Case in point : the collector mentality, especially the comic book collector mentality. The kind of “thinking” that compels people to drop ridiculous sums of money for cheaply-made periodicals that are essentially disposable by design, and then to not even engage with them on the level people who paid a quarter (or less) for them did, which is to say — the collector doesn’t read that “holy grail” comic he (and yes, it’s almost always “he”) just dropped a huge chunk of his life savings and/or year’s…

I mean, for all intents and purposes what we have here is basically the comics equivalent of a PSA, and to top it all off, this thing isn’t even offered for sale anywhere! It is, however, easy enough to get your hands on a copy, as well you should — but we’ll get to all that at the end of this little write-up. First let’s deal with why I said you “should,” in fact, get it —

So-called “backward masking” is the theme of the day here, a largely bogus urban legend which contended that rock groups — in particular those that plied their wares in the heavy metal genre — were “concealing secret messages” in the vinyl grooves of their records that could only be heard…

Confession time : I pride myself on being up on just about everything going on in the world of small press and self-published comics, but try as I might, there is still a fair amount of stuff that escapes my notice until well after its release date, and such is the case with Scab County, a harrowing, disturbing, and yes even funny one-shot written and drawn by legendary DIY cartoonist/musician/SOV filmmaker Carlos Gonzales in 2015 and published by Floating World Comics the following year. Odds are fairly good, then, that a number of regular readers of this blog already have this book, but to give away the game right away here, let me say that for those of you who don’t, you’d be well-advised to do what I recently did and grab one up quickly because the sooner you get the contents of this comic into your subconscious mind…

Droplets of water constructed from text, clippings, and various and sundry found materials are the de facto “protagonists” here, either by themselves, in small “groups,” or as part of veritable torrential downpours, and as with other Mavreas works, each page can be taken as a discrete “concrete poem” (albeit in liquid form, ha!) on its own, but in succession the effect they have is cumulative at the very least, exponentially multiplied if you’re really picking up what he’s laying down. A visual poem with each page…

The first of two ‘zines we’ll be taking a look at is B V A, a “concrete poetry” project published by Ottawa-based above/ground press in 2019 that has about as tight a self-imposed remit as possible to conceive…

There are few cartoonists working today funnier than Drew Lerman, and while it would be a reach to say that his Snake Creek strip owes more to Henny Yougman than it does to Walt Kelly, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes-level detective skills to see a subtle-but-rich vein of Yiddish humor running under much of it. So why not acknowledge one’s influences, eh boychik?

And that’s what Lerman’s newest self-published mini, Schtick, is all about — a short form “deep dive” into the rapid-fire exchanges and caustic banter that inform so much of traditional Jewish comedy. It’s a lean and lovingly mean number, clocking in at 12 full-color pages, and that’s just about right to provide a nicely representative sample size of “double act” gag strips largely focused on the kind of aggravating-yet-hilarious misunderstandings that arise when two people can’t seem to help but to talk over (and around) each…

I’ve reviewed Josh Frankel’s work on this site before — specifically his full-length comic Eccentric Orbits from last year — and while it’s true that his traditional sensibilities lend themselves well to long-form genre works, it seems to me that where he really shines is in the mini game, where his old-school panel construction and smartly humorous take on tried-and-true tropes always combine for a refreshingly unpretentious experience. Simply put, when you read a Frankel mini, it reads like something made by someone for no other reason than they love the form, and that’s the best reason to put pen to paper that I can think of.

His latest self-published number (that I’m aware of, at any rate), a punchy eight-pager titled Grim Nutrition, is about as perfect a distillation of what makes his art, if not unique per se, at the very least special, and in a pinch…

I’ve sung the praises of Louisiana cartoonist Kyle Bravo’s unassuming (and, crucially, unforced) self-published autobio series Forever And Everything in the past — and will no doubt feel suitably compelled to do so again — but reading his two latest issues, numbers six and seven, back-to-back in one sitting is a quietly powerful experience the likes of which few things can really compare to. Which is ironic (sorry), of course, because I get the impression such was hardly Bravo’s intention when he created them.

Still, we live in (are coming out of?) unprecedented times, as the entirely accurate cliche goes, and as such intention can have little if anything to do with how a work is received — which, I suppose, is always true, but is doubly (at least) so nowadays. All of which is my roundabout (to put it far too kindly) way of saying that we are talking…