Magic Everywhere by Eliza Frye Magic Everywhere, by Eliza Frye, is an eight page mini that deftly and silently mixes fantasy with reality. A young girl visiting a tar pits museum chases a snowflake and stumbles upon the skeleton of a mythical creature. Most of the eight pages feature two stacked panels, though page five, which serves as the "chase scene," is a full page panel.

Eliza's art is simple and unadorned. She uses a nice balance of white space and black ink, and only draws what's necessary for the reader to get a sense of what is happening on the page. The cover, however, is a nicely detailed silk screened affair, done in blue and dotted with snowflakes. You can check out more of Eliza's work at her website. You can grab your own copy of Magic Everywhere at Eliza's online shop for $3 including shipping.

Phlegm by Dan Issue eight of Phlegm by Phlegm, or aka Dan no last name, is a dark, densely shaded attack on modern advertising similar to, but much more disturbing than, the subversive and colorful Wacky Packages. To begin with, Dan’s subject matter is more grown up and his characters more purely disquieting.

As I’m flipping through this issue, I stop on the last page featuring “Unicorn Porn.” Apparently, but I haven’t actually checked, at http://www.uniporn.com you can find unicorn porn and other specialist pornography. In the fake advert, a unicornish creature cries, “Hold on to my pink sequin fur and ride my horn to magic land.” Yeah, you never found stuff like that in a package of Wacky Packages. The faces of Dan’s characters are simplistic and eerie. The rounded heads, slitted and tilted eyes, missing nose, and often-misplaced mouth make the characters seem barely human. He strips the ads and the scenes down to the bare, disgusting untruths of advertising. If at times the slogans seem hackish or trite, they reflect the obviousness of the adverts he lampoons.

Dan’s art is very well suited for this messy and dismal subject. He uses heavy swaths of ink and shifting fonts to frame his humanoid characters. The fonts swell, loop, and stretch in each panel as they slink towards the bad pun or hateful finish.
Dan sums up this issue of Phlegm on his website:

“The comic contains my pen and ink illustrations, cartoons, and street art. The work is intense, often surreal and thought provoking, but most of the time it looks like a mad person has been locked in a room for years with no company but a bottle of Indian ink and a scratchy nib….because that's precisely what it is.”

Issue eight of Phlegm is 36 pages with a handsome screen printed (on both sides) cover. You can grab a copy at Dan’s online shop. For more information on his work and some damn nice artwork, check out the Phlegm Blog.

This is What Concerns Me by Susie Cagle In This is What Concerns Me and This is What Concerns Me Presents Remainders, Susie Cagle catalogues the things that bug, perplex, or annoy her. Shopping for vegan safe food, used condoms on the sidewalk, security cameras on the rooftops of her neighborhoods - everything is fair game under Susie’s pen. Over 13 black and white pages, she uses whatever space is necessary to get it out, even devoting 6 pages to the two-part “Security.”

The cover to This is What Concerns Me is my favorite part of this issue. Her body language suggests a real weight, which is also shown by the letters that form the word “me,” and the backpack Susie clutches. Her head is down as well, lending her the picture a seriousness of purpose. Inside, however, it’s fun and games. She pokes fun at herself as much as she pokes fun at others. Susie’s art is light, expressive and perfectly nuanced with shadow and crosshatch. She hits a nice balance of white space and shading in these pages. The 16-page This is What Concerns Me Presents Remainders is a bit more polished. Her line seems more assured and the wide horizontal page gives the words and pictures more breathing room. Three episodes of “Smashing in the Kitchen” give recipes that range from oiled and baked veggies with Susie to killing, gutting, and skinning a moose with Sarah Palin. Her page layout is at its most inventive over these pages.

Also included in this issue is some quick and easy ways to spot an FBI agent at a potluck, drawings of actual foods from a school kitchen in Harrodsburg, VA, and a nice two page spread on how pervasive corn is in our diet (read The Omnivore’s Dilemma to really get freaked out!). Both of these minis are available from Susie’s website for $2 each plus shipping.

Trio of Comics from Secret School Press The horizontally oriented mini One Time, by Adam Beeby, tells a cute story of Adam making a birdhouse, installing it in his backyard, and then quickly deciding to modify his original design. One Time is drawn simply with very little embellishment. Adam draws himself as a gingerbread-like figure with rounded limbs and three holes for his eyes and mouth. This mini is a good example of the quick gag format used so effectively by a lot of artists. Adam doesn’t try to hard. He picks a short memory or story and gives it a simple, but effective design. He uses the last page for the gag and delivers a solid $1 mini-comic.

The Confession of a Most Intimate Memory by W. Roger Stroud is an eight page meditation on a terminally broken relationship. The narrator shares a secret of how he cruelly tested a woman he may or may not have loved. He deliberately lied to the woman to test her honesty. He was looking for the moment when she called “Bullshit,” but instead found nothing but destruction. Over drawings of landscapes or empty rooms, the prose of The Confession floats neatly in carefully lined text boxes. A separate set of single words, strung together to form the central theme of the comic, nests within each of the first several pages. The lines of the images are photo-realistic and stiff, creating an inflexible air to the words that pile up to create this gloomy memory.

Rule of One-Way, also by W. Roger Stroud, is an eight page mini-comic, slightly larger in format than The Confession. In Confession, neatly lined backgrounds filled the pages; in Rule of One-Way the carefully constructed backgrounds are replaced instead by figures of people in a train station. The characters are drawn almost as rigidly as the backgrounds; they seem frozen in time rather than fluid. The story itself is quick, brutal, and marked by tragedy. There isn’t much room for things to develop, but it works very well in an eight page format.

Contact Adam, the founding member of Secret School Press, to see about purchasing SSP minis. One Time and The Confession of a Most Intimate Memory are each $1 and Rule of One-Way is $2.

My Life in Records by Grant Thomas

I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for Grant’s My Life in Records. Using a full color palette, he takes snapshots and memories from his childhood and brings them to life for the reader. Grant and his two brothers are usually dressed in footie pajamas and wearing those cheap animal masks made from the highly combustible molded plastic and secured with a rubber band around the head. Both the pajamas and masks give the brothers an air of innocence. Grant and Paul are obsessed with Star Wars, Sesame Street, and playing records on their Fisher Price turntable. I had the same plastic turntable and mine was used to play the same Sesame Street record featuring Bert and Ernie, but more frequently the awesome Snoopy and the Red Baron Christmas album (even in July).

Grant does a fantastic job with layouts in this issue of My Life in Records. He’ll use traditional comics panels, but then dispense with them totally by switching to floating images and words. Music is a frequent theme in Grant’s comics and this one is no exception, the panel below shows a nice use of music and a more flexible use of the page. My Life in Records is $4 And you can grab a copy from Grant’s website.

As a side note, Grant’s work will be in an upcoming Fantagraphics anthology, Abstract Comics: The Anthology edited by Andrei Molotui.

Hey, this is it for 2008 probably. I might squeeze another review in tomorrow if things are slow. But good riddance to a troublesome year! Bring on 2009. Have fun tomorrow night, whatever you do. Kate and I will be safely ensconced in our low key local pub. No driving for us. Peace!

Top Ten Mini-Comics of 2008
Man, what a year. Personally, this was an eventful year that both good and bad made me grow as a person. I’m not sure I want to repeat this kind of year again, but I have to admit that I’m better for it. I’m hopeful. Globally and nationally, I’d say the same thing applies - good and bad events of epic proportions - yet we’re still standing and dare I say it, hopeful. Here’s to growth and moving on to 2009.

But before we move on, there are the mini-comics of 2008. I didn’t read as many mini-comics this year as in years past. I didn’t go to MoCCA, SPX, or APE. For the first three quarters of the year, I only reviewed minis sporadically. Still, a ton of mini-comics found their way to the SIZE MATTERS office. I’ve read a stack that I haven’t reviewed yet and there are still several minis in the review pile that I haven’t opened. But when I think back over the year, there are several minis that stand out. Here, in no particular order, are the ten minis that I enjoyed the most in 2008.

Jessica by Jason Overby I hadn’t heard of Jason before this year, but I really, really dig his style and fresh way of communicating with the reader. I don’t think you can get any copies of Jessica, but SOLIPSIST'S DOODLES should still be available from Jason’s blog.

Wigger Haircut by Zach Hazard Vaupen Same thing with Zach. Who the hell is this guy? I enjoyed Wigger Haircut and The Diary of Lisa Frank, but the former gets the nod here because of Zach’s use of color.

Shitbeams on the Loose by Various Artists through Tender Loving Empire was a standout anthology in 2008. House Party by Lane Milburn Everything looks good from ClosedCaption Comics, but I really loved Lane’s House Party.

Nurse Nurse 2 by Katie Skelly I love Nurse Nurse! What a great character. Katie’s playful and sexy style perfectly suits this interplanetary story of a nurse/hero/adventurer. The Legend of Countess Saddenbrau is nothing to sneeze at either.

Selected Comics by James McShane

Over the last few years I’ve always made sure to grab James McShane’s tiny books masquerading as mini-comics. His cramped one panel pages are glued into an impossibly thick binding and they make irresistible objects. Now, James has published a larger format mini that collects selected minis from the period 2003 to 2008. Here are a few images from James’ blog that show the format.
Are You Man Enough by Phil McAndrew A felt mustache on the cover and a 5-page drum solo within? Yeah, that’s a 10 Best Mini.

Rabbit Shadows by Jason Viola

I haven’t reviewed this yet, but it’s a beautiful little mini-comic. Each page features one panel of gorgeously shaded and crosshatched art. Rabbit Shadows is the story of a rabbit mired in the day to day routine of work and TV. Suddenly, while walking, he discovers his shadow and begins to interact with and manipulate it. Jason’s mini clocks in at 44 pages for only $3 and it has a striking brown cover with a Rabbit Shadows sticker pasted in the upper center.

Tegne Issue Two by Various Artists I discovered Tegne through David Birchall (Extricate)

There’s too much going on inside this densely packed collaboration to mention here, but look for a full review in a few weeks.

My Life in Records by Grant Thomas This is still in the review stack, but I’ve enjoyed reading it and can’t wait to share some images with you next week. Stand by for a review of this during Christmas week.

That’s it, the ten mini-comics that stood out for me in 2008. Please give these folks some love and consider purchasing their work. If you are reading this and you read SIZE MATTERS regularly, thank you for sticking around. I’m so grateful that there are people out there who love making mini-comics and I’m grateful that you love to read them.

Have a wonderful holiday, travel safe, and take care of each other. Kate, Chloe, and I are off to Michigan for Christmas this year. I’ll probably squeeze a review of My Life in Records in next week, but other than that the SIZE MATTERS offices will be shut down for the holidays.

Peace, Cheers, and Best Wishes!

Pockmarked Apocalypse by Jeff Lok Here is a large-sized mini that makes good use of the extended real estate on each page. In issue one of Pockmarked Apocalypse, Jeff immediately sets up a sparse and isolated backdrop for the main character. We see him wake up alone, walk through a barely furnished house, and confront an empty refrigerator. It definitely feels post-apocalyptic and we haven’t even seen outside the house yet. Then Jeff opens the vantage point considerably with a full page panel showing the view outside the man’s window. An Exxon station sits halfway down a pockmarked highway. The first issue of Pockmarked Apocalypse is well crafted to create a sense of foreboding and the unknown. Jeff drops some plot points (a love interest and a man wandering on the cracked highway) into the mix as he goes, but he’s cagey enough to leave the reader wondering who the main character is and what's led to this point.

Jeff's art relies heavily on repeated, slanted lines as shading. As a result, the pages are lighter in tone and feel than one might expect for the setting of the story. Although, midway through this issue, he mixes things up by using black panels dotted with the headlights of semi-trucks. The pencils are a bit shaky at times, especially in close shots of fingers or hands, but the shakiness isn't necessarily distractingfor the reader.

Pockmarked Apocalypse is 24 pages and this issue is the first of eight planned issues. Contact Jeff for details. You can get your very own copy for $5 at the I Know Joe Kimple online store.

Here's another nice review by Sarah Morean over at The Daily Crosshatch.

Shannon Smith's Best Mini-Comics of 2008

I love these lists and here's comrade Shannon Smith's.

The Good Minnesotan Issue Three by Various Artists I’ll let my earlier post this week provide the background and details of The Good Minnesotan and spend more time on this third issue of TGM. Raighne and Meghan Hogan have brought more people into the fold, welcoming Noah Harmon, Toby Jones, Madeline Queripel, Abby Mullen, Anna Bongiovanni, Reynold Kissling, and Danno Klonowski to their stable of contributing artists.

Twelve stories are featured over 104 black and white pages. Many of the stories are short two to three page affairs, while the longest story, “Fuckleberry Hinn,” by John and Luke Holden clocks in at 23 pages. The third issue of TGM seems less daring and more in line with traditional panel comics. Overall it’s less interesting visually, but probably more solid story wise.

For the purposes of this review, I’ll hit the highlights. In “It’s Much Worse,” Toby Jones tells his tale of battling a mouse and what happens when he finally prevails. Toby’s comic is honest and engaging. The art is a bit cartoonish, but it matches his story well. Madeline Queripel, who draws the twitching mouse in Toby’s story, has one page in TGM 3. It’s a great page though. Her art is tight, expressive, and very appealing.

Ed Moorman’s “Polaroids” shows off his solid cartooning chops. He tells an engaging story paced by his appealing style and smart use of shading and black space. Anna Bongiovanni’s “To Take Back” is a startling two-page, wordless piece that either features a mother’s brutality or overwhelming love. Nicholas Breutzman, who appeared in issue two of TGM, provides the best story in this book. “My Town” shows us what happens to the meth addicts of his town, men who have taken to the surrounding pine forests for safe haven. Nicholas does a masterful job of setting the visual stage for his monologue; teenagers who venture to o close to the forest are depicted running away screaming and the meth heads peer from the darkness of the trees at houses flooded by the light of day. He floats the text of his monologue above, below, and inside his panels. Sentences are broken up almost randomly and words and spaces are stretched to meet his space needs. The third issue of The Good Minnesotan is $12 and available at the 2D CLOUD website. Also check out the Good Minnesotan blog.

After School Comic Program Needs Support

Mini-comic creator and all around good guy, Grant Thomas shared some info with me about his very cool after school program. “After School Independent Comic Book Creators” lets fifth graders make their own mini-comics. Grant says they will learn about the “screen printing process to produce full color covers for their books. They will need a screen printing kit, ink and colored paper to produce their book.” Here are a few early scans of some of the work.

Barbie vs. Jason Dude The Duck Hunt Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? If you love this idea, the program could really use your support. From the DonorsChoose website:

“Our club needs quality drawing materials, such as bristol board, blue pencils and inking markers, to learn how professional comic book artists make their images… They will need a screen printing kit, ink and colored paper to produce their book.”

Here’s where you can donate. They need $528 dollars for supplies and only need $110 to reach their goal.

BTW, I haven't forgot about issue 3 of Good Minnesotan. Crazy week, but a review of issue three is coming later tonight! Sorry for the delay.