Sunday Comics Indie Compilation Triple Play: I Saw You

Sunday Comics is a weekly feature where I spotlight awesome comics that you may want to check out.

Welcome to the second round of the Sunday (today, technically Monday...I was gone most of yesterday) Comics Indie Compilation Triple Play. Today's Entry, I Saw You, is especially interesting given its creation process. Let's jump in.

The Comic: I Saw You: Comics Inspired By Real-Life Missed Connections


By: Edited by Julia Wertz, contains entries by her and several, several others.

Type: Compilation

Content Rating: Though individual entries vary in content, overall it's definitely an R, mainly for language and sex.

Plot: I Saw You is born of an intriguing premise. All the comics in it are based off of "Missed Connection" personals ads from Craigslist. The resulting stories are often interpreted in fun ways, it's neat to see different artists' interpretations of things like what the posters looked like, and the emotional blend is rich too--humorous takes, sad ones, downright creepy ones, just plain odd ones. It's an entertaining slice of human strata. The artists are mostly up-and-coming or unknowns, though there are a few minor indie stars in the mix, such as Peter Bagge (best known for Buddy Does Seattle and his magazine Hate), Jeffery Brown (the graphic novel Unlikely) and Sam Henderson (freelance).

Personal thoughts: Like Fat Chunk, I Saw You isn't inexpensive and covers a nice broad range of topics and art styles, and with the way it was written is sociologically interesting as well. The anonymity of the internet from which this project was born yields some interesting behavior study possibilities. And it's good for a laugh, if not so much a "ha ha" laugh-out-loud laugh as an everyday, knowing, smirking sort of laugh.

Holden Out.

Some Doodles: Lexa and Natasha

So I didn't have nearly as much creation time over the past, oh, several months, as partially evidenced by my lack of said work appearing here on the internet. But as one of those "must create at least every once in a while or I will eventually explode" types, I resorted to the old classic of doodling, something I've done pretty much all through school. It's not uncommon for me to keep a chunk of my notes at the end of the school year, not for reference material, but because of margin doodles I particularly liked.
These last couple quarters, my doodles were more scarce, but I noticed a definite theme popping up--two certain characters of mine, both belonging to the same comics plotline (working title "Silicon Heart"). One makes sense, as she's the main character, the other was a bit of a surprise to find I was sketching her so frequently, as she's a very minor character (though perhaps it's the thrill of newness--she was thought up just this year).
So, anyway. Doodle showcase.

June's Magnetic Poem

His live costume above
Has only a green heart
Every lifetime

Please Relax.


No idea what this one means, but isn't that usually the case? 'sides, I like it.


Holden Out.

Sunday Comics Indie Compilation Triple Play: Fat Chunk

Sunday Comics is a weekly feature where I spotlight awesome comics that you may want to check out.
Welcome to Sunday Comics' special Indie Compilation Triple Play, a three-Sunday event where I'll highlight a lovely trio of comic-bit sandwiches. I've noticed this sort of thing slowly popping up, maybe developing into a delightful trend--little volumes of mostly unknown comickers putting short works together in an effort to simply get their work out there. Today we'll take a look at Fat Chunk, a project of sorts dedicated to exactly this.

The Comic: Fat Chunk Vol. 1: Robot


By: Put together by British awesomeface Jamie Smart, but there's over 80 artists who put stuff into this first volume alone.

Type: Compilation/Very thick magazine.

Content Rating: Though individual entries vary greatly in content, overall it's an R, mainly for language and violence.

Plot: Fat Chunk is pretty much a brilliant idea. Several people who love comics, from all backgrounds (but mostly unknowns) send in short works based around a central theme--for this volume, the theme was robots. The entries vary wildly in both visual style and writing, and the result is pretty spiffy--simple one-page pinups or scenes to three-or-four-page poignant little vignettes and everything in between. There are stories that are sad, that are silly, that make you think, that are just mindless fun, etc. etc. etc. As a particular highlight, it was neat to see an entry there by Gabriel Bautista, better known on the internet as Galvo. (Galvo helps run a similar online comics project called EnterVOID, a site I've considered joining on-and-off-again several times, and actually features twice in the three compilations I'll eventually cover.) Smart, of course, opens with a work of his own, featuring his recurring character Angry Little Robot, in which he beats up some children. (Angry Little Robot was previously a character in a short series of comic strips done by Smart.) I also appreciated the entries that played with the meaning of "robot" a little more--there was for example a fun entry at the end by a man named Dan Gaynor about a little boy with a mechanical head.

Personal thoughts: If you're looking for a good blend of comicky variety in a fun-size package, either because you want to check out some fresh material or just have a short attention span, Fat Chunk is cheap, awesome, and recommended. Think of it as a sampler platter of foods that are vaguely familiar to you but just different enough as to be an adventure.
The second volume, themed around Zombies, is slated to hit shelves at the end of this month.

Holden Out.

Sunday Comics: Homestuck

Sunday Comics is a weekly feature where I spotlight awesome comics that you may want to check out.

The Comic: Homestuck

URL: www.mspaintadventures.com

By: Andrew Hussie

Type: Comic Strip, updates frequently but on no set schedule.

Content Rating: PG, for some very mild innuendo and very occasional mild language. (Note: At the time I originally wrote this. as the comic has gone on, it has teetered more steadily between PG-13 and R.)

Plot: Another awesome pseudo-game comic outing from Andrew Hussie, the mind behind Problem Sleuth (which as some readers may recall was the second-ever Sunday Comics). Rather than poking at conventions of RPGs and point-and-click adventures like PS did, however, Homestuck makes fun of The Sims primarily, though there are still lots of RPG and Point-and-click Adventure elements. It also appears to draw on some H.P. Lovecraft elements. The art style is different, but still definitely Hussie's, and his storytelling skill has only grown since Problem Sleuth. Like PS's "chapters," Homestuck is divided into "Acts," the first of which was recently completed and was stated by Hussie to be "more of a prologue, really." Pretty epic prologue. So now we're just a few pages into what's apparently the meat of the story. The main characters thus far introduced, John and Rose, are likable for sure. Homestuck is still funny, though its humor deals less in the moments of outright silliness sometimes seen in PS and usually is a bit more subtle or snarky. Hussie's penchant for long, unusual, and/or cleverly invented words still stands, a source of great comfort to this English major. There's also a lot more variety present than in PS, which would have the occasional animated gif panel but mostly be still images. Homestuck is still mostly still images, but Hussie has begun to add fan-contributed music where appropriate and has been steadily learning and utilizing flash animation to some panels, which is really nifty and immersive. Commands are still suggested by readers, and if anything, the fan-community input for this feels even stronger this time around. Andrew Hussie is creating something which may in fact be one of the futures of webcomics.

Personal thoughts: There wasn't much "plot" in the plot section this time around, mainly because I don't want to spoil things, but I recommend hopping into Homestuck, especially if you've read Problem Sleuth but even if you didn't. If nothing else it's an awesome comics experiment. Get on board while it's still relatively short--Hussie has planned this to be another year-long project, so it'll no doubt be way up there in pages by the time it's done.

Holden Out.

Sunday Comics: Special Comics Theory Edition!

Sunday Comics is a weekly feature where I spotlight awesome comics that you may want to check out.

Two Sundays in a row with different-than-usual Sunday Comics posts? Including one that is being written on what is technically no longer Sunday? And is written in a different format than usual?

Why yes.

A bit about today's entry, first. Yes, there really is such a thing as Comics Theory. While not frequently regarded as such (often, debatably, for very good reasons), comics are--or at least have the definite potential to be--a legit art form. It's a vehicle of expression that has certain properties unique to it. Nowhere else except in film is there such a seamless blend of the verbal and the visual, ideally both working to support the other (except in wordless comics, though those have language in their own right). And even then, despite the parallels, comics can be very much set apart from film with more of their own conventions--how they handle and manipulate time or the effects of panel shape, size, and placement, just to name a couple. There's a whole science, process, and language that can be diseccted from them. And there have been books written. Books that I myself have studied, and now hold up here as good examples. Okay, technically a couple of them aren't comics theory books, they're comics history books, but I figured I'd lump them in too. Off we go! (Trigger comics-esque "Woooosh!" noise)



Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud