Poison Pill
High-Low
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1w ago
Poison Pill was one of the more exciting comics of 2023 because it had this kind of young guns energy going for it, as six young cartoonists who are all entering mature phases of their careers made this anthology together. The fact that it's all women doesn't really come as much of a surprise, given how much the demographics of young cartoonists have shifted so much in the last decade. There's not much that this line-up--Caroline Cash, M.S. Harkness, Sam Szabo, Victoria Douglas, Audra Stang, and Heather Loase--have in common with each other in terms of style or subject matter, other than the f ..read more
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Pyrite Press, Part 2: K.Wroten's Crimes
High-Low
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1M ago
K.Wroten is one of the most thoughtful and philosophical cartoonists working today. Their first major full-length book, Crimes, was published by Pyrite Press, and it's remarkable for its complex, ambiguous, and well-realized characters who ruminate on questions essential to their very identity. At its core, it is the tale of Willa, a burnt-out artist in her 30s, and Bas, a young poet and polymath who is just starting her career after a nihilistic adolesence. It's a story of friendship and betrayal, obsession and repulsion, and desperately wanting to be anyone other than who we are. For Wroten ..read more
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Pyrite Press, Part 1: Vinnie Neuberg, Haejin Park, Rachel Katz & Stephanie Davidson
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1M ago
Pyrite Press is Brice Gold's publishing concern. I don't think it's currently active in publishing new books, but I did meet Brice at CAKE last year and picked up several books. Part 1 of this review will include three shorter comics, while part 2 will focus in on K.Wroten's book Crimes.  Fowl Weather, by Rachel Katz and Stepanie Davidson. What I found interesting about Pyrite Press is that no two books were alike in terms of style or subject matter. This short comic done by a writer-artist team was equal parts meditative and absurd, with Davidson's assured pen-and-ink drawings employing ..read more
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Short Mini Reviews: Sean Bieri, Julia Gootzeit, Muchen Wang, Emily Zullo
High-Low
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1M ago
Emily Zullo is a cartoonist and animator. Her Comics About A Bunny Girl is a funny story about anthropomorphic animals and post-ironic crushes. The otherwise nameless Bunny is at a party (wearing a t-shirt that says "DILF Destroyer") and asks everyone's names. When the guys there all respond and ask for hers, she immediately establishes dominance by saying, "Wouldn't you like to know?" Right after that, she meets a dog-girl and they flirt and kiss until Bunny asks her name--and she gets fed the same line. This three-page intro is in full (and somewhat lurid) color and sets up a longer story ..read more
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Noah Van Sciver's Maple Terrace #2
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1M ago
Noah Van Sciver remains in his productive groove of comics with the second issue of Maple Terrace, from Uncivilized Books. The series picks up on Van Sciver at a young age, living in a ramshackle house in New Jersey with his family. Maple Terrace is about poverty, alienation, and cruelty. It's also hilarious, as Van Sciver makes his younger counterpart the tragic target of a number of ridiculous scenarios. What makes it worse is that what seemed to be the temporary triumph of the first issue, built on deceit and theft, comes back to bite him in the ass in a perfectly melodramatic way.  ..read more
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Caroline Cash's Peepee Poopoo Issue 80085
High-Low
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1M ago
There's an extent to which this run of very funny and varied issues of the ridiculously titled Peepee Poopoo feels like a warm-up for Caroline Cash. Sure, she's self-consciously harkening back to the tradition of one-person anthologies like Eightball, but I think the better comparison is Michael DeForge's classic series Lose. She's getting her feet wet by allowing herself to go on flights of fancy, gags, diversions, pin-ups, and a letters page without having to worry about doing her big Graphic Novel. Frankly, I wish more young cartoonists still did this. It's nice to see a resurgence in ..read more
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DOP Anthology
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1M ago
DOP: Comics As Craft is an interesting mini-anthology published by the students of Paul Karasik at a CCS workshop. It's a fitting comic to review after my long CCS feature, although Karasik's methods are his own and he's been teaching for a long time. Karasik has been one of the very best background guys in comics for well over 40 years. He had a huge impact in production and editorial on the seminal anthology RAW, collaborated with David Mazzucchelli on his adaptation of City of Glass, and co-wrote a book about his autistic brother. With regard to DOP, he had a bunch of students who were so f ..read more
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45 Days Of CCS: The Index
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2M ago
This was the longest feature I've ever run on the Center for Cartoon Studies, totaling 45 days and including 73 different cartoonists. It's exciting to see the breadth and depth of work emerging from CCS, some of which is quite excellent. Here's the index of every entry. 1. Ashley Jablonski 2. Johna Mandel 3. Jarad Greene 4. Gabrielle Tinnirello, Al Varela 5. Sage Persing, Dylan Sparks 6. Go Press Girl 7. Colleen Frakes, Mary Shyne, Carl Antonowicz, Coco Fox 8. Kristen Shull 9. Wayne Carter 10. Ana Two 11. Daryl Seitchik 12. Ellie Liota, Clover Ajamie 13. Rachel Bivens 14. Penina Gal, Rachel ..read more
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45 Days Of CCS, #45: Aaron Cockle
High-Low
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2M ago
Let's jump back into the world of Aaron Cockle and Andalusian Dog. Cockle's been hard at work pumping out issues of his enigmatic pastiche of and ode to the work of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, producing six issues in the last couple of years and a related zine, Solar Lottery. The essence of these heavily text-driven zines with sparse and frequently oblique illustrations has revolved around the concept of a VR game called Andalusian Dog. It essentially transforms your own reality into a Grand Theft Auto overlay, with various instructions and missions to perform in real life.  Cockle to ..read more
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45 Days Of CCS, #44: Natalie Norris
High-Low
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2M ago
Natalie Norris has been producing memoir about trauma since before she started at CCS. Even in her earliest assignments at the school, she turned standard first-year assignments like adapting a fable from Aesop or doing a comic in the style of Ed Emberley into frank, bold, and highly vulnerable narratives about her traumatic experiences. It's no surprise that her first long-form memoir, Dear Mini, should not only expand on her struggles, but it's also the one where she reveals, in an achingly intimate manner, her most formative traumatic experience.  Norris uses a very clever narrative ..read more
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