Anticipation & Convergences

I have finished eleven reviews over the last three months.  I write these reviews because I like the books and I want to let everyone know how to find and support them.  The thing is once I publish a review I continue to get updates from and about artists.  As I move on to the next artist I am getting all these awesome little tidbits that I haven't been sharing.  I asked Geoff Vasile for permission to use images from his books.  He said sure.  He also said that he was moving most of his web-presence to The Geoff Vasile Show! on tumblr.   I bit the bullet and set up a tumblr account.  I found out that about half of the artists who had stopped updating their web pages are now posting on tumblr.  On a side note, Vasile posted this new slick silk screened cover for issue four of Trackrabbit.

Robinson's take on Fin & Jake

Now on tumblr, I have started to see Andy Hirsch promoting this Adventure Time book that Liz Prince had been mentioning.   Not having Kids or cable I really had no idea what Adventure Time is.  Everyone else seems to already have been keyed into Adventure Time.  The young woman running the register at Austin Books all but rolled her eyes at me when I asked if all the issues of Adventure Time had back-up stories by indie artist.  Turns out I had been seeing a lot of Adventure Time fan art floating around the intertubes.  I just had failed to draw the connection.  Unsurprisingly Alex Robinson's attempt at The Wonderful World of Alx Robinson is both awesome and a little freaky.

Hirsch did the art for the B alternate cover for the third issue of Adventure Time:Marceline and the Scream Queens.  He will also be doing a cover of another issue in November.  Hopefully this is a good link, if not he posted both covers at It's Andy Hirsch.   The six issue Marceline series were done by Meredith Gran.  Gran has been rocking out her own web-comic called Octopus Pie.  Octopus Pie: There Are No Stars In Brooklyn, is a hoot and brought back the few fond memories I have of Brooklyn.  Hirsch 's cover highlights Liz Prince's seven page back-up story.  I ran out and got it but starting at issue three of six left me a little at sea.  Gran's work seams like some solid story telling.  Prince's back-up story Fruit Salad Days is hilarious and stands on its own.  With the Hirsch cover it is totally worth the cover price all on its own.

Prince with Hirsch's Cover

So that's where things I had been anticipating converged.  Some of the other things I am looking forward to have been in print for years.  Following Alex Robinson on social media is a reminder that I have three more reviews of already published work, that I hope to explore here. He also keeps on putting out teaser pages for the book he is currently working on.  He just posted page eighty-eight; it is ridiculous good but frustratingly gives almost nothing away.  Also, when I wrote my Guy Davis review Guy Davis Artworks was off line for renovation.  Now it is back up with many awesome preview pages including may works I missed.  From adverts in B.P.R.D. I knew I had missed Nevermen but I had no idea about The Zombies That Ate The World and some other work he did for Les Humanoides Associes.  As I track down those works there is also some work free of charge on My Space Dark Horse Presents. 

I came across two things slated for 2013 that have me chomping at the bit.  Monica Gallagher had mentioned that she had done some work for Oni but she has now announced that  Glitter Kiss will be coming out in January.  She is also stepping up Bonnie N. Collide to a twice weekly comic strip!  There are also all her mini-comics Boobage, When I Was A Mall Model and Go For The Eyes that I hope to review.  The 2013 news that has me jumping up and down is issue number four of Varmints!  I am not normally an exuberant guy.  As far as content goes, on the surface of it, Varmints is one of the lighter books that I follow.  While deeper things are developing, each issue stands on its own as a little comic adventure.  Hirsch recently posted a page that reminded me why I just can't wait to see where his work is going.  I have been accused of being dourer and I do hate musicals.  So why am I so giddy?   It is the audacity of having a singing dancing extravaganza conveyed only in static silent juxtaposed illustrations.   I would call bullshit on many others artists, but he makes it look easy.  You should go to It's Andy Hirsch and look at the larger  image.  I could (and may) write a entire review just on this page.

That's it for now.  I still have a stack of mini-comics to get through before I see what people bring to Artists' Alley at Austin Comic Con. 

Geoff Vasile's Trackrabbit

Trackrabbit

by Geoff Vasile

This is a review of Trackrabit issues one through four. There is also a fifth issue available at Vasile's website. You can check out some his work for free on his tublr page.  Vasile calls Trackrabit his "one-man fiction anthology."  To date, he has alternated between science fiction and twenty something slice of life stories.  I wanted to start these mini comic reviews with Geoff Vasile because he had the strongest collection of mini-comics by creators that I met for the first time at Staple! 2012.  Later this month I'll be reviewing some artists who I knew of before the '12 expo as well as a few I have yet to meet.

Initially, I wanted to focus on the writing in Trackrabit.  Each issue contains a single stand alone story of twenty-four to forty pages.  In my first read, his writing stood out as more innovative and personal than the artwork.  My impression is that Vasile packs a lot of story telling in those few pages without being overly textual.  I came away from each issue feeling like I had spent far more time with the characters than I had.  With a re-read, it became clear that this is as much a product of Vasil's skill as an illustrator as his skill at prose and dialogue.

Panel choices are a big part of what is not visible in McCloud's formulation of comics as the "Invisible Art."  Vasile's break down of pages shows his talent for very conservatively cutting unnecessary scenes and panels.  While his illustration lacks the showiness and/or hyper stylization that I am a sucker for, there is a solidness to it that actively propels the story without getting in the way.  It is his skills as a graphic storyteller that masks the very skills he uses.

The second thing that has to be said about Vasile's Art is his professionalism.  In a world of near infinite digital content, part of what fans of Mini/DIY Comics are buying is the physicality of the book as art object.  This can be a splashy use of artistic and crafty flourishes that can only be accomplished in very small print runs.  It can just be a basic attention to detail and design that sets one book apart from another in any form of publishing.  Each of these issues is progressively more and more professionally designed (issue four looks like it is ready to be distributed by Top Shelf), yet there is a wonderful handmade quality to them.  

While the pacing is very different I think if you enjoyed the work of Alex Robinson you should check out the Ignatz nominated Trackrabit issues 2 and 3.  They both craft well balanced completely fictional narratives with the feeling of brutal honesty of auto-bio comics.

There are people who I would just suggest reading issues 1 and 4 and people who I would steer towards 2 and 3.  Nevertheless, I do believe all four issues of Trackrabit hold together.  The work that I keep thinking about is Jaime Hernandez's first volume of the Love and Rockets magazines.  There is a combination of very real people in almost accidental science fiction settings that speaks to the very unreality of very real situations.  You can get copies of Trackrabit as well as a few other books at his website.  I picked up Vasile's short auto-bio work A History of Increasing Humiliation at Staple!.  I just found more auto-bio work he has posted to his tumblr account.  This week I wanted to focus just on Trackrabit, but I will come back to his work.