indie comics

Review: Heartbreak Quadrant: Phase One by Barrett Stanley

June 4, 2016 by krisis

There are three kinds of comic book Kickstarters.

One is from seasoned pros who want to do their own project – perhaps with a set of new intellectual property. A second is from indie creators who have published some work – perhaps digital only – and want to head to print to widen their potential audience. A third is from an unknown – maybe an artist in another medium, or maybe someone publishing their first work.

I’ve pledged to all three kinds of Kickstarters and I’ve seen all three fail. Yet, the first two have a leg up on the third in existing support and goodwill of their audience. You’re not likely to get angry at your favorite creator for telling you their project will be a month late or ten pages shorter than planned.

heartbreak-quadrant-phase-one-cover The artists in that third category have no leeway, not an inch of slack. To convert you from one-time speculator to long-term supporter they have this single chance to win you over – to impress you on every level.

I’ve pledged to all three kinds of Kickstarters and I’ve seen all three succeed. Yet, the third are the ones that most often stun me.

Heartbreak Quadrant: Phase One

Story and art by Barrett Stanley. Buy Heartbreak Quadrant for $15 at the Red Grapefruit online store.

#140char review: Loved the penstrokes & handcrafted colors of Heartbreak Quadrant: 2 women space scavengers in a vivid sci-fi world full of personal touches.

CK Says: Consider it.

Heartbreak Quadrant is a vivid slice of sci-fi crammed with big ideas but primarily about people.

Ida and Kumi captain their own peculiar spaceship resembling a massive red grapefruit through a post-Earth universe full of genetically tampered-with people who covet the simplicity of artifacts of their old planet. Ida is practical, canny, and loyal. Kumi is impulsive, optimistic, and can be dangerous. As they recover from a job that was tougher than they anticipated (“a little trouble with a candy amplifier”), an old contact reaches out with a hard-to-fill request for the most-coveted artifact of all – a baseline human, or “blank.” [Read more…] about Review: Heartbreak Quadrant: Phase One by Barrett Stanley

Review: Butterfly by Amel, Bennett, Fuso, & Simeone

June 2, 2016 by krisis

I’ve always loved the risk/reward of a blind buy.

I’m not talking about buying a new appliance sight unseen here. I’m talking about more subjectively judged products, like music you’ve never heard or heard of or a dish of unfamiliar food of which the only detail you are only certain it is not poison.

If we always seek out what we know and have been recommended, how can we ever be surprised? Some of my favorite albums came from picking something up purely because of a band’s name or their photo, and the vast majority of my indie comic collection came from trying something without knowing a thing about it other than the aesthetics of a cover image or a few lines of promotional copy.

(How sure can you be about art until you consume it, anyway? Did that dance about architecture really tell you how great the building would be?)

That’s nearly all I had to go by on Butterfly. I had read scripter Marguerite Bennett as a co-author with a major favorite, Kieron Gillen, but that didn’t speak much for her on her own. The cover image is stark – the shape of an olive butterfly on a black background formed by the silhouettes of dozens of guns.

There was something about it that made me want to own it.

Butterfly

Collects Butterfly #1-4. Story by Arash Amel, script by Marguerite Bennett, illustrated by Antonio Fuso and Stefano Simeone with colors by Adam Guzowski, lettering by Steve Wands.

#140char review: Butterfly: an icy spy tale that doesn’t bother to wash the blood from its hands. A less touchy Alias or a less fanciful Mind MGMT. Just okay

CK Says: Consider it.

Butterfly is not at all as delicate as its namesake. That goes for both the book on the whole and the main character, for whom its an alias.

We’re dropped into a mission already in progress with Rebecca Faulkner AKA Butterfly, and from the get she seems like more of a chameleon than a butterfly. She seamlessly slides into character for a dead drop and is just as facile in her initial exfiltration. However, when she discovers her routine contacts have all been disconnected she is forced to rely on a failsafe that puts her on a path to intersect her retired spy of a father, long since disappeared from her life. [Read more…] about Review: Butterfly by Amel, Bennett, Fuso, & Simeone

Review: The Divine OGN

September 4, 2015 by krisis

While I aspire to not judge any proverbial books by their covers, I don’t think it is such a bad thing to find a proverbial book’s cover interesting. That’s how I found so many interesting artists to listen to in the 90s – I’d just buy the CDs with the most interesting artwork.

In this case we’re talking about an actual book – The Divine. It was nothing I had heard of before from creators who were strangers to me and a publisher I don’t own a single book by. The two boys on the cover had a sort of liquidity to their poses, and they also reminded me a bit of Jamie Hewlett’s artwork for Gorillaz. Intrigued, I checked out the description, which ends with this line:

What awaits him in Quanlom is an actual goddamn dragon.

Clearly, I bought the book.

The Divine OGN

Written by Boaz Lavie with artists Asaf Hanuka and Tomer Hanuka.

#140char review: Divine from 1st Second press…a stunningly illustrated OGN w/dirt beneath it’s nails. I’d’ve liked it more if it paid off more early promises

CK Says: Consider it.

Whatever I was expecting from The Divine, I certainly got something completely else.

It’s a book that unfolds in parts, and you aren’t entirely sure what you’re reading until you are firmly in the middle. It it a story about Mark and his explosives? About his impending fatherhood? About the balance of domesticity and adventure, responsibility and risk-taking? Or, about neglect on an international scale? Or, is it really about a dragon?

Yes to all of that, even if those themes don’t play out so literally as they are introduced in the opening pages (dragon included). Instead, Mark’s trip to the fictional, wartorn country of Quanlom works as an allegory, both in his own life and for the reader. Does it all really happen the way we both witness it, with exploding body parts, clay soldiers brought to life, and fearsome dragons invisible to most men? Or, is that what Mark needed to see? The book gives a clever, blink-and-you’ll-miss it out that lets you consider just how much truth there is to Mark as our limited first person narrator. [Read more…] about Review: The Divine OGN