I admit : it took me a little bit of time to really appreciate the second issue of Brandon Lehmann’s self-published “solo anthology” series, Womp Womp. In my defense, though, despite never fully getting over the reservations I had (and still have) about it, I was at least able to put them aside long enough to get some good laughs out of it.

Cut from much the same mold as Michael Kupperman’s work of, say, a decade ago, Lehmann here serves up what’s largely a collection of single-page strips that feature hyper-realistic, yet almost pathologically mundane, static illustrations that are uniformly employed in service of pure set-up until the final panel’s glib, ironic “twist” ending. It takes some time to get on Lehmann’s wavelength here — he’s unwavering in his approach and you’ve gotta decide for yourself whether you’re willing to meet him on his “home turf” or just…

The exquisitely minimalist comics of Angela Chen are always a feast for the mind and eyes, and with two new ones hot off the press and/or Xerox machine (the other, Can’t Breathe Without Air, is pictured near the bottom of this review), now’s a great time to get on board the “Chen Bandwagon” (sorry, Angela, if you’re reading this) if you haven’t yet. We’ll be looking at both new releases in due course, but I flipped a coin and The Review won out as the one to go under my metaphorical microscope first, so let’s have at it:

A study in introversion expressed by extroverted means (hey, all art is), one’s first reaction to this eight-page mini may be that it’s a study in — or, if you prefer, a mass of — contradictions, but I’m not so sure that’s the case : yeah, it’s about negativity and its…