robin
@squarehead333
Translates, reads and obsesses over comics 🇮🇪🇵🇱 he/him
Think this one from Spain (something of a frog isekai, IIRC) is roughly contemporaneous... might be interesting to write about all of them.
(Lathe of Heaven might be slightly too long to be novella territory but you should read it anyway)
I've not read any Spirit either, was mostly thinking about his eschewing of background in The Building but it's a lot less stark than I remember tbh. (Sorry for the late reply btw)
No. 27 Modus Comics Collection 3: Relay: Came for the Tyler Landry, stayed for the Tyler Landry. His story is really superbly evocative & totally outshines everyone else's contributions. Rest of the comics were shockingly banal & poorly constructed, with the exception of Southgate & Price's stories.
No. 26 Agony: Did in fact cheer me up. A complete and utter delight. Beyer's cartooning is continually inventive and hilarious, as is his writing. I can barely count on both hands the comics that have made me audibly laugh — this is one of them.
No. 25 Hidden Islands: Generally suspicious of comics you might see described as "unpretentious" but this won me over. Arthur excels in the short form, some lovely endings in here. The middle three stories, "Silent Fields" especially, were all great, but I found "Night" pretty tedious & predictable.
Ok seems to be back for now. A lot of people have had their accounts restored, only for them to be suspended again immediately afterwards. Not holding my breath but 🤞
No. 24 The Armed Garden; David B.: Terrific stuff. All three stories were great but "The Drum who Fell in Love" was my fave. Love how readily B. gets me to buy into the overtly nonsensical and fantastical. Better than Epileptic but not sure anything he's made will top Incidents in the Night for me.
Ironically, the comments of a tweet from someone complaining about the issue were flooded by actual bots. Genuinely how do you fuck up this badly. Bots on the site were rare to encounter before Musk took over, now they're absolutely everywhere
No. 23 Birds, Bees and Storks; Gerard Hoffnung: Perfect, delightfully cartooned little book. Loads of great visual gags and Hoffnung's line is sumptuous. Wonder if the format of this inspired Jordan Crane's Last Lonely Saturday.
No. 22 Poem Strip; Dino Buzzati: Not sure how to feel about this one. Lots of brilliant pages and sequences, but I felt like I was trudging through just as many. At its best when it's a comic, not illustrated verse. Should reread one day when I'm not sick and traveling
Came back from London with lots and lots of cool comics. Shoutout Notting Hill Comic Exchange and Gosh!
There's not a tonne of winger-y tape due to where he plays under Emery but you occasionally see him making great use of positions Trossard and Martinelli often find themselves in but aren't very efficient from
'The Cave' by Damian Carúlla from El Víbora no. 72, late 1985. Translation in the alt-text
No. 21 Sweet Time & other stories; Weng Pixin: Mostly bad, sometimes alright. Disappointing visually for the most part. Found the writing trite, adolescent... Probably won't be reading more of her work.