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Nick Gazin's Comic Book Love-In #12

Man, that last comic review column almost killed me. Fifty comics? What was I thinking. Did you even read them all? Anyway, I decided it was time to reformat again. From now on there will be less reviews but they'll appear twice a month. Since even that gawky, mocking comics hocker Gabe Fowler of Desert Island Comics non-fame noted that I was growing increasingly less hateful, I figured it was time for a new name. Welcome to Nick Gazin's Comic Book Love-In, where all are welcome. I'm still listing the comics from best to worst though. Deal with it.

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Love,

Nicholas

1

Love And Rockets No. 3
The Hernandez Brothers
Fantagraphics
Yeah, Love and Rockets. I know… A'doy.

The Hernandez Brothers have been releasing published work since 1981 and although some of their output stands out as stronger than others, they've been on a constant incline. They never treaded water or plateau'd. In fact this issue, the third issue of the third volume, is one of the very best things they've ever done.

Gilbert's story starts off with a horrific sci-fi story before switching to Jaime's story, which involves our hero Maggie being observed by a mysterious creepy guy. Then she describes her dreams and goes to an art show where two men she's known are showing. Gilbert's story cuts in again and it's revealed that the sci-fi story is actually an old B-movie starring one of his regular characters, Fritzi. Fritzi's niece is set to play her aunt's role in a remake of the film and after discussing it she goes for a walk. She witnesses real life acts of sex and violence while her father is concerned about her protection. Jaime's story cuts back to Maggie's early childhood, a part of her life that's never really been explored. This story is what the scene on the cover depicts and it's one of most intense and sad things I've seen within the pages of this comic. If you haven't picked up L & R in a while, or got bogged down by trying to keep all the characters straight, this one will pull you back on track.

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This is a perfect volume by guys who've been getting perfecter all the time. Even the cover is perfect. The composition is painterly and super considered. The three child characters are in straight ahead, profile, and three quarter views while adults behind them all have their backs to us and them. The adults seem to be staring at the sun, which is a unique shape and blue. The roundness of the children is reenforced by the rigidity of the buildings and other objects behind them. While the adults are distracted the children have their own world. The boy is separated by a telephone pole which might be representative of his estrangement from his family.

At their worst the Hernandez Brothers make work that's merely good and entertaining. At their best they make this.

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#2
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec: Pterror Over Paris andThe Eiffel Demon Vol. 1
Jacques Tardi
Fantagraphics
A film based on this comic was released in France this past Spring and you can see the lead actress's boobs in the trailer. The French actress portraying Adele Blanc-Sec is so pretty she makes the prettiest American actress you can think of look like a bunch of pigs. And that's not even getting into her tits.

In the past year Fantagraphics has released a handful of Tardi's comics that had never been translated into English. Those were all a big deal since he's pretty much the king of French comics. A fair amount of the comics in this volume have been reprinted before, although often smaller, shittilier, and in black & white. This printing is clearly the one to own; nice hard covers, standard BD size, good paper, etc. Also, Fantagraphics is publishing the entire nine volume series. Up to now, no one's ever made it past volume four. We may find out that's because volumes five through nine are lousy or go off on some Archie-style Christian tangent or some other such horror, but most likely all we'll find out is how brutally Fantagraphics crush their publishing opponents.

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Adele Blanc-Sec is a sort of actiony, science fictiony comic for people who aren't retarded. It's like a Europeaner Hellboy or Indiana Jones. The title character is a scowling, adventurous French ho who fights and/or foils various enemies, in this volume an irate pterodactyl with some sort of mysterious connection to a cult led by a mummy.. This isn't my absolute favorite Tardi book--there's slightly too much dialogue and slightly too many characters with mustaches to keep up with--but it's still a fucking masterpiece. Everything he draws and the moods he conveys are worth the price of admission alone.

Also, I am quoted in the press release for this book. That is so boss to me. I think that from now on I'm going to try to be like A-Rod and just hit a home run every time I'm at bat, review-wise. I'm going to be saying things that are splashy and zazzy so I can see my name on the back of good books with knockout quotes like "Good. Enjoyable." -Nick Gazin

Craig Yoe once misquoted me as calling him the "Indiana Jones of Comics Historians." What I actually said was "Craig Yoe is an Indiana Jones for perv/nerd artifacts," which was a jokey reference to a specific book he'd put out, but did that stop the internet from tearing me a new one? Oh no did it not.

I get enough jabs for stuff I actually said. I don't need people stuffing more ass-kissing quotes into my mouth.

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#3
Prison Pit Book Two
Johnny Ryan
Fantagraphics
Like Empire Strikes Back, Prison Pit 2 lacks a definite sense of beginning or ending. The first book began with Cannibal Fuckface falling into the Prison Pit, fighting various monstrous foes, and ended with his arm being replaced by a weird little worm that sucked his dick and mindmelded with him This book continues the story with CF returning to fuck up the dickhead who's been causing him problems in an epic and bloody battle.

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There was a point in Johnny Ryan's career where his comics made a sharp change from over the top offensive humor into sheer horror with humorous moments. I think it occurred at the end of the Boobs Pooter-centric issue of Angry Youth Comix when Boobs thoroughly obliterated some random stranger's life. Or at least that's when I noticed it (I remember actually hearing myself say "Whoaa…"). From thence forth, Johnny's been chasing the gag dragon less and less in pursuit of slimier, more rage-filled dragons. Now every drawing's a swirling headache of beautiful pain. There are a few pages, specifically when CF is being turned into some RC robo-drone, that are reminiscent of comics by CF (the cartoonist, not the character) and Gary Panter.

Prison Pit Two is one of the most gruesome and beautiful new comics I've seen. It's the comics equivalent of Voivod's Rrröööaaarrr. Buy buy buy. Die die die.
--- #4
Little Lulu's Pal Tubby: The Castaway and Other Stories
John Stanley and Irving Trip
Dark Horse
Finally, Tubby' s solo comics are collected in full color! Like the title says, Tubby is Little Lulu's pal, and when the series was at its height he got his own comics. Tubby is a porky child who wears a sailor's cap and is at the bottom of his friends' pecking order. He means well but is immature and impulsive and has a tendency toward putting on disguises, trying to be a detective, and eating other people's food.

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My favorite Tubby story is most likely the one where Lulu decides to have a picnic in her basement so that Tubby doesn't find her and eat her lunch. Tubby happens to break into Lulu's house for some reason, sees the picnic laid out, gobbles up two lunches, then hides in the furnace when he hears someone coming. Later he runs out completely black-faced with soot, which convinces Lulu and the neighborhood police that a boogie man is afoot.

The stories in this book are more based in fantasy than the Lulu comics. For instance, while playing pirate Tubby is marooned on an island by his crummy friends only to meet real pirates whom he wallops with his yoyo. There's a lot to love about Tubby and this book. The art is clean and pretty and makes you wonder about a time when little chubby faced boys would wander around with bow ties and sailor's caps.
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#5
Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery Archives Volume. 3
A Bunch of People
Dark Horse
Dark Horse acquired the rights to a lot of Silver Age horror comics and they've been releasing them in these nice hardbound $50 volumes with great colors, nice paper, and nice-looking spines for your shelf. I'm a big fanatic for the well-presented book of reprints and I thoroughly enjoyed these comics despite them being mostly ridiculous.

I thought the EC horror comics had stories that made no damn sense and were poorly told, but the stuff in this book is absolutely absurd. I'm not bothered by it, I like this kind of stuff. It's just that EC had some of the greatest illustrators ever to hang out in the comics medium. This has Joe Orlando and Al Williamson, but none of the art's going to blow your mind. The painted covers are kind of nice but the applcation is so thick and muddy that everyone looks like an animatronic Disney character.

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I'm not trying to dismiss this book. I am loving the heck out of it. It doesn't make sense and these aren't the greatest comic artists you ever saw but there are some really fun ideas and images here and there. In fact the weirder the stories are the more I like them. There's an amazing one where a bunch of Shriner types in monster masks take over a town for a convention, only they are actually monsters. There's another where a blue-skinned man takes a photo of a couple and sucks them into the world inside his camera. There's another where a big castley looking house has feelings and kills people. Many of these stories are five pages long and have fun ideas that are never explained or justified at all. Then there's the one- or two-pager stories. Those are just laughable. I wasn't sure about this one going in but I am now. This is a keeper. I'm keeping mine.
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#6
Zero Killer
Arvid Nelson, Matt Camp, Dave Stewart
Dark Horse
This is a post apocalyptic story set in Manhattan. Everyone dresses a little like a black-people version of Akira, with many of the characters directly modeled after celebrities. One character looks like a tall Lil Kim and at one point the main character gets threatened by Andre 3000, a young Michael Jackson, and Prince as he looked on the cover of his self-titled record. In this alternate universe the Cold War between USSR reached a breaking point that resulted in America and much of the rest of the world being nuked to Hell with much of Africa being left untouched. Zero works as a sort of errand boy and bounty hunter for the various gangs that have taken occupancy in the Empire State Building, the PanAm building, Chrysler, and the Twin Towers.

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The art seemed a little generic to me at first, but eventually revealed itself to be incredibly solid, if maybe a little slicker than it should be for the story or setting. Everything's so damn slick and shiny these days. I guess people like that but it all looks like plastic to me, or a videogame, or CGI. I can't stand when stuff that's supposed to look gritty resembles a Happy Meal toy. This doesn't go too far into that bullshit, but it's still glistening more than a story about a dirty world should be.
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#7
The Man Behind The Nose
Larry "Bozo" Harmon with Thomas Scott Mckenzie
Igniter Literary Group
Bozo the Clown doesn't take any breaks in letting you know how hard working, talented, smart, brave, agile, charitable, and instantly loved he is wherever he goes. This book's pronounced lack of modesty will probably make most readers turn on him pretty quickly and assume that most of this book is a complete lie. I don't want to say for absolute sure, but I know from lies and this book reads less like an autobiography and more like a series of stories that have been told in bars and over lunch with friends over and over again for decades. All the rough parts have been smoothed out, gaps filled in. Larry Harmon, who created the Bozo franchise (although not the character), was a business savvy and industrious guy, but the fact that he's constantly reminding us of this makes me think he's probably a colossal asshole as well.

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He tells a story about meeting Al Jolson and getting his approval as an entertainer. He talks about being accepted by the pygmies of Papua New Guinea, with photos to back it up. He talks about taking one of those zero-gravity flights and going deep sea diving and jumping out of buildings--all in his Bozo outfit. He talks about how everyone everywhere loved and accepted him because he was so funny and fun and cute.

Do children actually find clowns funny? When I mentioned to my dad that I had read Larry Harmon's autobiography he said,"Wow, I'd really like to read that, his TV show was unwatchable to me as a child. Just awful." I don't remember ever finding clowns funny. I think that clowns are what adults think kids like. I wasn't scared of them either but I do remember a vivid nightmare around age three in which my parents were acting like mental retards that scared me a lot. My guess clowns work for kids who are intimidated by their parents and like the idea of a humiliated adult at their beck and call.

Anyhoo, toward the end of the book Larry seems to equate Bozo the Clown with being a symbol of love and laughter and a term called PULL which I think stood for Peace, Unity, Love, and Laughter. It's eerily similar to PLUR.

The design in this book is a little over the top. I know it's the autobiography of a clown and I'm not saying it's bad design, there's just too much of it. It seems like they were working hard to make the book look about twice as long as it is, using borders and half empty pages and tricky shit like. This thing's practically a pamphlet and it costs $25. If you love Bozo the Clown or are one of Larry Harmon's countless friends or you find this in my trash then give it a read. It is an entertaining psychological portrait of a guy who shovels bullshit, hard.
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#8
The Art of Blade of the Immortal
Hiroki Samura
Dark Horse
Some Western eyes see manga and it all looks the same. Hiroki Samura's abilities are far superior to your standard dime-store manga artist. His handskills don't show up as much in his faces as they do in his anatomy, especially hands and feet. His faces aren't bad. His drawings remind me of whoever does all the art for those Marvel Versus Capcom videogames. Everything's got solid forms and precise penciled linework. His compositions are good. I'm not crazy about his colors or painting. Also I have no idea what Blade of the Immortal is about except it involves a guy who can't die.
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#9
Slice Harvester issue 2: "Upper West Side"
Colin Atrophy
Lifer-punk Colin Atrophy is making a series of zines in which he attempts to review every goddam pizzeria in New York City, which just might be crazy enough to work. I missed the previous issue, but one has to wonder what it will be like when he runs out of Manhattan and has to review the Papa John's by Laguardia or some shit. The pizza review idea is great and helps structure everything in a way that's approachable and allows greater substance to be added at any point. It's also fun for those of you who like hearing stories about people with names like Johnny Dress Pants (formerly Johnny No Pants). I managed to acquire a lot of nick names in my life but never got a good punk name. Probably cause I was more of a nerd. I used to get called Dance Party Nick, Stash Man, Rooster, Space Ghost, Mr. Nick, but none of these really stuck. I was too socially weird or nomadic to hold onto a nickname for long and soon reverted to being Nick Gazin although I always introduced myself as Nicholas. See Colin? You're not the only one using the review column structure as a pretense to writing about other things.
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#10
Creepy Archives: Volume Seven
Varous
Dark Horse Books
Warren used to put out these magazine-sized comics back in the seventies including Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, the Spirit reprints, and possibly other junk too. They all had amazing painted covers and cheap black & white newsprint interiors. Basically, Warren tried to recreate the awesomeness of EC's horror comics with comics like these and failed abominably. They even had ghoulish Cryptkeeper knockoffs like Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie (awesomely drawn by Jack Davis) as hosts.

These Dark Horse Archive volumes are E-ticket all the way with nice paper and such, but the comics in Creepy just aren't that great. At the top of the horror comics ladder there's EC, then Steve Ditko's horror work, then those Boris Karloff horror comics, and then maybe this. I want to like them. They're nice blocky objects with Frazetta art on the cover, but they just ain't good.