Time seems to be standing still lately. Perhaps it is the mundanity of the work-from-home humdrum, perhaps it is just my specific job. But every day feels like Monday the last few weeks, and it feels like there are a thousand things that need to be done at any given moment. With the real Monday back again, I thought I would bring some light and attention to some creator owned comics to lift our spirits.
I am not sure what the next update for the Urbane Turtle dot com website proper will be, or when. The long form analysis I do here is important to me, so I have no intention of letting it stagnate. Besides, I’m paying for the darn domain. But the comic reviewing takes a lot of time!
Last week I read WE ONLY FIND THEM WHEN THEY’RE DEAD book 1, and you can read my 700 words of effusive praise for it by clicking on the pretty picture below:
I don’t think this book got nearly the love or attention it deserves. I was blown away by it, and so far it’s the only comic I’ve gone out and bought because I read it for a review. A breathtaking work of beauty, in my opinion. Most of the reason I wrote this week’s newsletter is because I want to celebrate this book. Simone Di Meo’s art is incredible and the big wrestling with questions of meaning and cosmic significance really touched me.
I feel kind of vulnerable and weird writing a review that is this unequivocally positive and laudatory. Like I missed a reason the book is Bad Actually, or not as good as I think it is. But as a critic, ultimately, my job is to say what I think and what I thought was this is a staggering work. If I can say it was underappreciated without it being demeaning, that’s what I want to say. BOOM! Studios is really making waves on the creator-owned circuit.
Random Comic Panel of the Week
Kickstarter Shout Outs!
There is an incredible glut of cool comic kickstarters active over the last month or two, and it is basically impossible to support them all…but hopefully I can help raise attention to a few.
First, I wanna give a hearty congratulations to the crew behind Young Offenders, who just successfully closed out their campaign to get books 2 & 3 made. If you didn’t back it, you’re missing out, but you’ll eventually be able to buy the issues digitally at Mark Stack’s gumroad page. You can read my write-up on the first issue of this Young Adult superhero book here.
He doesn’t need my help because he got to like 500% funding in three seconds, but a new Jeff Smith comic is coming and can be pre-ordered via Kickstarter as of yesterday. I’m thinking of backing and adding the RASL collected edition, which I bought the first few issues of but never got to keep up with because it was a Weird Time in my life.
You might remember my glowing review of the self-published SLIGHTLY EXAGGERATED issue 1. While I eagerly wait the production of the next 2 issues, Curtis Clow, the writer, has another Kickstarter coming soon for his creator owned series Beastlands. You can sign up to pre-commit to the Kickstarter to help give it a strong launch. I haven’t read Beastlands yet but loved Slightly Exaggerated, the art looks fun, and I am down for what Clow is selling.
SKYLESS by Sean Coyle is a cool looking fantasy/sci-fi adventure with some early hints at great cartooning from animation industry pro and illustrator Crys Kirk. It looks like fans of Avatar or other young adult series set in fantasy worlds might dig it.
Time Before Time
I got the chance to read Declan Shalvey and Rory McConville's upcoming Image Comics book TIME BEFORE TIME early. Joe Palmer’s art is full of wonderfully abstract figures and moody shadows and the concept is a grimy time travel heist book. What I like is that it isn’t a mind-bendy take on time travel (at least not in issue 1) but a world where time travel is just one more gig job in a crummy hell hole world. Fun book!
Ko-Fi will soon be implementing a monthly support function that seems similar to what Patreon does. That’s cool. I have no Ko-Fi money but I’ll prob try to plug mine when that takes shape. I’ll try to think of something cool that is exclusive for backers….What would be cool? Drop me a line to let me know what you would be interested seeing exclusively. I am currently laying out some of my work in a book I plan to throw up digitally in a gumroad shop, so I could make that available to backers as a treat.