Everyday life is weird enough, but it’s also nowhere near weird enough — and that’s where Stella Murphy’s cartooning comes in, specifically her 2019 Caboose-published collection Hometime, which defuses the tension inherent in much of what passes for commonplace domesticity by operating on it like a surgeon. Her humor is her scalpel, and she utilizes it with precision, but she confines her cuts to the margins and then stands back and allows the fissures to spread and grow.

It’s an approach that works — hell, it works spectacularly and consistently — but it takes an awful lot of nerve and an awful lot of trust. And in order to be effective, of course, trust has to be a two-way street, so Murphy places as much of it in her readers as she does in her own abilities. Where other artists go for the obvious, then, she goes for…

As far as thought-provoking and challenging exercises in formalism and sub-minimalism go, they don’t come much more formalist or sub-minimalist than prolific cartoonist Sean Christensen’s 2019 self-published mini Performance Video, an admittedly curious contemporary artifact that’s as notable for what it does as what it is — although by the end, whether or not there’s any distinction between the two is very much an open question.

And, in fairness, open questions are rather at the core of what Christensen is getting at in this work, for which the antiquated term “avant-garde” is woefully inadequate. Christensen starts and ends with the most basic of basic linework that wordlessly refers either forward and backward to the text, respectively — but that text is the backbone of the project, blue-rendered hand lettering split, like the art, into six-panel grids on each page, with four lines of wording per panel being the standard…

I first came across the work of Samuel Benson when, in fairness, he came across me and sent me a copy of his impressively strange full-length comic A Different Sky, a post-psychedelic exploration of altered consciousness, sci-fi high weirdness, and quasi-magical birds from a stoner/slacker perspective that struck a cord with its idiosyncratic dialogue, bizarre-yet-logically-consistent plotting, and just plain intense art, a combination of belabored cross-hatching, big eyes, nervous faces, and gritty urban rendering. It was quite unlike anything else in recent memory, but as it turns out that’s only because my “sample size” of Benson’s own work was pretty small.

In truth, unbeknownst to me until very recently, Benson has been self-publishing a magazine-formatted series called Long Gone Comix, the third issue of which just recently came out, and tonally and stylistically and artistically it serves up much the same kind of “far-out” cartooning A Different Sky

Succinctly but accurately billing itself as “a collection of comics and drawings by Abby Jame” by its publisher, Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club, 2019’s High + Shy isn’t necessarily more than that — but, then again, it sort of is. And while it took me some time to get around to reading it — these are the things that happen when you’re damn near literally swimming in review copies — the simple fact is that it hit me in just the right way at just the right time.

By way of explanation, at least for those who don’t know, your friendly (usually) critic here lives precisely one block from the scene of George Floyd’s horrific murder on 38th & Chicago in south Minneapolis, and reading comics just didn’t factor into my daily routine for a number of days there because, well, there was no such thing a thing as a…

A simple story, well told, is always worth its weight in gold — a sentiment that’s perhaps never been more true than in these troubled and troubling times — and when he’s really hit on a nugget of an idea, when he’s firing on all cylinders creatively, a simple story, well told, is precisely the kind of thing that Columbus, Ohio’s Brian Canini excels at. Guess what? In his latest self-published (under the auspices of his Drunken Cat Comics imprint) mini,  Across The Diner, he’s hit on a nugget of an idea and is firing on all cylinders creatively.

Still here? ‘Cuz, I mean, I just pretty well gave away the game, which — at least according to what passes for conventional “wisdom” — is supposed to be seriously poor form. Even if what you’re saying is true — which, in this case, it absolutely is — you’re…

Apropos of perhaps nothing in terms of the overall scope of this review, but definitely worth a mention : Brian Canini is the most organized cartoonist around. Every few months, like clockwork, I get a nice little package from him containing his latest review submissions, complete with a little letter containing a brief synopsis of each. This is the kind of critical outreach that is very appealing to me and, I would guess, other critics, as it shows he is downright eager to have us check out his stuff, and he’s always been more than magnanimous about any critiques I may have about his work, taking them in the constructive manner in which they’re intended. And if that isn’t a natural segue right there, I don’t know what is.

Cutting to the chase, then, one of the two new minis from his own Drunken Cat Comics imprint that I sat…

If there’s one thing you can say for the work of Seattle-based cartoonist Jason T. Miles, it’s that his art is consistently challenging. And surprising. And pretty near indescribable. At times even indecipherable. And, yeah, I realize that’s more than the promised “one thing.”

Still, in my own defense, if I only had one thing to say about it, that wouldn’t really make for much of a review, would it? And I actually have a fair amount to say about the retrospective collection Spewey, a 44-page assemblage of some of Miles’ more idiosyncratic work from the past decade published in late 2019 by “boutique” riso-printing house Cold Cube Press. It’s deciding how to say what you want to say that’s always the trickiest part of reviewing any of Miles’ comics, though, and that’s what makes the prospect of attempting to do so such an exciting proposition.

As a general…

While Chilean cartoonist Pablo Delcielo and his writing partner Shihab Alen (a nom de plume, apparently, for one Raimundo Gunen) open their 2017 Perfectly Acceptable-published illustrated poetic essay Anarchy In The Kingdom Of Heaven with a reference to Philip K. Dick, in both tone and content their visionary (in the strictest sense of the term) project actually evokes the writings of spiritual anarchist authors ranging from Henry David Thoreau to Peter Lamborn Wilson/Hakim Bey, albeit with a distinctly, and entirely understandable, anti-imperialist streak ever-present in its suggestions and implications. It is, however, no less radical (again, in the strictest sense of that word) for that fact.

Heavily informed by the Latin American experience with colonialism both military and economic, this is a short-form thorough re-thinking of possible futures in the face and aftermath of Western exploitation, and as such is unafraid to call out the American empire as fascist…

Credit where it’s due : cartoonist Hiller Goodspeed’s 2018 Perfectly Acceptable release Simple Things makes perfectly clear what it is going in — from its title to its pared-down cover aesthetics, you know what you’re getting into with this one before you ever even open it up. Here’s the thing, though — as any seasoned reader of small press and self-published comics knows, there’s a whole lot out there that’s deceptive in its simplicity. Or, perhaps more accurately, complex in its simplicity.

John Porcellino is the first name that leaps to mind, of course, his legendary King-Cat Comix utilizing the most basic line art to communicate conceptual, emotional, and even physical depth with a wistful touch and wry sense of humor — but the distinguished Mr. Porcellino himself would be the fist to admit that there are those who preceded him on this particular path, the most notable probably being…

Sketchbooks always reveal something about an artist’s process — but Brianna Rose Brooks’ 2018 Perfectly Acceptable release, Oh My (Bri), goes a step further by revealing much of its author’s psyche. It’s an intimate glimpse at a remarkable talent — disarmingly intimate, in fact — but it’s also not necessarily for those who don’t appreciate a challenge when they’re “only” expecting to look at some amazing drawings.

Described by its publisher as dealing with “topics of intimacy, identity, and blackness” — truth in advertising, I assure you — it’s nevertheless a safe bet that readers will be at least occasionally taken aback by how far she goes in exploring these themes, visually and literally. And while the sketches and essay collected herein span a roughly three-year gamut, the cumulative effect of the work as a whole bears the conceptual weight of a liftetime having been spent not just…