Chasing Inspiration: Bubbles and Gondola

Bubbles and Gondola (NBM) is an odd little book.At its essence, it's a book about writing, or rather, a book about inspiration. Artist Renaud Dillies poses an interesting idea in the course of this story about a mouse named Charlie: inspiration is sometimes scary, a thing to be avoided. Writer's block is a result of fear as much as it is a lack of ideas. Over the course of the book, Charlie (a writer), comes face to face with the emissary of Solitude, a bird who offers him all sorts of helpful advice. Charlie is alone in order to work, but the solitude of the desk and his fear of inspiration causes him to constantly waste time. His feeble attempts at writing all end up on the trash heap, the result of being on the titular gondola ride that simply circles around and around. Charlie shares a meal with his family, attends a carnival, winds up playing in a band at a bar and throws back a few as he battles this vertigo. Despite the whimsical drawing and fanciful setting, one can't help but feel that this is an intensely personal book for Dillies. This isn't simply a book about writer's block, but about a specific kind of aspiration and the blocks against that aspiration.

Later in the book, Charlie talks to a city worker that the the lights he put up for the carnival are beautiful things that inspire happiness, if only for a brief moment. He compares it to a child blowing bubbles, to "make things prettier, and ultimately more bearable". He's getting at the existential purpose for creating art: to make things that inspire that sort of feeling in others. It's an awesome, terrifying responsibility if one thinks too much about the effect and less about the process of creation. It gets back to Lynda Barry's invocation of the two questions that destroy creativity: "Is this good? Does this suck?" An artist cannot think about the impact of a potential work and create at the same time, and that gets to the heart of this book. That theme is carried out with a falling motif: Charlie is afraid to fall and afraid of heights, and is constantly put in that position in this book. When he finally drunkenly falls from a lamp post and then later drops a beloved coffee mug, the impact of both events frees him. In a sense, the ship painted on the side of the coffee mug is now freed from his own imagination, which allows him to free his own imagination and start to write.

Dillies' anthropomorphic style feels quite familiar, mixing George Herriman with contemporaries like Lewis Trondheim. The cute, whimsical nature of his drawings is given weight with page after page of dense hatching and cross-hatching. The book's muted color pattern also reminds me a bit of reading a children's fairy tale book of some kind, an idea further advanced with several dream-like sequences. I thought the art acted as a counter to the intense nature of Charlie's struggle; the cuteness of the characters belies their sense of pain, just as it's impossible to immediately detect emotional anguish in someone at first glance in real life. The fantasy sequences further serve to deflect Charlie's angst, even as Dillies circles closer and closer as to why his mouse is suffering from writer's block. It's difficult and even painful at times to create something beautiful, especially when the artist spends a lot of time trying to figure out if something they create is beautiful as they're creating it. The answers to the two questions must always be made by others, which is both incredibly difficult to swallow and the only way an artist can be productive. Dillies suggests that embracing fear is the only way to overcome it and reach back to the simple feeling of being a child blowing a bubble--or scrawling something on a piece of paper.

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: World War III Illustrated #42

The takeaway from World War 3 Illustrated #42 is the sheer enthusiasm on the part of the editorial staff and the contributors. For over thirty years, WW3 has been a staunch leftist, activist voice, becoming one of the longest-running comics anthologies of all times in the process. While regulars like Peter Kuper and Seth Tobocman make their mark in this issue, it's the publication's willingness to seek out and publish new voices that's long been one of its trademarks. The theme of this issue is liberation, "from the mid-east to the mid-west", and it focuses in on the "Arab spring" uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt as well as the Wisconsin protests against governor Scott Walker. What we get is a compelling series of on-the-ground reports of the experience of being part of a movement, complete with both the thrills of making a difference, the doubts that arise when things don't seem to change, and the terror experienced when the forces of the state crack down.

Regarding the latter, the comics from the Middle East are especially charged. Malik Sajad's harrowing story of having to dodge the police after posting a video proving their complicity in beating innocents in Kashmir really boils things down to their essence. By simply speaking out, he becomes a target of the law, who can warp reality to suit their ends. Sajad is a terrific young artist with a lot to say about that region's with totalitarianism. Mazen Kerbaj's "Flap Flap Blues" is a poetic take on the resistance, with a particular focus on the role of women. Magdy El Shafee's "The Anonymous" gives another ground-level view of the action in Cairo's Tahrir Square, which was ground zero for the Egyptian uprising. Ethan Heitner's story lays out some of the facts about the uprising and makes sure to discuss the fact that the struggles are not over.

Indeed, the issue leads with Edd Baldry's "Freedom", a debate between two people about the viability of political action. Even the most jubilant and upbeat of stories in the issue contains a caveat that a moment of revolutionary fervor is not the same thing as lasting, systemic change. Existing power structures are built to last and do not give up their statuses easily, and it's frequently surprisingly easy to ride out a rebellion.  That's especially true in the west, where a revolutionary moment can get glossed over by celebrity news. Still, one can't help but get caught up in the excitement of strips like "The Cheesehead Rebellion of 2011", "What's So Funny 'Bout Beer Brats And Cheese And Unions" and "Walk Like An Egyptian". These are all accounts of the mass protests in Wisconsin against Walker, who enacted a union-busting agenda and reaped a whirlwind of protest. As a comic qua comic, the first story (Written by Mike Konopocki & Kathy Wilkes, with art by Konopocki) is the best of the three, setting up and summarizing the events as a coherent narrative. The story includes a delicious tidbit that I hadn't heard: Walker was fooled into thinking that billionaire Tea Party supporter David Koch was calling him; in reality, it was a left-wing blogger playing a prank but getting all sorts of fascinating information about Walker's true intentions.

What has always made WW3 more than a simple series of polemics and rants against the right is the personal nature of so many of its stories. Sandy Jimenez' "Beyond The Lighted Cage" is a fascinating account of one man's attempt to deal with grief, anger and hate by way of the boxing ring, until one day he pulls a dirty trick on a friend because he was being beaten so badly. The searing honesty and pain on each page is palpable, even as Jimenez casts a damning eye on himself as much as he does the city and its power structures. Sabrina Jones' "Whatever Happened To The Eight Hour Day", an account of the ways in which certain kinds of workers in the entertainment industry are essentially forced to work ten-hour days, is also fascinating. Carlo Quispe's "Besame Mucho", an account of the struggle for gay rights in Peru through public kissing events, is at once painfully local and profoundly international in its scope. Jennifer Camper and Marguerite Dabaie's "Hummus Wars" is an absurd and funny account of the ways in which Israel and Lebanon fought over who created hummus in ridiculous and elaborate ceremonies over who could create the biggest bowl of hummus. The work of both artists is some of the most attractive in the book in terms of visuals, along with color sections featuring Kuper and Tobocman. Still, even if some stories lack a strong visual punch, there's a power and immediacy to every story in this book. These are stories that desperately needed to be told by their authors and quickly. This comic is a potent snapshot of a particular exciting, turbulent time across the globe by people who participated in as well as observed it all.

Anthologies: Hellbound 2

Hellbound Vol II is interesting because it's a focused anthology with a dedicated production staff and a list of contributors that doesn't stray too far from the Boston Comics Roundtable. With regard to the former, the organization of this anthology shows in the high production values and the sense of continuity in terms of design, which is owed to editor Jesse Lonergan and editor/designer Roho. From the stark yellow cover to the sharply-lettered table of contents, Hellbound 2 is a pleasant object to peruse.With regard to the locally-produced concept, it's obviously a good way for a local comics scene to make itself known to a larger audience, though the actual quality of the work is predictably uneven. That said, it's clear that every creator is putting their best foot forward, but many of the stories either fall flat or feel cliched. That's especially true with some of the "funny" entries.

For example, Nathan Kitler and Jerel Dye's "Necrocomicon" features a joke so obvious that the comic could have been wrapped up in a single page without losing its punchline. Logan Faerber's "Grampire" is a groaner of a story with an art style that's one long visual assault; the linework is so thick and textured that it's difficult to tell what's happening in some panel-to-panel transitions. On the other hand, JL Bell and Andy Wong's "RobMeBlind.com" takes a clever idea (a website that compiles facebook and twitter statuses indicating that someone is going out of town so that people can rob them) and gives it a horror twist. The initial idea is interesting enough on its own to follow through on, even as the reader knows that the robbers will not meet a kind end. Caitlin Plovnick's "Eye Contact" is perhaps the most unsettling strip in the whole book, even given the simple and even cute nature of her line. This story involves a nervous, timid woman at a job who struggles to make friends who is befriended by a nice woman, only to reveal her macabre fascination with eyeballs. The scenes at the end, focusing in on the deranged woman's face as it breaks out into a desperate, loving smile, are both funny and creepy.

The other highlights of the book include Joshua D. Hoaglund's "Mt. Auburn Night", which is a fantasy strip about the statues in a famous cemetery coming alive at night, with a sphinx acting as a spoiled pet and a set of bones coming out from under the ground to dance with the statue of a woman. The way Hoaglund spots his blacks is the key to the story's success. Ansis Purins uses zip-a-tone to smart effect in "Slappy", a zombie story whose title character lurches toward sun-up and a st of cutely-drawn forest creatures (complete with a smiling butterfly). Gabriel Robinson employs some heavy grey-scaling in "The Red Calf", a retelling of a local legend about why people pour out part of their drink in a small town. While her actual draftsmanship is only middling, her understanding of atmospherics and how to invoke dread make this story successful. Speaking of atmospherics, the most frightening story in terms of its pure visuals is Patrick Flaherty and EJ Barnes' "The Plague", a scratchboard story about how a group of grackles attacks a dog and the dog's fate when it retaliates. Clayton McCormack's "The Breath of Life" was also interesting in terms of its uses of blacks and painted approach, but it's so overwritten that the text overwhelms the story.  This is a case where less would have been more. All told, this is a typical small press genre anthology, with a balance of weaker and stronger work but with solid production values and craftsmanship throughout.

Anthologies: Lies Grown-Ups Told Me, Cartoon Crier

One of the priorities at the Center for Cartoon Studies that's pounded into its students' heads is the need to publish. Publish minicomics and work on your short-story chops before you can get to that ambitious graphic novel. Better yet, band together and publish anthologies. From the very beginning, CCS students and then alums have been publishing anthologies, many of them themed. Sundays is the best and probably the best known, but there have been a couple of dozen other CCS-related anthologies that have seen print. For the most part, the quality and professionalism of each anthology has improved with each passing year, as alumni continue to improve and the best young students contribute as well. The reader gets a sense that these aren't just filler stories, but rather examples of cartoonists truly putting their best foot forward.

Lies Grown Ups Told Me, edited by Nomi Kane, Caitlin M, and Jen Vaughn, is yet another quality anthology assembled by two CCS alums and the former Schulz Library librarian (Caitlin McGurk, now at Ohio State). Not everyone in the anthology is or was associated with CCS, but it's a good 90% of the book's contents. The anthology's theme is simple, yet proves to be fertile ground for its artists. There's not a single clunker in the whole book, even those strips whose draftsmanship isn't in the same class as the best artists in the books. Some of the very best CCS draftsmen are featured here, including Nomi Kane, Dakota McFadzean and faculty member Jon Chad. All three members of that trio do not disappoint. Kane's story is hilarious, as she repeats as a matter of fact that pregnant women shouldn't swim with dolphins because their sonar can detect the gestating baby, leading them to corner the women and kidnap the babies to raise them as their own. Until she says this out loud to her friend, she believes it to be true. Kane's figure work is pure eye-candy: expressive, amusing and packed with clever details. Speaking of detail, McFadzean's story about his grandfather's claims of being able to draw the best Donald Duck is both warm and wry, bringing past and present together in a simple satisfying manner. There's a clean elegance to his line that nonetheless always conveys warmth and emotions just below the surface. Chad's story about his parents inadvertently realizing that a television show that signaled bedtime meant putting him to bed whenever they wanted is a pretty simple one by his visually lush standards, though he still manages to throw in some clever flourishes.

Most of the contributors play the theme for laughs, and the sheer variety of lies they later discovered makes for a lively book. Some are a bit more sobering than others, like Tom Casteel discovering that hard work and dedication doesn't always pay off in "Patrol Boy of the Year", or Cody Pickrodt wondering why on earth he thought his dad thought it would be funny to pretend that he died after a rough-housing session with his two young children and no other adults around. Saying things to scare kids is another running theme, as Beth Hetland's sister freaks her out with tales of the "The Undertoad" living in the ocean, Bryan Stone's grandmother keeps him from exploring the forest by telling him that "Red Eyes" lives there and will eat his dog, and (worst of all), Andrew Greenstone's parents keep him in line by telling him of his "other brother" Igor whom they killed and buried in the backyard because he was a naughty boy. Ben Horak's "Sweet Trap" was along those lines but even better because the threat was silent. He and his brother kept raiding the cookie jar, and his frustrated mother put up a bunch of wires and other junk on it, saying "Now I have to do something drastic!"  There's a hilarious two page spread of Horak and his brother imagining what kind of trap their mother might have set, when the reality is that it was just a hoax.

Overall, the tone of the book is breezy and affectionate. That's best encapsulated by Lena Chandhok's "Earth Girls Are Easy", an account of watching that movie as a preteen with her grandfather and younger sister. It's a lovely story because it captures the moment when Chandhok realized that she was suddenly on the other side of the divide of adult and child, knowing something that her younger sister didn't. I liked that the editors reached out to plenty of non-CCS artists as well, like letterer/caricaturist Rick Parker's illustrated story about being accused of cutting up a garden hose, Jesse Lonergan's hilarious account of being duped as to the origin of broccoli, and the superb Scottish artist Lorna Miller chiming on in on the reasons why she was told not to pick dandelions as a child. The editors do a nice job of alternating the truly silly stories with the slightly more contemplative or serious ones, though the tone throughout is fairly lighthearted. 

Another CCS anthology with precisely the opposite tact is The Cartoon Crier, edited by Cole Closser, James Sturm and R.Sikoryak. This is a free, 36-page comics broadsheet that's a collaboration between the National Cartoonist's Society and CCS, with the theme being sadness and crying. This is a fascinating snapshot of contemporary newspaper cartooning and the next young wave of cartoonists, as the editors plumb the depths of veterans like Mort Walker to find those strips that defy conventional punchlines in the service of expressing misery. I imagine this project owes much to the Comics Editor of King Features Syndicate, Brendan Burford, who is also a small-press cartoonist. He contributes a strip theorizing how cartoonists transformed from garrulous men-about-town in the early part of the 20th century to the more introverted and downbeat characters of recent years, and guesses that the influence of Charles Schulz had the biggest impact. It's obvious that the hand of Schulz can be felt in many of the modern strips when they do turn away from gags.

Consider Lynn Johnston, whose series of strips regarding the death of a family dog is absolutely shattering. Like Schulz, the strips have the rhythm of a comedic strip, but she eschews punchlines in some for portents, while the punchlines in other strips later take a dark turn. Sturm provides an example of a brutal strip by the Family Circus' Bil Keane that technically contains a gag but only in the bleakest of terms. In general, the strips by the CCS cartoonists are more interesting and daring than the NCS strips, which is understandable given the total freedom they have. While there a few CCS veterans and some other outside artists, most of the contributors to this comic are either current students or 2012 graduates, and they give a fine accounting for themselves given this format. April Malig's simply-drawn strip about her difficulty controlling her tendency to cry is clever, especially given her solution. Sophie Goldstein's full-page "Potato Baby" is hilariously depressing as it doucments the ridiculous travails of the tile character. Rachel Dukes' slickly-drawn "Lucky Dog" is even more over the top, as it addresses the side issue of the lonely life of the cartoonist. Closser's own "Little Tommy Lost" and his activity page are evocative of classic newspaper cartooning. The former is an homage to Milt Caniff-style adventure strips, while the latter goofs on being maudlin. Donna Almendrala's Nancy pastiche is hilarious, expertly evoking the cadence of that strip while staying on theme. (She also had a strong strip in Lies Grown Ups Told Me.) Max Riffner and Dakota McFadzean are two cartoonists whose slick draftsmanship is clearly strong enough for syndicate work, even as their strips here both take enormously dark turns.

The lineup of veteran cartoonists, CCS alumni and CCS fellows here is killer. Sturm's autobiographical strip about getting older, drawn in the form of a superhero comic, is thoughtful and smart. Sikoryak, the comics/literary mashup master, this time around puts together Dilbert and Herman Melvile's Bartleby The Scrivener, an inspired pairing given that both address workplace ennui and forms of rebellion. Scribbly autobio specialist David Libens contributes a marvelous strip about a kid visiting the grave of his dead pet and telling her a secret: that he no longer uses a potty seat. It's a strong use of detail, as Libens has a knack for translating how little kids talk into comics form. Melissa Mendes has a typically strong but understated story about a girl who sees her dog die in an accident, with the last panel showing her back to the reader as she processes the grief by drawing pictures of her beloved pet. Jon Chad goes literal with an ingenious, thin-lined strip about a "scientist" who takes us through a series of background sight gags about how and why humans cry. Joe Lambert's "Retainer" is yet another example of the artist's increasing complexity and maturity, even as he continues to explore the dynamics of children and teens. Ariel Bourdeaux, the 90s comics veteran who recently graduated from CCS, contributes a funny strip about crying listening to children sing, and the embarrassing feeling of being spotted in public in a bright room, crying uncontrollably. Laura Park's story about someone recalling their mother being sent away before their fifth birthday because of mental illness is all the more heartbreaking when the final panel reveals that she was glad because she knew that she'd get the biggest slice of cake. Robyn Chapman's story about a woman who is unable to cry after a childhood as a crybaby is restrained yet powerful.

The broadsheet also contains commentary by Shaenon Garrity on the saddest comics she's ever read, while Andrew Farago compiles the results of a survey of cartoonists about the same question. Overall, The Cartoon Crier isn't necessarily a compelling read from page to page and strip to strip, as many of the syndicated strips are still rather banal. This comic is better read like a regular newspaper section--with some brilliant strips, some reliable favorites, some interesting discoveries, and a good deal of dross. Its goal of comparing and contrasting two entirely different worlds of cartooning and finding common ground was an interesting one, especially since Schulz is an influence on nearly every cartoonist. What's most impressive about it is that the youngest cartoonists really took this assignment seriously and did their best work. It's not unusual to be impressed with CCS cartoonists after reading an anthology, but it's rare that every contributor does their best work. It's this group that's the true backbone of this anthology.

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.

Odd Genre Minis: Cardini, Baddeley, Burggraf, Harder

Let's take a look at a few odd genre minis, each with their own unique take on sci-fi/fantasy/adventure.

Vortex #2, by William Cardini. Cardini is headed in an interesting direction by continuing to work big and using an amorphous figure-drawing style that continues to drift away from his biggest influence, Mat Brinkman. This issue also establishes a real narrative outside of the "two powerful figures meet and fight" nature of the first issue. His protagonist The Miizzard, after seemingly defeating his sword-wielding opponent in the first issue by biting its head off, finds his opponent bursting out of his stomach. To his surprise, the creature asks for his help, and Cardini takes the reader on a journey underground as he explores an environment with page after page of eye-grabbing images. Cardini's characters are frequently amorphous, something he represents with limited use of line and a heavy use of effects like zip-a-tone and grey-scaling.Only The Miizzard himself is depicted with a continuously thick line, befitting the solidity and quiet resolve of his presence. Working big and using so many decorative patterns gives this issue a psychedelic feel, yet one that's grounded in rock-solid and simple layouts. It's enjoyable seeing Cardini move his characters around, with or without a larger narrative, but he seems to be building up to something interesting here.

Silent V #5, by Kyle Baddeley. Baddeley starts to connect some dots in this crazy, loopy sci-fi/time-travel/occult/horror comic. For a comic that features an ancient god brought forth by blood sacrifice traveling to the future to confront his enemy, there sure are a lot of weird quips and funny situations. At the same time, Baddeley treats his narrative with deadly seriousness, even if all of his characters are silly-looking (the ancient god looks like a dog-like Muppet) and do odd things (the god happens to have a glass-cutter in his shorts, a minute after his acolyte thinks the god is about to masturbate while standing on top of his shoulders looking through a window). Baddeley's line is growing more confident and he has a much better sense of how do design and balance individual panels and pages. The back-up story, the silent "Flotsam and Jetsam" is a truly disgusting bit of oneupsmanship as two men devour a meal, devour the bones, devour their feces after the meal, and then look to devour each other. The bulbous noses and shading that Baddeley employs reminds me a little of Skip Williamson in places as he goes into lovingly gross detail of the things the two men are eating. It's probably the single best set of drawings and most coherent narrative I've seen from Baddeley to date; he mentioned possibly adding a short story in every issue, and I think this is something that would anchor the comic a bit more for new readers as well as allow him to complete full but simple narratives. Slowly but surely, Baddeley is becoming a talent to watch.

Furlqump, by Brett Harder. This lovely little hand-made object falls into the genre of children's lit, with a clear line of inspiration from the surreal storytelling style of Dr. Seuss. This is more of a heavily illustrated story than a "pure" comic, though there are pages with a panel or two and word balloons. The key to this book's success is the clear and attractive lettering of Harder and the eye-popping use of watercolors. The story involves a peek into a nearby floating world whose entrance from earth is elusive and one particular inhabitant of this world, an outcast Qumpod named Tedlow. The book is about the ways in which the other members of his race communicate and shun his new mode of communication, until he's able to solve an intractable problem. There's a marvelous fluidity to Harder's storytelling in this book, effortlessly introducing new concepts into the story and quickly integrating them with what the reader knows up til that point. Like Seuss, there's an additive quality to the story as new concepts keep stacking up until they come into conflict with each other until they finally resolve. The other thing I enjoyed about Harder's artwork is the way he adds solidity to his figures with delicately feathered cross-hatching, making his characters feel real in a way that most children's characters don't. Despite the craziness of his figures, Harder is actually quite restrained in his storytelling, providing a number of quiet and contemplative moments for his characters. This is a delightful and genuinely touching book, lovingly produced by its publisher.

Mongoloid Revenge and Kid Space Heater, by Josh Burggraf.  These comics are broad, cartoony, violent and silly. Mongoloid features a moose bent on revenge getting a gang of underwater ghost pirates to make his mongoloid enemy's life hell. Kid features a young boy stumbling upon a sentient superweapon with a dark sense of humor. The former comic finds the title character's life ruined in an unexpected gag in an ending that's bleakly funny.  The latter comic is big (about 8 x 10") and agreeably bombastic, as there's some kind of explosion, bizarre tech or chase on nearly every page. Burggraf mixes his simple design figures with what look like computer-drawn backgrounds, allowing the figures to pop on every page without isolating them too much against bland backgrounds. The mix works, as the eye always has something to follow on every page without getting confused or bored. His anthropomorphic figures are funny and slightly disturbing, rendered with thick, rubbery lines. There's not much nuance in these comics as Burggraf goes over the top on every page and in every panel, but there's a light touch to his storytelling that makes these comics a breezy read. There's not much in the way of substance in Burggraf's work, but that's not to say that they're not impeccably planned and designed. In his case, style is substance.