Reviews
Brainfag Forever: Comics by Nate Beaty from 1999-2007
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 15, 2010
Nate Beaty has been making comics for about a decade (at least) and collected 8 years of journal webcomics into Brainfag Forever (or BFF as it appears on the cover). It's very self-revealing with a great deal of painful honesty in it. Artistically it's all over the place and in that sense it's an overview of Beaty's life as a comic artist as much as the comic itself is an overview of his life in general. It's no wonder this book collected a number of strong reviews last year.
Mini Reviews: Lauren Barnett, Kelli Nelson and Trees & Hills
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 19, 2010
The one thing minis and webcomics have in common is the DIY spirit. Make a comic and put it out there for people to see. Here's some short reviews of minis I've been reading this week from Lauren Barnett, Kelli Nelson, and the Trees & Hills Comic Group. If you're interested in getting a mini reviewed at ComixTalk, you can find our contact information on the About page.
Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher by Jake Parker
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 16, 2010
Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher is a household favorite here. Both of the x-girls (especially the youngest) raved about the book. It's a really exciting tale, jam-packed with action and plot points. Creator Jake Parker has tremendous art chops and visually this book is like a revved-up Saturday matinee special.
Smile by Raina Telgemeier
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 10, 2010
Raina Telgemeier has worked on Smile for a long time. First posting parts of it online, she eventually inked a deal to publish it as a book with the Scholastic, the publisher of the Babysitters Club graphic novels Raina worked on. As she explains in this interview, she had about half of it done online when the book deal came about:
I’d posted about 120 pages of Smile online, on a page-a-week basis, before Scholastic picked up the publishing rights. The pages were drawn over a four-year period and were written as I went along. So there were things I wanted to fix, a few continuities that needed to be straightened out…and I was suddenly working with editors! What I did was sit down and write out the entire rest of the book, and then we figured out what, if anything, from the first half needed revising.
The finished book is really good. It should fit right in with other favorite young adult novels of the middle school set.
Copper by Kazu Kibuishi
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on February 06, 2010
Copper is a beautiful comic. Kazu Kibuishi takes such care in rendering landscapes both natural and fantastic, that one can't help but be drawn into the page to fully appreciate the environment of Copper. In particular, I think Kibuishi must love drawing moving water because it is almost a constant presence in the book (The comic "Waterfall" is both a great bit of illustration but also an insightful commentary on it).
Evan Dahm's Overside: Rice Boy and Order of Tales
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Here's a fairly short review: Rice Boy is a good comic and you should read it. I actually think the book version might be preferrable to the webcomic as it's a hefty story that lends itself to sitting down for a long stretch with it.
I'm Crazy by Adam Bourret
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Adam Bourret has a lot of interesting life to work with in his autobiographical comic I'm Crazy. Bourret won the Xeric Grant this year and he used the funds to put out a more polished version of the book. He's also serializing it online. Unlike many autobiographical comics I've recently read, Bourret has problems way beyond being a mopey, shy cartoonist as he suffers from various mental issues (primarily it seems to be OCD that afflicts him) that profoundly affect his life.
Z-Blade XX Doesn't Quite Cut It
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Z-Blade XX is a new comic from Atomic Basement written by Steve Palmer and illustrated by Guy Lemay. It's a slickly-produced book -- nice colors, thick paper, etc. But for a first issue of a new character, it's not particularly satisfying. It's also, unfortunately, filled with a few unnecessary swear words and some visuals of explicit violence to be a good read for kids who might otherwise enjoy the straightforward story. All in all, I know I sound like a broken record sometimes, but this is another project where putting it on the web and working on it with more immediate feedback might have led to a stronger story.
Twenty-Something Urban Romance: True Kilbourne and Zander Gunn
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I picked up True Loves and True Loves 2 at SPX this year. The two books by Jason Turner and Manien Bothma (husband and wife) chronicle the falling in love and thereafter of True Kilbourne and Zander Gunn. An odd experience for me reading the books before the webcomic (True Loves 2 is available in color at Serializer.net) but having both books to read in one stretch actually was a good thing. While I liked the initial True Loves tale, I really thought True Loves 2: Trouble in Paradise added a lot more to the entire tale to date (Jason Turner's note at the end of True Loves 2 says they're already working on True Loves 3).
Solving The Kung Fu Puzzle
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Now that I have two book-devouring kids, I find myself much more engaged with books and comics for the 10 and under age bracket (I guess you'd call that pre-tween?). My kids read comics along with text books without much distinction at this point which is probably due to the pretty decent selection of comics in the children's section of our local library. (The Sardine in Outer Space series was a recent favorite.)
So I was pretty interested in getting an opportunity to review the latest installment in the Manga Math Mysteries series. Number four is titled The Kung Fu Puzzle: A Mystery with Time and Temperature. I think any book, comic or otherwise, should be engaging on its own merits. Educational value shouldn't be an excuse for a boring book. Kung Fu Puzzle passed that test with flying colors with both of my kids (I thought it was pretty good too). In fact I think my youngest daughter's biggest complaint is actually nice praise for the book -- she was quite annoyed at its somewhat open-ended finish. I think she was hoping that the story went on longer.
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