Sleepwalker Issue 1 by Molly Lawless

Molly Lawless’s first issue of Sleepwalker contains three stories and a couple pin-up pages.

“Great Moments in Baseball” documents a not so great baseball moment. Strangely winning their last ever home game in 1971, the Washington Senators were forced to forfeit the game after being besieged by trash and debris from the stands. Here, Lawless crams the panels full of shading and detail. It gives the ballpark a claustrophobic feel that the players probably felt as the game sputtered out of control.

In “The Turning of the Worm,” loser Jeff worms his way into a famous writer’s life. The writer, Martin, is a mess, and Jeff pays Martin’s bills and answers his mail. Jeff convinces his friends that he assumes a much greater role in creating Martin’s books. After three years the relationship between writer and assistant grows antagonistic. Jeff takes pleasure in tormenting Martin, and it looks like just a matter of time before Martin reacts. In the story, you don’t feel for either Martin or Jeff, but when part one ends you are curious about what happens next. “The Turning of the Worm” is written by Carlton King and drawn by Lawless.

By using shading and crosshatching, Lawless adds unusual texture and depth. Her panels are rich with detail, but you never get the feeling she’s trying to hide her line. In “Turning of the Worm” especially, the extra shading gives Martin and Jeff’s world a kind of skeevy sheen.

Lawless also has a short piece about witnessing a crime and doing nothing. The art is sketchier and unpolished, giving it a breezier feel than the two other stories. One of the pin-up pages shows a barefoot Britney Spears carrying baby Sean Preston. Sean Preston is holding a bag of chips and a blank word balloon floats above his head. I filled my word balloon with, “These Cheetos ain’t ‘flaming hot,’ dammit!” I must mention that Lawless sent this mini in long ago, when a Britney and baby reference was still funny. Now it’s just sad…

Sleepwalker is a 16 page mini. You can get your hands on one by emailing Molly Lawless at mollylawless@yahoo.com. Also, she has a blog devoted to Sleepwalker. Check it out for more art samples and information.

The Asthma Chronicles

Also, for your viewing pleasure, a Like Story by Sommer Browning.

“Like Story” is from Browning’s blog, Asthma Chronicles. Go dig through the archives for funny stuff. Funny if you’re mean like me…

Your Puffy Ships Are Sinking by Terry Corrigan and Garrett Van Winkle

In Your Puffy Ships Are Sinking, Terry Corrigan and Garrett Van Winkle take turns drawing panels. An unnamed flying creature accosts a sleeping man, toys with him without waking him, and then leaves the man transformed. The two meet again a couple of pages later, exchange shouted words, and suddenly the flying creature, seeing someone else falling from the sky, departs.

I’ve just described most of Puffy Ships, but the three central figures stumble across more adventure. At the bottom of each page, an upside down comic traipses across the page. I read the whole thing as two distinct comics. I’m not sure that it’s correct, but this is what I did: after reading the main story, I flipped the book upside down and, starting from the last page, read the substory backwards. The substory captures the movement and rhythm of one of those flipbooks that you flip the pages quickly to emulate movement.


In Your Puffy Ships, it’s hard to discern Corrigan and Van Winkle as distinct artists. They both have a spare line that gives the work a feathery, airy quality. The pages feel light and some of the panels feel like they could float away. This is not a style that everyone loves, but I think it holds a certain charm.

No webpage that I could find to order the comic, but you can email Corrigan at puffyships@gmail.com or Garrett at how.to.draw@gmail.com

Garrett has a webpage.

Can't Believe I'm Linking to Newsarama

But, this is cool. I loves me some Mr. Big from Matt and Carol Dembicki.

He's been talking about a big trade, so I guess this is it. If you haven't read Mr. Big yet, you should order this.

A Beasts Preview

Here are three preview images from the forthcoming Beasts: A Pictorial Schedule of Traditional Hidden Creatures From the Interest of 90 Modern Artisans. Fantagraphics is releasing this beauty in January, but I couldn't resist sharing a few images here. Rege Jr. and Nilsen have been featured here before for mini-comics, so it's not entirely out of line to post these images at SIZE MATTERS. Plus it's my damn blog and I'm very excited about this book.

Beasts is a 200 page hardcover dreamed up by the talented Jacob Covey. Inside, 90 artists give their take on monsters actually thought to exist at one point. And just maybe some of these creatures do still exist... Each beast gets the full color treatment and on the facing page a short paragraph gives the details.

Tyler Stout

Ron Rege Jr.

Anders Nilsen

Tom at Comics Reporter has more images from Beasts, including Tom Gauld and Mat Brinkman.

Bellen! A Collective by Box Brown In Bellen! Box Brown delivers a near overdose of Ben and Ellen relationship moments neatly packaged as tiny comic strips. Among the 71 strips, you find genuine and adorable snapshots like Ben begging Ellen to talk in her “mousy voice.” She complies, making Ben swoon until her mousy voice warbles, “Ben…You have to go move the car.”

As you would expect over 71 strips, not every one translates to the reader. In relationship comics, the cartoonist knows exactly what he or she wants to express, but it’s not always clear to the reader. The inside jokes don’t always translate. Brown does a good job here though, hitting the mark more often than not. He sticks to basic scenes of early relationship bliss, giving readers the required information.

The art is very simple. Tiny panels float in groups on a sea of white page. Inside the panels, Brown sticks to head and torso shots of Ben and Ellen, occasionally tossing in Ellen’s cat. He uses almost no background. Instead, he uses diagonal lines running parallel to fill in panels.

Bellen! records random moments in a relationship. It’s possibly too saccharine for some readers, but I found it charming. You can check out Box Brown's strips at his My Space Page and buy Bellen! here for $7. He's also on WebComics Nation.

Thanksgiving Week in Las Vegas No updates this week, folks. Vegas is calling us...

Leslie Overnight by Damien Jay

Leslie Overnight is the result of a larger project, Opolis, at the Flux Factory in Queens. A group of artists constructed individual beuildings out of paper and cardboard. Visitors walk among the buildings, peering into the windows to follow the story within.
Above you can see the structure of the building. In the comic, different versions of Leslie creep around the building. To make the comic, Jay photographed each scene and assembled them in order. In this story, Leslie is a bit of a kook. At one point, he even breaks out the tin foil hat.

Jay doesn’t simply make a static image of Leslie and move him around; there must be dozens of cutout Leslie figures to fit in with different scenes. If you sit down and really look at this comic, you realize just how much work he has done to pull this off. Jay has drawn and cut out dozens of Leslies, multiples of the security guard character, and the various word balloons. He then had to place the cutouts correctly for each panel before taking a photo of each. Multiply this by 30 pages.

The finished product is much richer than it sounds. The cardboard scenery kind of adds to the realism, as weird as that sounds. The props have more fullness than something merely drawn. As Leslie floats through each panel, the office desks, cubicle walls, and other details create a stage prop feeling.

The cover of Leslie Overnight is striking. First, it’s larger than your standard mini-comic, but second the close up image of Leslie’s face is unforgettable and a little disturbing. Jay did a fantastic job on the screen printing as well.

I don’t see a price on this, but according to Jay’s website it’s $4. You can read the comic on his website, but take it from me; this is a nice one to hold in your hands. Leslie Overnight is unique and charming. It reminds me why I love mini-comics.

The Drama #9

Mini-comic and art fans everywhere, keep your eyes peeled for the latest issue of The Drama. In my humble opinion, the ninth issue is the best yet. There’s a photo-packed feature on the “Wunderground: Providence: 1995 to the Present” exhibit and a high energy (you just have to read the damn thing) interview by Dan Nadel with Brian Chippendale.

Of course, you’ll also find the comic section in the back featuring Leif Parsons, Tom Kaczynski, Sabine Allaire, Peter Thompson, Matthew Thurber, Vanessa Davis, Zak Sally, David Abbott, Bendik Kaltenborn, Laura Park, Max Hubenthal, Nicolas Robel, Christopher Norris, Marc Bell, Mark Burrier, Mike Ball, Derek M. Ballard, Lori D., Alex Lukas, & Travis Robertson. That’s pretty darn exciting.

If you can’t find it at your local newsstand or bookstore, you can grab a copy from the Drama store online.

I reviewed mini-comics from Grant Reynolds and J.P. Coover for this issue, so you know it’s fantastic.

PS- Congrats to America today. The Republicans have lost a good measure of control and Rumsfeld has stepped down. Yay us!

Mini-Comic Contest over at Dave Ex Machina

Win a signed copy of Teaching Baby Paranoia by Bryant Paul Johnson over at interet pal Dave's website.

What are you waiting for? Go pay Dave a visit and enter his contest.