Flying way further below the radar than he deserves to, Denver-based Karl Christian Krumpholz is staking his claim to the territory marked “pre-eminent cartoonist depicting the realities of American urban life.” Which, admittedly, would be too long a title to fit on most plaques or awards. Nevertheless, it’s true, and now it’s my job to tell you why —

30 Miles Of Crazy!  #7, the latest issue of Krumpholz’ self-published ongoing comic series, is quite possibly the strongest one to date, relating short-form stories of strippers, white-collar office functionaries, bartenders, transplants, and other real-as-that-stain-on-your-shirt folks with an elegantly simple dose of entirely unforced sympathy and a keen eye for authenticity in dialogue mostly missing from other monologue-driven narratives in any medium. The art is gritty but fluid, with strong emphasis on facial expressions, body language, and richly-detailed backgrounds. Krumpholz writes and draws the holy hell out of every panel, and…

A silent, rural, two-lane road. A woman in a car on mission. A lifetime of things unspoken hanging thick in the air. And a palpable sense of loss.

Combustible ingredients, to be sure, but in the hands of Emi Gennis, they become Baseline Blvd, a short, clean-lined, visually and emotionally austere book about a journey to a place, sure, but also to a place within where few would dare to go. Where, perhaps, even fewer would come back from.

Okay, yeah, I said the ingredients here were combustible, but this is no Molotov of a comic — rather, Gennis sets things on a slow-burn simmer from the outset, and as flashbacks creep in and the scope and nature of what’s compelling our protagonist forward make themselves known, we realize we are following one raw, frayed, threadbare nerve all the way from point A to point B, and that those…

Somewhere, at some point, for some reason, some people are building a city. Only maybe they’re not people, since at least one of them shambles about on all fours. And maybe it’s not a city because all they’ve got finished so far is part of a wall — which is more than you can say for Trump. But hey, maybe they’re just waiting for Mexico to pay for the thing, too. And somehow, in some way, all of this has something to do with a post-modern retelling of the lamentable tale of Pierrot, the archetypal “sad clown” figure of literary history.

Possibly, at any rate.

You guessed it, the recently-released (via Anthology Editions, continuing their very strong publishing year) Pierrot Alterations is a C.F. comic. Or ‘zine. Or maybe even book. I prefer to think it occupies its own unique space somewhere between all three, but not necessarily beholden to…

Oblique connections are a recurring theme in Conor Stechschulte’s ongoing Generous Bosom graphic novel series, but the disparate threads that run parallel to each other in that multi-faceted narrative appear to be heading for some sort of convergence as the sure-to-be-big finale approaches; in his latest self-published standalone comic, though, entitled Monks Mound (or, if you prefer, “Monk’s Mound,” as the titular location is referred to in the text of the book itself), the connective tissues linking one of the stories to the other are left entirely in the hands of the reader to either discover or, as is more likely to be the case, intuit for themselves. The end result is a challenging and deliberately disjointed read, part family drama and part history lecture, the overall tone and feel of which is something akin to an ABC After School Special written and directed by David Lynch.

Is that me…

What better place to start this week than with the end of an era?

Or three of ’em, to be precise, as The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen : The Tempest #6 marks not only the final installment of the long-running, if sporadic, series (or should that be “series of series”?), but also the much-publicized last comic ever written by Alan Moore and the less-well-publicized last comic ever drawn by Kevin O’Neill. Both (extraordinary, let’s be honest) gentlemen are off to greener pastures than this beleaguered medium has to offer, and they finish their epic in fun, smart, surprisingly understated style, having a go at just about everything on their way out the door, most notably themselves. This concluding arc, co-published by Top Shelf and Knockabout, has divided some — funny how these things always do — but for my part it was everything I’d been hoping it would be and…

Most debuts, let’s face it, disappoint. Others show promise. A select few thoroughly satisfy. And then, every once in awhile, one comes along that literally demands you take notice.

“Spoiler” alert for lazy readers : cartoonist Evan Salazar’s new self-published mini, Rodeo #1, is definitely the latter. You need to buy it immediately. And that’s my cue to cut to the chase and tell non – lazy readers why —

Following in the tradition of the finest solo anthology titles such as Eightball and Yummy Fur, yet blazing a trail entirely its own, this comic arrives like a bolt out of the blue and announces the arrival of a talent  already tantalizingly close to attaining that elusive title of being “fully formed.” There’s a back cover “gag” strip that rather misses the mark, it’s true, but apart from that what we’ve got here is some seriously polished — though…