I Wanna Destroy You by Chris Cornwell On the first page of I Wanna Destroy You a Mat Brinkman like Oaf meanders through a Charles Burns tapestry. It's a peaceful introduction to a very conflicted story. Inside, a battle rages within the artist's head. Your typical whitebread superhero and your slacker monster engage in a sad battle. Although it's more apt to say that the superhero kind of freaks out and wants to hurt something to justify his existence. This is kind of a sad story, but it's always clear that the battle unfolds only in the artist's head.

Here are two fun pages that I couldn't stand to break up.

When you take a close look at Chris' art, you'll notice that there is more going on than you think. For starters, the characters are cut and pasted onto the simple background. This lends a weird depth to the art that takes a bit of time to sink in. As you take a closer look, you can't help but appreciate the time spent cutting and pasting figures onto the page.

Chris Cornwell is a talented and engaging artist. Flipping through his minis, I'm reminded of just why mini-comics are so fantastic. I Wanna Destroy You is 28 pages for the ridiculously low price of $2.50. You can get a copy at the fantastic Copacetic Comics. Copacetic is fast becoming one of my favorite comic stores and I've never even visited them. From the looks of things, this Pittsburgh shop is a hotbed of comics activity. The above link features Pittsburgh artists and writers. Please do youself a favor. Check them out. Now.

I'll feature two more of Chris Cornwell's comics this week, Quester and Black Wings.

Back in July

Between Chloe the Super-Pup and the normal summer crush of grants and projects at work, I haven't even thought of the site. Sorry bout that.

The mini-comics do keep arriving and plenty are waiting to be reviewed next week.

Hope everyone had fun at MoCCA!

I'll be back in July.

Seven More Days of not Getting Eaten by Matt Wiegle Matt Wiegle has a knack for turning folk tales and legends into disarmingly funny and thoughtful mini-comics. Seven More Days of Not Getting Eaten is no exception. Over seven days, a talking fish manages to manipulate some not too bright anglers out of cooking him for dinner.
Over seven stories, the fish proves much smarter than the assorted fishermen who cast their line into his stream. The fish convinces one fisher to let him go so he can change into a better suit, "I was lamenting the shame of being caught without my best suit on." He convinces another fiherman to attempt to build a fire underwater, "Get those twigs! Yes! Yes! Put them underwater! Rub them together! Go! Go!" This sequence had me laughing out loud both times I read this mini.

To be honest with you, I'd recommend anything that Matt produces. His mini-comics have not missed yet. Each of them transcend the mere form of mini-comic and possess that quality that makes them something you want to treasure. Seven More Days is 76 pages for the ridiculously low price of $3.

From the Partyka website catalog: Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime," goes the old axiom. Well, fine, Mr. Axiom, but while you're busy encouraging every oaf in the kingdom to trudge down to the river with a crudely made pole, the fish will be busy teaching themselves whatever trickery will help them survive. In this book, fishkind bamboozles mankind for seven days. Also: punching; dampness; screams of terror.

Go buy it. Go buy everything on the Partyka website. It's all fabulous.

If you don't believe me, here's today's Daily Drawing by Sara Edward Corbett - "Rat of the Sky."

Something Special for the 200th Post

Sorry, it's not mini-comics related, but it's still mini.

It's Frau Chloe Nyland-Hoke, the mini-dachshund. And she's got her own blog, authored by Kate. So, it will be updated more than once a week...

Anyway, this is our first dog. She's awesome and wiggly. She likes to sleep on laps and run like hell. We got her on Saturday, and I'm already head over heels in love with her.

The True Adventures of Jep Comix by Jeff Clayton
In three issues of Jep Comix, Jeff Clayton divides his efforts between two stories – “Little Dead Kid” and “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.” “The Little Dead Kid” is a charming storyline about a child that dies and finds himself barred from both heaven and hell. So, he becomes a super hero on Earth. On Earth, he spars with rats, befriends cats, and tries to do good.
“The Valley of the Shadow of Death” is a continuing saga of a human, his robot, their old pal, Duke, and a mysterious group called the Jitkes. You don’t find out about the Jitkes until the third issue, and even then the tale ends in mystery.

Jeff’s figure art is stripped down to the very basics then superimposed over computer generated backgrounds. The art is one or two steps removed from stick figure art, but the simplicity doesn’t distract Jeff’s comics from being entertaining.
The Dead Kid stories are more organic than the Valley stories, and they meander among topics to fit Jeff’s mood at the time. Here Jeff has fun and flexes his sense of humor. Dead Kid stops a “rumble” between a gang of rats and flies. Dead Kid chastises people for using guns, when swords are much more precise.
Check out Jeff’s Jep Comix at his website. He's currently offering a triple pack collecting the first three issues of Jep Comix for an unheard of 35 cents. That's just crazy.

Two from Sarah Glidden
Sarah Glidden’s Small Noises #2 is a journal comic stuffed with stories and dreams. She rents The Wicker Man and predictably gets creeped out. The next day she sees the freaky animal masks from the movie on random people in the street. She drinks so much one night that she wakes up exclaiming, “I think I drank so much last night that I skipped my hangover!” “You’re probably just still drunk,” answers a friend.

Sarah plays fast and loose with the art. It’s a journal comic, so she simply draws to suit her mood. Some of the pages are sketched and devoid of background, while other others are more carefully lined and shaded.

Small Noises is 40 pages.

Sarah’s The Reader is a twelve page fantasy. She begins by waking in a boat, no clue where she is and how she got there. She manages to row to the shore of a seaside shipping town. As she wanders the streets, she recognizes signs and names of buildings. She’s in a fictional town from a recently read book. Soon she stumbles into characters from the book.
The art is a little tighter here, but still loose. It kind of reminds you of Gabrielle Bell’s mini-comics.

Contact Sarah at sarahglidden@gmail.com for prices and availability. I also found a blog of Sarah's that features a lot of her art and comic pages.

ZOD Issues 7 and 8 by Jacob Steingroot
Jacob Steingroot does pretty much everything right in ZOD. The covers are distinctive and fun. The first page of each issue features a cast of characters. Issue 8, which picks up where issue 7 leaves off, has a story so far, and his minis are priced perfectly. It's been some time since I've stumbled upon a full color mini for $2.00. Both of these are priced at $2, weighing in at 12 (issue 7) and 18 (issue 8) pages.
ZOD is fun as well - Underdog fun if you remember that cartoon. Intergalactic adventure, family strife, and romance propel the story along at a quick pace. All of the characters are animals and aliens, humans are only featured as characters in movies watched by Odysseus and Lloyd.
Pick up these issues and others at Jacob's website. ZOD issues 7 and 8 will only set you back $2 each.

Entropy issues 1 and 2 by Aaron Costain
In issue one of Entropy, the protagonist, oddly overdressed for a mild walk along a wooded road, contemplates creation myths and converses with the woodland creatures. Costain lends a level of anxiety to his tale even before the pesky ravens assail his lone traveler. This fellow is anxious about the ravens but also concerned about creation. He tries his hand at deity to no avail (at first). Then, to mess with his peaceful day, the ravens arrive.

The art in the first issue of Entropy reminded me a bit of the art in Jiro Taniguchi’s excellent The Walking Man (Fanfare/Ponent Mon). The lines of the trees and leaves are ultra detailed, giving the setting a degree of hyper-reality. The level of detail isn’t quite as defined as Taniguchi's, but the comparison is still useful as a point of reference.
Issue two of Entropy is a bit of a departure from issue one. The cover is gorgeous enough to consider for a print; I’d hang a print of that on my office wall in a second. The departure comes from the subject matter and ultimately the reduced size of this mini.

It’s broken up into two stories; the longer, “the SHAME that made a MAN out of MAC,” and the brief “automatism 1.” In “the SHAME,” Mac keeps getting flat tires (3 of them!) on his bicycle. The first two times, he rolls his bike to The Bike Clinic for a flat tire repair. You get the sense that Mac thinks the gods are mocking him with the repeated flats. By the time flat tire number three arrives, Mac decides to take matters into his own hands, and thus he becomes – a MAN.

The art in issue two is less detailed than issue number one, especially in the second story, “automatism 1.” The art here is much looser, a function of the tiny panels (eight of them) crowded onto each page. This doesn’t ruin the art, but it forces Aaron to use less detail and rely on simple lines. It works pretty well.

I forgot to mention that Aaron get s extra points for including a Murakami reference in response to the foxes comments shown above, “You haven’t read too much Murakami, have you!”

You can get more information on Entropy and look at more of Aaron’s comics at his website.

Mimi’s Doughnuts Zine by Marek Bennett
The front cover of Mimi’s Doughnut Zine reads “Politics, Global Warming Stuff, A Visit with a Pet Psychologist, and Snow.” That’s exactly what you get in this 36-page mini.


After a short story about a manipulating local politician, and a well drafted science lesson on global warming, you get the real heart of this book – a 20-page tale of an emotionally imbalanced dog regaining it’s mental health.

As in most cases of dog problems, this problem lies in the behavior of the humans surrounding the dog. Kody is a pretty good dog, but he has major separation anxiety. It’s so bad that he destroys furniture and threatens his own well being. So they go take Kody to a pet shrink, who tells them that they are the problem. All ends well, but Marek cruelly hints at darker times to come in one menacing panel.

Mimi’s Doughnuts Zine is a solid mini-comic that’s on its tenth issue. Two pages of notes and reader letters wind up this issue and Marek’s heart is definitely in the right place with this work. I’ll leave you with this prelude page:
Mimi’s Doughnuts Zine is $3 and you can get your copy by visiting Marek’s website. Also check out archived strips of Mimi's Doughnuts.

I Walk With My Wife In the Evening by Christopher Davis
Over 18 pages and an early evening walk, Christopher Davis fantasizes about an ominous cloud in the sky. He and his wife take a routine walk, but his thoughts are of the fantastic – dirty bombs, nuclear war, gas masks, body bags, and death of a massive scale.
Christopher’s art is well suited for a grand scale. Almost every panel, regardless of the size, stretches to the ominous sky. Dark shading lurks then creeps from the panel borders. Christopher’s inking is very subtle, allowing the moodiness of the penciled art underneath to shine.
As foreboding as the story is, it begins and ends in lightness (and reality). The inside of both covers are very simple, no background or shaded sky. It really brings you back to present tense after the escape of the story.

Christopher also sent in a few other minis, including ”No Buses. Chickens. I have to share this image.
I featured a couple of Christopher’s minis back in March of last year. Good to see he’s still going strong. No prices on either of these, but give him a shout at squawkalong@yahoo.com for details.