SPX Minicomics Round-up Part 4
This, believe it or not, is where I end up maybe halfway through the pile? To cut down I’m not going to review samplers for more prominent publishers like Alternative Comics and NBM. There were good things in both their samplers, but you’ve probably read them or are going to read them if you care about reviews of things this obscure. Anyhow, onto the next batch.
Dead Air
Caitlin Plovnick’s Dead Air is yet another case of a comic about music that just ends up feeling ridiculous and trite because of the fact comics cannot convey(correction: don’t make) sound. Well, and the fact that the focus is so much more on the music than on any sense of how to form a scene or develop/sketch out a character in a narrative context. This is a book about slackers who work in record shops and form forgettable garage revival bands, and while that’s pretty close to how I grew up, I felt no relation or any sense of insight from these two minicomics. Plovnick seems to think the implication of the transcendence of pop music is enough to carry the story, and quite simply, it isn’t. The art is decent, but the characters aren’t allowed any nuanced facial expression that might bring their endless chatter about music and playing in a band some sense of depth. On the plus side, the picture of an outlet with plugs coming out of it on the front and back inside covers is pretty cool.
Dead Air can be obtained through www.creepyloser.blogspot.com
(Later postscript: This does seem rather harsh and maybe I should’ve taken a longer break between doing reviews. Comics cannot convey the intricacies/experience of sound. Hearing SPLAT! versus reading SPLAT! create two different sensory experiences as there is a level of abstraction created by translating the sound into a visual media. As for pop music, some lyrics work well printed, but most don’t, and either way what’s usually most appealing about pop music is the sensual quality of the sound, either of a hook or some other quality that is being experienced. Sheet music is music the same way blueprints are a house, or a script is theatre. Sound in comics tends to either give identity to an object or imply/accent action(the person fell down, so it says PLOP!, a turntable plays music so notes are drawn/lyrics are written coming out). Also, perhaps I didn’t structure my review as clearly as I could’ve(it was a quickie); my main point of criticism was the lack of definition given to the characters and narrative. Music is played and the scene is dragged out further to give it some weight, but all it does is halt any dramatic momentum. Characters are defined strictly by their music consumption, making them broad and static. Even people in real life who define themselves by their music consumption have other facets to their lives, and while this strict and narrow definition of self can make for interesting interactions with the outside world, the outside world needs to be represented for this to happen. The closest thing to an opposing/interacting viewpoint shown is someone who chooses to listen to opera instead of pop/indie-rock. This being the case, the comic flounders. Thanks to Daniel in the comments section for helping untangle my thoughts. )
The Amazing Adventures of Bill #10
Bill Roundy’s tenth print collection of his online strip, humbly titled The Amazing Adventures of Bill, is agreeable enough, and it doesn’t really seem like the author is trying to do anything too challenging, so he pretty much succeeds. Though there are no huge laughs to be found, the strips are readable, and mostly avoid the “other person is in the strip simply to set up a snarky retort by the author that serves as the punchline” cliche. Well, actually a good deal of them fall into this. Still, Roundy’s comic is refreshing in it’s lack of histrionic issues, and indeed, many strips seem to exist solely to point out how much more enjoyable his life has been recently than yours. In the course of one 16 page comic, Bill manages to eat tons of ice cream, take a vacation in Hawaii, go to comics camp at CCS, and go to a wedding. He does get kidney stones too, but still, this is a life enjoyably lived as best as I can tell. The art is serviceable, and the generally casual air given off by the comic gives me little incentive to go into any sort of deeper analysis.
The Amazing Adventures of Bill can be found at www.billroundy.com.
Grunge Lobster #2 and 8 Pages of Monsters Doing Everyday Things
Going through these comics, I’ve encountered more people complaining about “emo’s”, “grunge kids”, and other phases most of us finished when we graduated high school than I have in the last several years of my social interactions. I’ve heard a lot of this in the past several years of social interaction in case you were unsure. Still, as far as the “Complaints of an Indie Kid” genre go, Grunge Lobster #2 is the best one I’ve encountered so far. Pranas T. Naujokiatis is a very able draftsman and a competent storyteller, making the trite observations and kitschy employment of cultural subcategory+random animal character naming much more visually pleasing than they should be.
Much more enjoyable is the silly color booklet 8 Pages of Monsters Doing Everyday Things is just what it sounds like, nicely rendered in full color on nice paper which folds out. Particularly enjoyable are the carrot like monsters doing taxes and the Simpsons style alien running out of toilet paper.
These can both be acquired at www.ghostcarpress.com
Tags: bill roundy, dead air, ghost car press, minicomic, SPX
October 10th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
in regards to your critique of Dead Air, i’m suprised you would say that comics cannot convey sound. that is complete and total bullshit. Um, even mainstream superhero comics there are sound effects like “BLAM” “SPLAT” that are completely effective in creating sound in the story. Furthermore, I once heard Chris Ware talk about how comics are the equivalent of sheet music for our brains. While you are reading a comic, your mind makes all the sound happen. I find “the fact that comics cannot convey sound” a very bizzare base for a critique of a comic.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
This only holds true for Sound Effects - where you don’t need anything more complicated than a BLAM! or a POP! or a SPLAT! to get an idea of what’s going on. These sounds are simple enough that you can just say them out loud, or accept them as a somewhat comic-trope and keep reading, wasting no thought on it.
The difference with music comes from the complexity of music - if there are lyrics, and a few notes (which typically don’t follow the song’s sheet music in comics) there are many, many different ways to sing them. So many that the only sure way to know how it should sound is to know the song they come from, so for those that do not know the song - and know the song well enough to hear it in their minds just from seeing a few lyrics - full relation is simply impossible.
It’s not that comics cannot convey sounds, it’s that comics cannot convey sounds well.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
They convey the impression of sound, but sound(besides pages flipping), isn’t made. Maybe conveyed was the wrong word. Comics don’t make sound is better. That Chris Ware comment is pretty interesting, I like that. Thanks for the honest appraisals of the reviews.
January 27th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
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