Sunday Revue June 9: Rocket Girl

Set Your Engines For

A teenage cop from a hightech future is sent back in time to 1986 New York City. Dayoung Johansson is investigating the Quintum Mechanics megacorporation for crimes against time. As she pieces together the clues, she discovers the “future” she calls home—an alternate reality version of 2014—shouldn’t exist at all!
Rocket Girl is the creation of  Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder. Copies are available at this link. 

The Rating

This sweet treat of a retro-noir NY ice cream cone is the perfect thing for a Saturday morning in your PJs.

The Raves

 

Born in a future where only teenagers are believed to be unbiased enough to be public servants and all adults work for the big Corporation, DaYoung has decided to make sure her world doesn't end up this way. She decides to go back in time and fix whatever rotted the Big Apple in the first place, way back in the 1980s. Cue shenanigans, wild rocket rides, retro jokes and a great time.
This wacky cast of characters is perfect for their setting.The Commissioner is a boy who looks like he stole his dad's trench coat. Annie and her crew from the lab where time travel and the Quintum Mechanic's great discoveries were made are the perfect geeks-with-a-grip gang, and they've got all the 80s style you could want. The bad guy is perfectly comic book, and DaYoung's troupe has the perfect resolve only available to teens. Add in a couple slightly tropey NPCs for comic relief, and you have a great cast.

Fast paced and full of energy, the writing forms a perfect symbiosis with the art. The artistic style complements the story, echoing the leather, color and lace of the best 80s comics.
With elements of justice and a clean expository style, the story gets you all the information you need without holding you up too long on details. You get the gist, but not the fine print. There's no time for that when there are villains to catch and rockets to ride!
The style is quick and direct, but ultimately satisfying. The energy is phenomenal.

The Razzes

I don't have much for you here. A little more depth would have been nice, but it might have been like that extra scoop of ice cream that makes the whole sundae tip over. Nope, I'll take it as is.

The Revue

A sweet retro roller coaster of a read. Grab ahold and hang on!

Sunday Revue April 7: Dead By Wednesday

The Curtain Lifts....
Annnnd What's This?
The MC Reappears Onstage!

That's right, gentlefolx. It's been quite the winter, but the Strip Show is BACK. And what a treat we have on stage today!

Dead by Wednesday, Volume 1

This is the life of Wednesday Daring: track space scum. Catch. Collect bounty. Spend reward. Repeat. Follow Daring on her adventures tracking down the galaxy's most notorious criminals, all with the help of her space slug, Andy, at her side. The creation of Kim and Sam Eggleston, Dead By Wednesday can be found at this link

The Rating

A Wild Space Ride!

The Raves

The joy of comics is that, with the right artist, you can lay out a world in a series of neat images. And this work has the right artist. It has the right writer too, and things get off to an...interesting start for our protagonist.
Welcome to Purgatory, and the life of Wednesday Dare. In a few clever panels, you have an entire world in mind, complete with multiple species, a history, the haves and the have nots. And Wednesday has a day to start...reluctantly.


With bounty-hunter grit and sexy wit, Wednesday is a great character.  She's got sass, and the skills to back it up.
And her friends aren't too shabby either.


The characters are laid out quickly and well, settling them into the multi-racial universe they inhabit deftly. And Wednesday's character is one that will stick in the mind. The art style is technically great and clever to boot, using backgrounds to good effect and adding in a few little easter eggs for the geeks in the audience. Color and shading are used to their fullest extent, and the species and ship designs are engaging without being distracting.

Sly, wry and full of quick wit, this comic is well written and well-versed in its genre. It gets us through setup and into action without missing a beat. But it still makes time for unexpected tenderness. That's a great thing to see in a comic.

With nice setup, nice action, and a nice payoff that has readers waiting for the next issue, this one has all the hallmarks of good comic writing.

The Razzes

I have two areas of objection, both minor, for this work.

1) I would have liked a little more story in the first issue, but it definitely got me hooked for a starter

2) while technically good, there's a sense of stiffness to the shoulders and arm gestures of a few characters. Male necks are also a bit stiff (no pun intended ;) ) I'd like to see more work on fluid lines to loosen that up.

The Revue

Raise a glass and read a copy.

Sunday Revue July 29: Romantically Apocalyptic

Pull Yourself Together And Get Ready For

After you meet Mr. Snippy, you'll never look at a bad day the same way again. His bad days include:

*Homicidal houses

*Insane travelling companions

*Getting tied up in a pink wig, while sober

and oh, yeah. Living through a nuclear winter. Or trying, anyway.
Some days are bad, and some days are Romantically Apocalyptic.

The brain-child of Vitaly S Alexius, the website tells us 'Romantically Apocalyptic was first conceptualized in 2005 as a series of post-apocalyptic paintings on deviantart by Vitaly S Alexius. It was developed into an online graphic novel in 2010 and grew into a surreal, collaborative, multimedia art project that includes: poetry, prose, photography, digital art, music and film.'

The current creative team is:

Art Director:

Vitaly S Alexius

Phototography:

Vitaly S, Oggy B, Chico G, Mabi.

Journal writers:

Vitaly S Alexius, Kaitlin Gossett.

Contributor Artists:

Mabi, Allyssa N / Hatsie, IIDanmrak, Andrey F, Christine Z, Ivan Yakushev, Malin Falch, Caroline H

UK Events Organisers:

Clare Cook, Oggy B

Chief Music Editor:

Oggy B

Ze Intern:

Tina Hoffman

Romantically Apocalyptic can be read at this link  and purchased at this one. Oh, and by the way, this comic's animated. It's definitely a work that takes your brain for a spin.

The Rating

A Topsy Turvy Tour De Force!

The Raves

To begin with, this thing is gorgeous. With its grasp of artistic conventions and its offbeat sense of humor, RA takes you through a cracked looking glass and into some of your weirder dreams. 

Then there's the world building. Tech advanced and human nature did not. Eventually, the inevitable occured: our species decimated itself and the planet. Now the handful of survivors scrounge in the rubble, fight creatures mutated to survive so much better than they can in the wastes, use the bits of tech they're left to scrape a living and dream of other things. But you don't have to look so glum about it!

The characterization is a fascinating and fun exploration of altered states of consciousness and mental process. If Mad Max had sung kids' songs or if Bruce Willis had been on bad Prozac while creating his dire futuristic movies, they would have been a bit like RA. It's a trippy ride through the comforts of delusional thought, gallows humor and friendship in the grimmest of grimdark situations. 

The Captain and Pilot have gone so far down into their own dreams that reality can no longer hurt them.  They set up Christmas parties with skeletons and hold conversations with billboards. To keep the readers in their mindset, the realistic art is regularly broken up with chibi scribbles.

Funnily enough, in their situation this kind of dissociation isn't a terrible idea. If they didn't reinvent the world into something they enjoy living in, they probably wouldn't survive long.

Unfortunately for their 'friend' Charles Snippy, he's still sane. He's relying on sheer stubbornness and weary survival instinct. And he's getting really sick of these nutcases. The contrast between Snippy's dogged and nihilistic sanity and the rosy madness of his companions is disturbing, intriguing, and downright laugh-out-loud funny.

Surreal, silly and terrifying by turns, this is a story worth following.

The Razzes

Er...correction. This is a story worth following when you can. While I enjoy the explorations of altered states of consciousness, at times the story wanders so far into the surreal that it becomes incoherent. This is especially true in the primarily textual sections, which read at times like a narrative and at times like pages from a psych patient's diary. That's interesting for a paragraph, maybe, but it palls very quickly. As a reader I found myself scrolling past these sections, not invested enough to parse them for meaning. But there would be a picture that drew me back into the flow. That's the problem with experimental writing: some experiments blow up.

The Revue

Get some shots or a bowl and give it a read. You'll be glad you did. Allonsy!

Sunday Revue June 24: Witchy

You Are Opening The Door To New Worlds...Brace Yourself And Tie Back Your Hair For

Power is a double edged blade. It can give you the life you dream of...or take it away. And you have no choice in the matter.

....or do you?

This is the question in Hyalin, where power in moderation is a blessing, and immoderate power a deadly curse. In this deadly world, one teenager refuses to accept the choices she is allowed, and makes her own way. This is the story of Nyneve: coward, hero, rebel, runaway. What you see depends on where you stand.

The creation of Ariel Ries, Witchy can be read at this link.

The Rating

Superb magical abilities

The Raves

With an art style reminiscent of Secret of Kells, the first thing Witchy will catch is your eye.

The color scheme is well-chosen and vibrant, capturing the feel of times and places in an almost impressionistic fashion. Stylistically reminiscent of watercolor and animation both, it's a well-crafted treat for the eye. The world building is gorgeously done: you feel you could walk into the crowd scenes. 

The second thing Witchy will attract is your curiosity. We are dropped right into the thick of a world riven with strifes and prejudices of its own creation, formed through its own history. Well paced and nicely laid out, the story draws you into the pathos of events: characters torn between loyalty to country and devotion to family, between personal safety and personal autonomy, between hopes for the future and wounds of the past. The comic dances nimbly past many pitfalls of trope and stereotype, never quite giving you what you expected but always showing you a character who you can relate to on some level (including a few characters who you shudder to find yourself understanding.)

And then Witchy will capture your heart. This is a story of stubborn hope in the face of overwhelming odds. It's a story of devotion to your loved ones and integrity in the face of all the world's demands to conform.  Witchy manages to explore themes of personal strength, identity, autonomy and personal decision perfectly: without preaching or creating situations that feel forced, it creates storylines that lets us see the many facets of characters' identities and truly explore the idea that diversity is a culture's strength. The weakness in one member of a society should complement the strength in another. When we laud only some strengths and only some ways of being, we soon become dangerously out of balance. The issue of how to be authentic in an unbalanced society is explored in beautiful detail here.

The Razzes

I have only one complaint. Ariel, please stop apologizing every time you have to take a break on Witchy! Reading your comments, I rather feel like giving you a hug. You have nothing to apologize for. Your readers understand: this work is time consuming and life is busy. Nobody can fault you for taking breaks! Take care of yourself and the art will be better for it. 

The Revue

This is a must read, for all ages. It's one you'll visit again and again.

Technique Tuesday May 8: Food In Comics

Today, the Etherington Brothers give us a guide on food in comics.