Over the past month I’ve found myself in the possession of a scad of
obscure zines and small issues of independent comic series. Knowing I
couldn’t devote an entire article to suggesting them to an audience,
mostly because many of the zines are limited print and not available
nationwide, I decided to review and suggest a bundle of them AT a time.
I’m thinking that I’ll stick to four for each installment of Zine
Stash, but that will depend on how many zines I have at a time.
Considering that some of these won’t be available for print-on-demand
or a delivery, I’ll send readers in the direction of the artists’
website or social media when I can, after the quick summary and review.
There by Hansel Moreno and Claire Connelly
Hansel Moreno wrote this short zine and Claire Connelly drew it.
Over the course of eight pages, a working stiff contemplates the
claustrophobic fear he would experience if he ever went into space.
This external fear becomes internal once he realizes that he feels this
same fear after he hasn’t left his desk or office for quite a long
time. The comic is printed in black and white, and as would be expected
of a comic that has some panels set in space, there is a ton of black
negative space. The big two page spread features smaller panels off to
the side that illustrate the worst of the protagonist’s fears. For
something that only consists of eight pages, a lot of ground is covered
in the visuals.
Hansel Moreno writes short stories. His twitter handle is
@hanselthelost
Claire Connelly’s illustration work can be found on her
website. Her twitter handle is
@ckconnellydraws
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall by Mittie Paul
This limited print comic features a unique series of panel types,
from long horizontal ones, to basic geometric shapes, to cracked glass
facsimiles, to a cross hatched triangular conclusion. The plot features
a girl wondering what is wrong with her memory, because she can only
recall when she looks at herself in the mirror. She can’t remember any
time when she’s away from the mirror, but deduced that she must have
some kind of life because her hair and clothes are always changing.
When she looks at the text on the book she’s holding, it’s orientation
reveals what she really is.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall is the
best short read from this first Zine Stash, not so much because the
twist is hard to see coming, but because the reveal uses a lot of
creative logic to nail the ending. I’ve covered the creativity of the
panels already, but the shading and cross hatching is also very
impressive.
Mittie Paul has a webcomic called
Timber. Her twitter handle is
@MittieArt.
You Suck: Volume 1 by Josh Lesnick
You Suck is an erotic webcomic and this first volume is a collection
made for people to get interested in the content while at conventions.
The comic features Anna, a college student who has some troubles with
getting her sexual desires met by her clueless boyfriend. After coming
on too strong while the two are at a theatre, the boyfriend leaves and
Anna later finds him being screwed in the alley by a naked succubus who
disappears into the night. The succubus follows her around after she
dumps her boyfriend and appears to want to make friends with her and
help her along in getting what she needs out of a sexual relationship.
The succubus doesn’t prove to be the best role model, as consent isn’t
exactly something she seems to hold in super high regard, although most
of the guys whose bones she jumps seem fine with it after the fact.
Anna isn’t quite so keen with the succubus’ method once she captures
Anna’s professor and dumps him on Anna’s bed.
The drawing style of You Suck is extremely loose and free. Much like Jess Fink’s work on
Chester 5000,
this sort of inking style seems to work very well for the erotic comics
genre. Compared to more anatomically correct images in erotica, such
as Melinda Gebbie’s still stunning and remarkable beautiful work on
Lost Girls,
this sort of style adds a lot of room for the imagination and a more
impressionistic reading experience, which I give two thumbs up to.
You Suck can be found
here. Josh Lesnick’s twitter is
@superhappy.
The Box: Issue 1 by Peyton Freeman and Brett Williams
The Box is a story that focuses on the Grecian Olympians losing their
power as the Ills gain power in the mortal world after Pandora opens
that eponymous Box. Right away, the visual style is at odds with the
kind of grand story that the writer is trying to tell. The inking job
isn’t done poorly, but the digital coloring and the backgrounds are far
too simplistic to really communicate the bigger Grecian world that seems
to be set up in the opening of the book. The textures on walls in the
back are done with stone textures from other sites presumably, and
pillars are copy pasted too much to keep consistency with the sunlight
in the scene. Also, the story is too jumbled and all over the place,
too much to give me a sense of who I should care about. I didn’t even
know Pandora was Pandora until the very end of the book, which may be my
fault. While I can’t recommend the series from my first impression, I
will leave the creator’s information below.
Issues of The Box can be purchased online in PDF form through their
website.
