frolicking in the surf. Like many of her comics, it's both impenetrable and completely straightforward. Annie Murphy contributes a charmingly creepy story about a young woman traveling to what seems to be Baba Yaga's hut to receive a gift.  The gift is distilled to a flame, which she's ordered to swallow, providing a source of illumination. Once again, this story is entirely straightforward, but the story's symbols are mysterious. This is a search for knowledge, even as it's revealed that the young woman is half-human, half beast.

Constance Hockaday and artist Maria Sputnik go in a different direction, with Sputnik's charmingly ramshackle style being used to illustrate a section of a story about a family that escapes authority by living on a raft made of garbage. Sputnik's design is interesting, as some of the panels are made to look as though they were torn directly out of a sketchbook, with part of one page flipping upside-down. Kinoko Evans' story about two sphinxes eating a stereotypical hipster is cute but lightweight and disposable. Virginia Paine's story about a girl waiting on another girl indifferent to her affections is one of her best to date. She captures the quiet passion of the girl pursuing someone she clearly has deep feelings for; even as she's rejected, she expresses no emotion, with Paine letting the Childish Gambino song speak for her. It's a well-designed, emotionally ambiguous story that has a strong sense of place and character. Dunja Jankovic closes out the issue with one of her increasingly abstract and psychedelic comics that coalesces into a coherent form only at the end. The way she plays with shapes and patterns suggests a journey looking inward or an extreme close-up that is by nature highly distorted.  All told, this is a visually striking anthology that moves from strength to strength and style to style with its stable of young artists.