Me

Me
4.25" x 5.5", 40 pgs., $4
Neil Fitzpatrick gets personal in this aptly titled comic. Some terrible things happened in Neil's life (a bad break-up being one apparently), so Neil used his comic book making skills as an outlet to deal with it. Having read and thoroughly enjoyed some of Neil's other books, I was excited to explore this one. It did not disappoint. However, here is my dilemma: Neil went through a rough time, and then I got to enjoy reading a comic about it. Sorry, Neil. The truth is, this is stuff most anyone can relate to, which is partly what makes it so good. We go through rough times, we beat ourselves down while simultaneously trying to build ourselves back up, and ultimately we get through it. In the meantime, some of the best art gets made as (for whatever reason) our creative juices flow when life is sucking the most. Hopefully Neil can take heart from that. 
www.neiljam.com

The Recoup #1

The Recoup #1
digest, perfect bound, 42 pages
$5 digital copy/$7 print copy
Joseph Kyle is a music journalist who believes that "a record has no expiration date," and so, frustrated with the lack of coverage older, lesser known bands receive in today's music magazines (even when classic albums are reissued), he decided to do something about it. And that's how The Recoup was born. It's "a journal dedicated to music -  superb, excellent, forgotten-about music." In the debut issue you will find interviews with the drummer of Semisonic, a member of Texas is the Reason, Peter Byrne/Naked Eyes, and Brother. Following the interviews, there are 8 pages of reviews of reissued/classic albums. The issue ends with Joseph discussing his Yoko Ono obsession with a friend of his who shares his obsession. It's a great looking little magazine, and, in my opinion, a very worthy cause.
http://therecoup.wordpress.com
http://www.etsy.com/shop/josephhkyle

Gladhand Comix #1

ADULTS ONLY! 32 pages, 8.5" x 5.5", by JB >>> thesach [at] gmail [dot] com + thecomixcompany.ecrater.com JB seems to have found Bender's evil brother [Dev-12] and presented a bunch of his hi-jinks within these pages. Dev-12 is a robot who is always broke, having spent his dough on such things as Bollywood scripts. He also has sex with human women. He has dreams in which he is human, attends comix & zine fairs, and loses entire nights getting wasted and abusing others on the internet. Among these adventures of Dev-12 are other strips, some wordless and surreal (like the one with the guy pursued and tormented by owls with breasts) and others autobiographical, like the one in which he gets depressed about the quality of his comix so visits a bohemian record collecter to buy some of his records, gets high with the dude while listening to some of those records when a tsunami hits the house, killing the record collector. ... Wait a minute, is this really autobiographical? JB also reveals what happened when Picasso met a young female fan; and flips the jock/nerd dynamic in 'Revenge of the Turds'. The jock here yearns for a nerdy girl, bemoaning the fact that "Nerds have it made!" yet we find out that the nerdy girl is horribly mistreated by her nerdy boyfriend. JB's got this really great ability to take things we think we know and transform them in genuinely surprising ways. Plus he can be very funny! Good stuff.