Sent to you by Jack via Google Reader:
Squish
One of these years I'm just going to get a graphic novel from Rickey and be done with it. Of course, that's also assuming that I'm going to make it to SPACE one of these years with a pile of money. This mini has a tiny original comic and then a preview (done in screenplay format) or his latest book, The Death of Ginger Fierbusch. The comic is the brief story of a young woman who, while on the phone to her father, squishes a bug. After doing this she goes on about how it makes her feel bad to kill bugs, how maybe some other higher being in the universe will decide to squish her one of these days for no reason. It's gets a little maudlin, her dad gives her a bit of a pep talk, and there's a delightfully awkward ending. As for the free preview, the screenplay format maybe wasn't the best way to show the new book, but if he didn't have any actual preview pages done it's better than nothing. It's the story of the two best friends of Ginger Fierbusch, a local drag queen and podcasting sensation (do those exist?), trying to make sense of her death. It has potential, clearly, but there really wasn't enough here to pass any judgement one way or the other. Next year at SPACE I'll pick it up and see for myself, until then who knows? Check out his other books first (as there's much more to them), but this is still worth picking up for his short comic if you see him at a con. $1
Victims At The End Of The World: Free Preview
God bless the free previews, I wish more people did these things. All Rickey had at SPACE this year was a graphic novel (if I'm remembering correctly, which I'm probably not) and this, so all of us poor people can still check out his stuff without having to spend a bunch. Actually, looking at his website I can see that the graphic novel is only $6, so apparently I have no excuse at all. So how about that comic? It's the story of a bunch of dolls who have been thrown away and come back in their own world, similar to ours but not exactly the same. This short preview deals with Algernon, a suicidal furry doll who helps his friends at the expense of his own well being. In other words, he's a pushover. A friend, Bartleby, comes into Algernon's house right as he is about to kill himself and asks for help with a project. Most of the story is in the head of Algernon and there are no word bubbles to be seen, which is a welcome change. It's almost impossible to criticize a comic for being momentarily pretentious when the publishing company is called Pretentious Comics, so I'll leave that alone. It's an intriguing peek into what may be a great graphic novel, or what may be a whiny, long-winded piece of crap, although that second option would really surprise me from what I saw here. My only problem here is with the art, which is simplistic to a fault, as the characters seem to live against a flat gray background. It's the kind of thing that may grow on you or not, and as always a trip around that website would probably clear a lot of things up for anybody who is curious.
Concepcion
This book beautifully addresses a question I had over the past summer: how many religious people have actually read the whole Bible? I managed it, thanks to taking some time off of work this summer, and merciful Minerva what a mess that was. This is the story of a woman who is getting older and is losing all the people around her so, in an attempt to comfort herself, reads the Bible. She sees that God, as portrayed in the good book, is more than a little bit of a prick. As such she starts to question all of her assumptions about death and the afterlife, and this comic tracks her as she takes a shower and tries to sort it all out. I thought it was fantastic, as I always love seeing religion as a whole intelligently discussed like this. And really, whatever your beliefs are, that's fine, it's your life. But if anybody could tell me how the story of Job as it's written isn't God being a vindictive jerk just to impress Satan, of all "people", well… $2
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