Comic Quickies: Your Indie Fix

Ritual #1: Thanks to this absolutely wonderful short comic, which originally ran as a back up for Prohpet, I became an instant fan of Malachi Ward and Matt Sheean.  Since reading Shock Post I've been on the prowl for more comics by those dudes, and I came across Ritual at the Short Run Comics Fest a few months back. I read it way back then, but recently gave it a reread since it is a bit of a mind-bender.

There's a couple of strange occurrences at the start of this comic, that definitely set the stage for some weirdness later on. The very first page sorta sets the tone and gives the sense that this comic is gonna be a bit out of the ordinary. There's a dark town, a disembodied hand hovering over the town, a sudden burst of bright light as the hand closes, and then things return back to normal as the light winks out.  From there, things get even weirder.

Photo courtesy Lucky's Comics. http://luckys.ca/blog/

The next page shows a couple in bed, and the woman, who is awake, watches as beetles crawl under her man's skin.  Pretty weird right?  Well, from there things go from weird to normal... Maybe too normal.  After that, as morning arrives, the woman gets out of bed and goes about another day in the life.  It isn't until later in the day when she's at home playing her ukulele while her partner does some work that the power goes out, and the story takes another turn.

Ward's art reminds me a bit of Charles Burns, but there's also some other influences in there I can't quite put my finger on. Either way, his art is real nice to look at, and he's got a great knack for setting a creepy, dark tone. My fandom grew by the page.

I gotta say, I really enjoyed this first issue of Ritual.  It was a bit on the weird side of things, but I like that. I've read it twice now and still don't totally know what is going on which makes me look forward to reading it again someday. There's parts where the reader needs to make interpretations, and parts where you just gotta take events as they are, and sometimes that line is blurry.  All around a good read, and I'm looking forward to checking out more of Ward's work.

White Clay: I remember the day this arrived in my preferred comic shop; it stood out on the shelf of new and notable arrivals and seemed so different from what was in my comic pile that day that I decided I should pick it up if only for the sake of variety.  

Apparently, Thomas Herpich, the artist behind this one-man anthology comic, is one of the dudes who works on Adventure Time.  I'm completely out of touch with popular modern cartoons, but I keep hearing about all these great comic guys who are connected to that show, that I gotta say, I'm intrigued by it. 

Anyway, asides aside for a moment, White Clay is another comic featured in this little round-up that has moments of straight up weirdness mixed in clarity.  There's about nine comic-pieces in this thirty-two page issue, and they are by varying degrees witty, insightful, strange, fun, cute and imaginative.  Herpich definitely shows his versatility here, and I was roundly impressed from one story to the next.  

From the artist's blog: http://herpich.blogspot.com/

This is another one that I've read a couple times before posting, and again, these comics, while good the first time around, were even better with another read.  I really like Herpich's art, especially his ability draw strange human-like creatures.  He's a deft hand with the india ink too, and I really appreciate how the varying shades of grey add depth and texture to his work.  Herpich is definitely a guy I want to keep an eye on and hopefully I'll be able to track down more of his work. Good stuff!

Lose #3:  I know I've already reviewed Lose #4 and this may seem like I'm working backwards in time, but I never thought I'd actually get my hands on any of the previous issues of Lose.  Then I went to Lucky's in Vancouver, and found Michael DeForge's third issue of his one-man comics anthology.  

If you recall from my review of Lose #4, I was not totally convinced of the all the love and accolades that get heaped upon this guy. I just wasn't seeing it from reading only that one item in his bag o' tricks.  Well, I'm glad I didn't write DeForge off, because I really enjoyed Lose #3.  

Again, things are a little weird, as DeForge seems to enjoy dialing up the oddities in his comics. Last time around I said that his comics "dipped into levels of weirdness that was difficult to digest as a reader" and while those dips are certainly there in this comic too, but this time around the "dips" were like a tasty sauce; easy to enjoy and hard to stop once you got started.

Photo taken from Koyama Press Site

Overall, I found the comics much more coherent this time, and enjoyed Lose #3 from start to finish.  There's a lot to like about Lose #3 and it all starts with an awesome page of tongue fads.  Personally, I prefer to keep my tongue "classic", but I can see the appeal of the "caged heat" and "the rose" fads.

Though every comic in this anthology was pretty damn great, I loved Dog 2070 which followed a divorced dog dad though his somewhat strange, somewhat sad, all together too real existence.  This comic manages to be insightful, smart, funny and a bit depressing all at the same time. A pretty impressive feat!

With another DeForge read under my belt, and a good one at that, I'm definitely looking forward to reading more of what he has to offer.  It looks like DeForge will have at least two new comics coming from Koyama Press in 2013, so I'll have my eye on those once they're published.


So how about that? Another foray into the wilds of indie comics, and I again, I not only return unscathed, but with three great trophies!  Talk about some talented folk who don't get enough recognition for their talents... I've really enjoyed this side of the medium, and you'd better believe I'll be reading more titles like these in the future.  

Happy Blogiversary + Vacation Pics!

Well, another year has gone by and that means that Battle Hymns is three years old. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I've been blogging for three years. Battle Hymns has been a fun part of my life, and has opened a lot of really fun, exciting and interesting doors that I never expected. When I got the blog rolling three years ago, I don't think I ever imagined all the awesomeness that I've experienced through the blog. For those reasons, plus all the awesome unread books on my shelves, I'm incredibly excited to get rolling on my fourth year of blogging.

I know I covered a bunch of the readings I'm excited for in 2013 a couple days ago so I won't go over that stuff again, however, I do want to say THANK YOU again.

To everyone who makes Battle Hymns part of their lives: Thank You.  It means a lot that the reviews I write turn out to be something that people actually want to read, and it never ceases to amaze me that people actually value my opinion.  I hope I can keep on giving everyone plenty of reason to come back to Battle Hymns in 2013.

That's enough tooting of my own horn...for now.  Instead I want the lion's share of this post to focus on the coolest thing I've done in my personal life recently: travel.

Vacations have too few and far between for me lately, so, in order to say farewell to 2012, and to just get away from the regular everyday life of Seattle, my lady and I took a trip to Vancouver, B.C. this past week.  It was a short 4 hour bus ride, but it was my first time outside of the country since May of 2002, and my first trip abroad with my girlfriend, so it was sorta a big deal for us.

Aside from sight seeing and feasting on delicious foods I took a bit of time to turn my vacation into a nerd-cation.  This past fall at work I've been listening to the Inkstuds podcasts with great frequency, and Robin McConnell, the host has mentioned a particular Vancouver comic shop as a great destination for comics lovers multiple times, so I made sure a journey to Lucky's Comics was on the to-do list while in town.  The shop was as great as advertised, and the selection was quite impressive. There were dozens of indie comics in the shop that I'd heard of, but never laid eyes on.  It took a lot of willpower to not drop a ton of money, but I still made out with a pretty great stash of comics.

Aside from scoring a couple copies of the shop's own zine, I scooped up every bit of  Malachi Ward comics goodness that the shop had on hand. Not only did they have all four issues of his and Matt Sheean's Expansion series, but I scored Utu as well, which looks pretty cool. In addition to that stuff I also picked up Michael DeForge's Lose #3, of which there are zero copies available in Seattle, as well as the hilarious (I read this one straight away and it was super fun) Comics Class by Matt Forsythe.  There was a ton of other great books in the shop, including an entire section dedicated to Koyama Press titles, a comics publisher that is publishing really great stuff lately.  All told, it was an awesome visit, and I hope to get back someday to buy more great comics.

Now, onto the food, and lovely scenery...

Coal Harbor.

We had a some really great, but chilly, weather while we were there, so the views were fantastic.  I wish I could take credit for most of these pictures, but as usual, I forgot to pack my camera, so my lady did most of the photography.  Probably why they look so nice.

Our biggest splurge of the trip was tickets to Cirque du Soleil Amaluna.  The show was absolutely amazing. Each act was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen...until the next act occurred, then that was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. This situation repeated itself for the entirety of the show.  

They don't let you take pictures once you are inside, so here's Amaluna from afar. 

The best part of any vacation is getting to eat new food, so here's some food pictures:

Mmm...Waffles.

That was our dessert.

I finally got to try poutine. That stuff is delish!

Come to think of it, the poutine was actually a "dessert" as well.  Here's a picture of me impatiently waiting for one of our meals to arrive:

And here's how happy I am when there's finally food close at hand!

I have a weakness for Jelly Doughnuts.

We were also in Vancouver for New Years, so I've got a couple pictures of that too.  The New Years  festivities are fairly mellow in Vancouver, but there were still plenty of folks out and about getting their drink and their party on.  Myself included.

And last but not least. The first picture taken of this guy in the year 2013. Simultaneously the best and worst photo of the year.  

That's all for now.  By the way, Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2013 is your best year ever!

Regular blogging business shall resume shortly....

Comic Quickie: Lose #4

Michael DeForge is one of those artists who is well loved by other artists.  It seems like whenever I read or listen to an interview with any indie comic artist, they always mention DeForge as one of their favorite artists.

Because of this fact, I've been eager to get my hands on some sort of published comic by the man.  It turns out those are hard to come by though.  I was looking for something more substantial than comics of the anthologized, or mini comics variety, which led me towards his lengthier work; his four issues of Lose.  Lose is published by Koyama Press, a publishing company that is quietly putting out some great indie comics.

Apparently, DeForge is making an impact, because issues one through three of Lose were completely sold out. Undeterred, I bought the fourth and most recent issue, also known as the "fashion issue".

There are three different comic stories contained in this issue, all of which I found to be a perplexing mix of interesting stories that wander deeply into the realms of weirdness pretty quickly.  The first story involves a young man who falls victim to a strange communicable disease which covers his body in S&M attire which also appears to be some sort of symbiosis.  From there, there's a story about the fashions of Canadian royalty, and story where every living thing, both humans and animals, in a small Canadian town have the same face...Staceyface

DeForge may be an artist's artist, but I'm not so sure he's an artist that matches my tastes.  Frankly, after reading Lose #4, I'm slightly confused as to what the fuss is all about.  DeForge's art is different...possibly even "fresh", and interesting to look at, but it's not the most accessible style.  Additionally, his stories all had moments of greatness, yet they quickly to dipped into levels of weirdness that was difficult to digest as a reader.

Maybe I'm missing something from this reading experience, maybe I'm not well versed enough in indie and underground comics to fully grasp the art and concepts...or maybe not. Forty-eight pages worth of material is a decent litmus test though.  The thing is, I'm not completely ready to write DeForge off. Despite feeling like I don't see what all the fuss is about, I still enjoyed the stories and the weirdness, just to a lesser degree than I expected given all the great things I've heard and read about the guy.  I'd like to see what else he's created in the world of comics, and form a more solid opinion.  Until then, I'll remain unconvinced of his awesomeness.