A Fine Mess #2
Matt Madden returns with exciting and challenging new short stories that invite the reader to explore new vistas of comics structure and storytelling. "Prisoner of Zembla" tells the tale of Alina Zek, an exiled philologist who makes a doomed last stand to save the written alphabet of her native language. The concern with the alphabet leaks beyond the story and into the very structure of the comic: the careful reader will find a hidden layer to the story, the "prison" which holds Professor Zek captive. "The Envoy" is the tale of four hardy seamen who accompany an eminent scientist and his young daughter on a perilous mission to uncharted Arctic waters. "La Mulata de Córdoba" is a retelling of a legend from colonial Mexico about a witch who conjures magic from a source we are all close to: the drawn line. Rounding off the issue will be another installment of Madden's acclaimed "Exercises in Style."
By Matt Madden, Mature Readers, B&W, full color cover, oversized 7-3/4" x 9-1/4", 32 pages, $3.50 US. ISBN: 1-891867-75-X
Gongwanadon
Thomas Herpich's sophomore book features grieving aliens, familiar pilgrims, dimwitted doppelgangers, platonic friends, and more, in quiet optimistic tales of imprisonment, spiritual possession, and torture. Herpich confronts as many vague paradoxes as he can get his hands on in this informal study of personal responsibility and its consequences.
Weaving layers of subtlety and symbol around simple, raw, emotional cores, these new works place emphasis on the expressive power of Herpich's drawings. Although the approaches and techniques used in each story are varied, this is a unified collection. These are stories about relationships. Herpich is fascinated with the deforming consequences of evaded responsibility and lax discipline that seem inherent in human interaction. The centerpieces of the book, "Gongwanadon 1" and "Gongwanadon 2", come from a series of experiments by the author, focusing on spontaneity, risk, and intuition. The results are consistently inventive, morally aggressive, and, above all, graphically stunning.
By Thomas Herpich, Mature Readers, $4.95 US, 48 pages, deluxe oversized 8½” x 11”, saddle stitched, B&W, ISBN: 1-891867-70-9
Hickee v2 #2
This anthology consists of really funny stories by tremendously talented cartoonists. Each strip flows beautifully from panel to panel, demonstrating an amazing aptitude for expression and nuance. The animation backgrounds of the contributing cartoonists really shine through in the impeccable pacing of the strips. What started out loosely as a group of friends hanging around in San Francisco coffee shops on Sunday afternoons, Hickee has become a major contributor to the underground comics scene. Initiated by
Grickle creator Graham Annable, he knew that the humorous talents of this gang could find a larger audience through comics.
Hickee is the vehicle that ties all their Sunday afternoon sessions together – stories that emerge from doodles or from musings about life – resulting in a raw comic book. No censoring, no test audience, and no laugh track. Made to entertain themselves,
Hickee will undoubtedly draw you into their world and provide lots of laughs along the way.
By Graham Annable, Paul Brown, Vamberto Maduro, Joe White, David Bogan, Razmig Mavlian, Nathan Stapley, Scott Campbell, Derek Sakai, Marc Overney, For Mature Readers, $4.95, 48pg, deluxe, 8.5” x 7", B&W, ISBN: 1-891867-76-8.
www.indyworld.com/altcomics
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