ARIM ZOLA

A quick Arnim Zola (Jack Kirby's greatest creation?) while I work on a double-page spread...

See more Arnim Zolas here!

Arnim Zola is ™ and © Marvel Comics.

JACK STAFF

If Will Eisner, Alex Toth, Frank Miller and Ted McKeever got you all fetussed, you might have given birth to someone like Paul Grist. Grist did the awesome Kane police procedural series and is currently working on his super hero, Jack Staff: Britain's Greatest hero.

The work is dense and playful at the same time. Experimental and emminently readable. Nostalgic and new. I know it's not the cool thing to say, but I think it might even be a bit more sophisticated than Kane.

Anyway, it's a hell of a lot of fun. Start with "It All Used to Be Black and White".

Jack Staff is ™ and © 2008 Paul Grist.

THE QUIET BIRDMAN

The Quiet Birdman was one of the great characters of the minicomic woorld until those minicomics got turned into a thick brick of a book called The Aviary. He's the witness, the instigating object and possibly the Machiavellian schemer in Jamie Tanner's surreal opus. Go read The Aviary, because I haven't. I've only read a whole bunch of minis. I talked about two of them here and here.

The Quiet Birdman is ™ and © Jamie Tanner.

THE BEAST MOTHER

The Beast Mother was my #10 choice in my Best of 2006 list.

The Beast Mother is ™ and © Eleanor Davis.

BLAR

BLAR is the Segar-inspired barbarian star of Drew Weing's minicomic, BLAR. It's a fun, montster-kill little book.

BLAR is ™ and © Drew Weing.

THE AMZING ADVENTURES OF BILL/YES, MASTER

The Amazing Adventures of Bill is the fun-time diary comic. They are always the first ones I read after a day of conventioning and prior to a night of acting like a drunken fool. Only Tales Designed to Thrizzle makes me laugh like his do on such a consistent basis. What's best, for me, about Yes, Master is seeing Bill work on his drawing chops and bring them up a level closer to the funny. And his Igor is a great design — just like Bill!

The Amazing Adventures of Bill and Yes, Master are ™ and © Bill Roundy.

CASANOVA!

Casanova Quinn! Probably my favorite mainstream monthly coming out. Definitely the book that made me revisit the value of the monthly serial at all. I'm sure, one day, I'll like to have a big thickens of these, but, for now, I'm thrilled to get my 16-pages and out each month. Cas hasn't appeared in the book since Fabio Moon started drawing it, but the latest issue (10) was still the best of the series so far. Hopefully, we'll get to see Bá and Moon switch on and off this series for a couple years. That'd be nice.

Casanova Quinn is ™ and © Matt Fraction and Gabriel Bá.

HECTER THE COLLECTER AND PETER THE INSECT BOY

Here's a few things you should know about me:

1. Hecter the Collecter is one of my all-time favorite minicomics series. It says nearly that in the Wiki.

2. I think that's the only Wiki I've ever appeared in.

3. I've reviewed past issues a couple of times. First here. And then here (at #6 for 2006).

4. Even though I haven't written a proper review or anything yet, you should also know that I was completely charmed by Peter the Insect Boy Chapter 1 (part of a promised graphic novel).

That's all you should know about me. But you can get Peter the Insect Boy online at Quimby's.

Hecter the Collecter and Peter the Insect Boy are ™ and © Adele Moss and Leslie Bloomfield.

THE FART PARTY

Two true stories about The Fart Party #7:

1. While I was away from my table at SPX, Julia Wertz came by and asked to trade her comic for one of mine. Marcos obliged. I think he was just trying to get rid of my comics so there'd be more room for his at the table.* At least he gave me the comic instead of hording it for himself, though!

2. I had a sack of SPX minis and a piping-hot coffee with me on my way to work a couple weeks ago. Some nameless jerk crossing a crowded intersection, with all of his attention focussed on his cellphone (I guess the person on the other end was crafting a particularly fascinating word picture that blocked his vision), had to dodge the traffic he was walking against, leap onto the curb and spill the coffee on my hand and my bag. My wrist was burned and some of my comics got stained. Luckily, the book that took the brunt was crap, but The Fart Party got hit pretty bad too. Then I opened the book and found out that Julia had double-covered my copy! The extra cover was ruined, but the cover inside was mostly intact. It's like Karma, without the effort.

*Actually, trades are more than welcome at our table.

The Fart Party is ™ and © Julia Wertz.

HIGH MAINTENANCE MACHINE

When will autobiographers stop ruining comics for all time? Nobody likes them, and the cartoonists who do them can't tell a story to save their lives! These books are clogging the arteries of the medium and destroying any hope it has of finally getting super hero fans the respect they deserve! Their real lives make Superman cry!

Or something... The debate continues to rage across the blogosphere. The mass debaters almost all hail from the land of the ill-informed. And they've got big axes to grind with the unknown, shaking their fists in an unlit corridor.

Anyone who hates autobio comics should try reading one so they can speak from just a little bit of experience. Might I suggest Matthew Reidsma's High Maintenance Machine? It's a great daily diary comic full of humor and melancholy, drawn with an expressive and assured line. Reidsma also ably captures anecdotal scenes in a limited space and probably could've written this piece with considerably more concision than me.

High Maintenance Machine is copyleft Matthew Reidsma.

BELLEN!

Here's a question for you: If Charlie Brown or Jimmy Corrigan ever found the women of their dreams, how happy would they be? If Box Brown's Bellen! is any indication, they'd be extremely happy. And still bitterly disapointed with life. Funny, wistful, philosophical and formally inventive, Bellen! was one of my favorite new finds at SPX.

Bellen! is ™ and © Box Brown.

CARL IS THE AWESOME

Looks to me like Carl spent too much time in Dr. Al Gorithms staff jacuzzi.

Carl is the Awesome is ™ and © Marcos Pérez.

FOUND CORPSE

The one-armed guy from Kenny Belasco's True Crime Fiction Presents Found Corpse Part II. Maybe if we all wish really hard, we'll see a Part III some day...

True Crime Fiction is ™ and © Kenny Belasco.

DR. STRANGE

With only a couple hours remaining in his birthday, I present the first post in the Comic Book Fan Art blog:



Because of MAGIC, Dr. Strange is much more powerful on creator Steve Ditko's birthday.

Here's the preliminary sketch I did in my sketch journal:



Dr. Strange is ™ and © Marvel Comics.