The 1970s were known as the “Me Decade,” but if there’s one thing that the rise of social media has made abundantly clear, it’s that vainglorious self-centeredness didn’t end on December 31st, 1979 — it was just getting started. You’ve got people posting and tweeting about everything from their political opinions to what they cooked for dinner, and everything in between, and quite often filming whatever they’re doing just to prove they’re doing it. If you want the dull minutiae of your life out there for all to see, there’s nothing but your own good sense to stop you from putting it out there — and common sense seems to be as short in supply as egocentrism is abundant. And so here we are, in a world where the once-unthinkable reigns supreme — why, even no-count government office employees who can’t draw seem to think, for some reason, that people…

My only previous exposure to Canadian cartoonist and ‘zinemaker Jonny Petersen came by way of his Space Basket comic that Domino published some years back, which followed a pretty straightforward (if admittedly bizarre and hilarious) narrative, so I was pretty well floored when I received a couple of his latest self-published minis, which are highly interpretive works set within a tight conceptual framework deployed in service of different goals. This review and the next one forthcoming on this site will take a look at each in detail, so let’s get started with the one that’s got the longest title — as well as one of the longest titles you’ll ever find in general, A Brief Yet Rambling Journey Through A Bunch Of Country Style Quotes And Bits Of Useless Advice, which is admittedly a real mouthful but offers quite a bit to take in visually, as well as to…

One thing I’ve come to appreciate about Jason T. Miles’ comics and ‘zines over the years — and which undoubtedly holds true for his latest self-published effort, What Its Like — is that he simply doesn’t have time to fuck around. Take, for instance, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it misspelling in the title here : I assume it to be intentional, but I could be entirely wrong about that, and the beauty of the whole things is that it really doesn’t matter much either way. There’s a ferocity to this story, these drawings, the entire project that speaks of someone sitting down at the drawing board and getting it all down on paper before it goes away. And now that it’s out in the world in print, it ain’t going anywhere.

Everything here is abstract, it’s true, but also recognizable to one degree or another — not as a hard-and-fast “thought” or…

“Why, sir —” long-suffering butler Alfred inquires of Bruce Wayne in Frank Miller’s classic The Dark Knight Returns, “—whatever happened to your moustache?”

Providence’s Ryan Alves is out to do a lot more than flip that query on its head with his recent AWE Comics newspaper broadsheet Moustache, though — and while it may not always be clear what his ambitions and aims are, his atmospheric blend of rich black inks, cinematic panel compositions, well-placed washes (or a digital approximation thereof, at any rate?), intricate linework, and good old-fashioned improvisational drawing at the very least marks this as the best-looking “Bat book” to come down the pike in ages, certainly better than anything DC seems even capable of producing with the “real” thing. Which brings us to the big question, namely —

So what is this early-days story featuring the most thinly-veiled analogue for the Caped Crusader ever…

Back when albums were a thing, many a band or artist struggled with the so-called “difficult second album,” but such a concept applies to other mediums, as well — including, of course, comics. It’s much harder to make an impactful “splash” when people see you coming and when they, to one degree or another, sort of know what to expect. Deliver on that expectation, and you’re accused of playing it safe; deviate from it, and you’re accused of getting too big for your britches too quickly and abandoning whatever it was that made you successful in the first place. You just can’t win.

Evan Salazar, for his part, has chosen the “more of the same” route for Rodeo Comics #2, but not necessarily done in the same way : for one thing, the MICE Mini-Grant he received has gone into upping the production values of his self-published comic considerably, the…

Deep in the murky subterranean depths of your being, there are questions that can’t even be asked, much less answered. Hidden truths obfuscated by so many layers of denial and reification that the very act of keeping them hidden has become a central function of your identity. Or maybe that should be of both your identities — the one you’ve constructed for yourself, and the one you show the public. What you see is never what you get with either, of course, because you desperately want to avoid what you need to see just as desperately as you know you really should be doing no such thing. Think of those parties you went to in your twenties that you knew your ex was going to be at and there was nobody in the world you wanted to see less, and nobody in the world you wanted to see more…

“No two alike!” is a truism when it comes to all the work of Toronto-based Devon Marinac, but not only in the sense of each successive project being utterly unlike the last. Nope, when we’re talking about his collage ‘zines — as we are here — no two copies of them are the same. No wonder, then, he produced his latest self-published example of such, Mix Yourself A Dead End, in an edition of only 30.

Marinac’s getting to be something of an old hat at making these — I’m pretty sure I’ve reviewed at least one before — but don’t take that to mean there’s anything “old” about them. Featuring hand-done colors in what sure looks to me like magic marker, stickers, and cut-up pieces of newspapers and magazines glued in throughout, these ‘zines feel “worn” and “lived in” even when they’re brand new, lending each the distinct…

Say what you will for Canadian artist Devon Marinac — and you can say a lot — but his work consistently refuses to be not just pigeonholed, but even categorized together. I mean, yeah, his new work Pussycats, Paperbacks, Pennants, And Penance is a ‘zine (and one self-published in an edition of just 30 copies, at that!), but beyond that? All bets are off.

And isn’t that what good art is all about at the end of the day — as well as the beginning and all points throughout? As you flip through this, every page promises a unique and inimitable experience, even — self-contradictory as this no doubt sounds — when themes and scenes are repeated, as they often are herein. There are two ways of looking at this, of course — one can choose to say to themselves “this is the third time we’ve seen a black cat…

While I admit to finding the subject fascinating, I’m by no means on expert on psychotherapy, to say nothing of its more — esoteric offshoots such as hypnotherapy, DBT, so-called “past life regression,” and the like. And while I harbor no doubt that any licensed and educated therapist would be absolutely appalled at me lumping entirely reputable forms of analysis in with stuff that many folks perceive to be sheer quackery, as I just did, for the purpose of discussing the most recent entry (that would be #94, for those keeping score at home) in the Mini Kus! line from our Latvian friends and Kus!, Aidan Koch’s Man Made Lake, it really is necessary to list — or perhaps the right term would be blend — them all together. Rest assured, all will be explained — to the extent I’m capable of doing so.

Which, admittedly, isn’t much, but…

I’m always hesitant to quote verbatim from a publisher’s promotional copy, but the tag line used by Kus! to describe cartoonist Lukas Weidinger’s Pirate & Parrot, #93 in their Mini Kus! series, is short, sweet, and to the point — as well as being eminently worth responding to. It simply states : “The pirate stands for desire. The parrot stands for opportunity. The fish stands for freedom. What do you stand for?” Very clever. Very cool. And utter hogwash, even if every word of it is true — which it probably is.

Look, I love a good existential brain-buster as much as anyone, but if you’re pondering over symbolism and deep philosophical meaning, you’re missing out on the point of Weidinger’s comic, which is simply this : it’s fun. Not only is there nothing wrong with that, in today’s cluttered comics world, I would even go so far as…