Read About Comics

By Eric Orner, Joey Alison Sayers, and Robert Kirby
32 pages, color
Published by Rob Kirby Comics

Long-time readers will know I’m a fan of a good comics anthology. It doesn’t have to be overly long; Greg Means’s Papercutter, after all, proves on a regular basis that you can have a three-story collection and still end up strong. I was fairly psyched, as a result, to find the debut issue of Robert Kirby’s new anthology Three waiting for me in my mailbox recently. Based on this initial line-up of creators, I think there’s finally another regular anthology comic for me to look forward to.

Continue reading “Three #1”

By Jeff Smith
24 pages, black and white
Published by Cartoon Books

RASL is one of those titles where I have no choice, mentally, but to "double-dip." I buy each issue as it’s published, and then once the collections show up they end up heading onto my bookshelf and the individual issues of RASL get passed along to other readers. It’s partially because a new Jeff Smith series is too exciting to pass up, but more than that, I stick with the individual issues because I think Smith’s one of those creators who understands simultaneously how to write for both a collected edition as well as the individual issue.

Continue reading “RASL #8”

By Steve Sheinkin
144 pages, color
Published by Jewish Lights Publishing

I love when I end up with a good book that I otherwise might not have picked up. That’s certainly the case with Rabbi Harvey vs. The Wisdom Kid, a graphic novel set in the wild west frontier starring a rabbi who has to deal with all sorts of calamities. The book reminds me a lot of John D. Fitzgerald’s The Great Brain books, in that Rabbi Harvey is funny and clever and holds a near-universal appeal.

Continue reading “Rabbi Harvey vs. The Wisdom Kid”

By Jon Chad
44 pages, black and white
Self-Published

I love mini-comics. For those who haven’t encountered them before, they’re usually handmade comics that are assembled by the artist and sold at conventions. Every year at the Small Press Expo, almost all of my money ends up going towards mini-comics, which are often hard to find anywhere else. One of my favorite purchases last year was Leo Geo and His Miraculous Journey Through the Center of the Earth by Jon Chad, a comic over two feet tall drawn as a single continuous image showing Leo Geo climbing slowly through the planet. Having just read his new mini-comic Bikeman, I’m all the more excited to buy more of Chad’s comics, because he’s now proven himself to me as not being a one-hit-wonder.

Continue reading “Bikeman #1”