I’ve reviewed a number of cat-centric comics on this site, so it’s time to even the score a bit — and there’s no more intriguing and unexpected a person to bring our canine friends to the table (errrmm, maybe that came out wrong) than Christopher Adams, whose Tack Piano Heaven manages to thematically encompass just about everything under the sun without confining itself to “be” any one thing in particular. Adams’ work is a constantly-shifting series of surprises, the very definition of “no solid ground,” so seeing him narrow his focus onto a singular subject is sure to yield interesting results — which brings us to his latest self-published ‘zine, Dog Book.

Strictly speaking, this is a 20-page “suite” of illustrations featuring, you guessed it, dogs, but it doesn’t take long to figure out there’s a lot more going on here than that. Utilizing any number of tools, including…

Originally self-published “way” back in 2017 but only now making its way in front of my eager eyes, Chicago cartooning legend Max Morris’ On Transit is an admirably rancid duo-tone nightmare very much in the Gary Panter tradition, albeit with perhaps an even more raw punk sensibility, and is a legit must-read item for anyone reliant upon the whims and vagaries of public transportation, particularly CTA buses — although the bus system of any major city works in a pinch as a substitute. And while the depiction of the ride herein is exaggerated for both comic and horrific effect, chances are good it’s going to ring true for most readers because, hey, most of us have been there and done that.

Like being a prison guard or a schoolteacher, driving a bus is one of those occupations where you’re better off admitting silently to yourself that the inmates are running…

If life in suburbia constitutes a kind of long, drawn-out soul death on the installment plan — and I’d contend there’s probably no need to start that sentence with an “if” — then what must life in suburban Florida be like? The mind shudders at the prospect of such a barren cultural wasteland, and yet — either enough people simply don’t care where the hell they live, or don’t see a problem with the idea of chugging gas-guzzling SUVs from one monstrous “cookie-cutter” chain business to another that the so-called “Sunshine Stare” is literally loaded with suburbs. And, like anywhere else, the kids who live there need to do something for fun.

In Portland cartoonist Ross Jackson’s 2017 Cold Cube-published mini Sticky Sweets, a pair of bored (of course) young teens decide the best way to while away part of their ample free time is to fuck off at…

One of the reasons I keep this blog going, despite having a fair number of other writing commitments and a distinct lack of time, is that around here I can write about whatever I want. And while I highly doubt that any cartoonist expects that they’ll get more than a 75- or 100-word “capsule” review for a 10-page mini they’ve made that sells for two bucks, reviewing stuff that nobody expects to see full-length reviews for, including the book’s creator, is one of those “whatever I want” things that I love doing. And you know what? A lot of those things nobody else is gonna review actually offer a fair amount to discuss and dissect.

All of which brings us to Scribbles #2, the latest (I think, at any rate) self-published mini from Bay Area “ink stud” Cameron Forsley, this time flying as a solo act without a story assist…

The rural British countryside has always held a certain mystique to those who aren’t from there — and to those who are, as well.  The supernatural and the entirely natural seem to have a way of converging in this “green and pleasant land” — from the stone circles to the crop circles to the fogous to the hill figures to, of course, the rumored  lines in the Earth from which the Czap Books/Grindstone Comics visual poetry series Ley Lines derives its name. Hypothesized by antiquarian/photographer/entrepreneur Alfred Watkins in three tracts he wrote in the 1920s to have been literally straight lines which connected many of the ancient mysteries just mentioned with hills, lakes, rivers, and villages, and to have served purposes both mystical (hidden energy grids) and mundane (trade and transportation routes), the Ley Lines remain an intriguing enigma, even if they might be complete bullshit — hell, maybe even

Separating art from artist has always been a tricky proposition, but it’s doubly so when the artist in question is a symbol of liberation and subjugation both. Many artists from various media whose work I generally respect hold or held views I absolutely abhor, from Steve Ditko to Jim Steranko to Douglas Pearce to Peter Sotos, but it’s not all that difficult to say “their worldview’s repugnant, but I like their stuff” without coming off as a hypocrite. Respect for one facet of a person’s life isn’t a tacit endorsement of all of it. But what do you do with Virginia Woolf, who’s justly lauded for her trailblazing feminism and fearlessness in dealing with overtly queer subject matter and themes literally decades before such things were discussed in “polite” (as in, bigoted) company — but was also a fairly pronounced racist?

Cartoonist Victor Martins tackles that very conundrum in…

There’s no more natural a fit for the Czap Books/Grindstone Comics visual poetry series Ley Lines than Alyssa Berg — as anyone who’s been fortunate enough to get their hands on her self-published Recollection and Soft Fascinations can tell you — so now that she has, in fact, gotten “on board” with the title, so to speak, my only question is : what took so long?

Admittedly, it’s unusual to see Berg’s soft watercolor work rendered in black-and-white, but prospective readers needn’t fear : Ley Lines #21, Forget-Me-Not, is absolutely gorgeous and shows that she’s every bit as adept with inkwashes as she is with paints. Every page has a lyrical rhythm that flows into the next, and that’s true before taking her sparse and emotive verse into account. This is Berg firing on all creative cylinders — but then, she never does anything halfway.

The historical figure…

At first glance, issue number 20 of the Czap Books/Grindstone Comics series Ley Lines, Gloria Rivera’s Island Of Elin, is one of the most narratively straight-forward entries into this ever-developing “canon” — I mean, for the most part, it looks and reads very much like a “standard” (whatever that even means anymore) comic book. But don’t let its appearance deceive you — this is every bit as multi-faceted and interpretative a work as we’ve come to expect from these books.

Incorporating, as these things do, a variety of non-comics influences, Rivera — who is a uniquely perceptive and emotive cartoonist, using an economy of lines to communicate a wealth of visual fact and feeling — leans into the works of Jean Audubon, John Muir (especially), and the so-called “Hudson Valley painters” to tell the story of Plover the bird, his friend who’s on their last legs (err —…