Category: comics

Dave Kellett is one of my favorite comic strip artists (see Sheldon) and when he has projects at Kickstarter, I often try to chip in. A recent fundraiser that became a book was Anatomy Of Dogs, a hilarious exploration of breeds of dogs that had me laughing as I read it. He pokes fun, in a fun way, at the attributes of dogs in the form of scientific illustrations. It’s clear that Kellett loves dogs.

Peace (with kibbles),
Kevin

Have you ever wandered into a conversation of people who are in a very specific or specialized field and wondered what language they are speaking? And yet, you are very curious anyway? That was my impression as I read The Lexicon of Comicana by Mort Walker (he, of Beetle Bailey and Hi & Lois comic strip fame).

It was fun to read and to think about the ways in which Walker, and other comic strip makers, have created their own vocabulary for things they do in the world of comic book making. Words like Briffits, and Plewds, and Grawlixes, and Mayhemia all surface, and this book is a light-hearted tome, too, with Walker having fun with the concepts and with us, the reader, as he adds jokes and pratfalls and other visual elements to his explorations of Emanata and beyond.

Famous comic creator Chris Ware offers up the foreword, and talks about how an earlier edition of this book — which is mostly in the form of cartoons and comics, with some adjacent prose — made its rounds through the worlds of cartoonists and graphic novelists in his early, formative years, transforming the way they talked about their art.

This edition that I read is a reprint, and I am happy to have stumbled across it, to know that even academic materials from the world of comics is accessible and fun to read.

Peace (in panels),
Kevin

There is something very sweet about Will Henry’s Wallace The Brave comics — about a group of young friends who live in a fishing village community, with Wallace as the main character — and this collection of Sunday comics — which allow Henry to go big with color and space — is a masterclass in comics. Think Cul De Sac, or Calvin and Hobbes, but with a little gentler tone (although no less subversive) and with an expanded group of regular characters.

I recommend Sunday Funday Wallace to anyone who needs a break from the world. (Our local newspaper just recently started to run the daily Wallace The Brave comics and I am happy to see it every morning.)

Peace (in the panels),
Kevin

 

During the worst of the Pandemic, I discovered the Itchy Feet comic strip by Malachi Ray Rempen on an app called Tinyview Comics that I support with a monthly fee (because it seems like the organization does a good job of supporting its writers and artists).

Rempen’s focus for the Itchy Feet comic is on world travel, and of course, there was none to be had by most people in the world, so the comic (which Rempen has been making for at least a decade or more) often poked fun at being stuck at home with an itch to travel. The comic became a nice reprieve in an otherwise isolated world of living.

Cappucinos After Lunch And Other Crimes is a book collection of comics from 2018-2021. Some of the Covid-era Comics make their way into this book but mostly, Rempen does a funny job of skewering traveling to different parts of the world through the lens of food, cultural confusions, language and airport obstacles.

I laughed quite a bit at the jokes here and the visual humor, and I appreciate the gentle way that the comic handles the clash of visitors to a destination with mostly grace (unless the faux pas is too deep and needs some skewering). This collection is a fun way to think about traveling to the world. Sure, there are mishaps that might happen, and yet, the comic points out how traveling can be worth it for many reasons, including finding a common understanding other people in other places.

Peace (and Travel),
Kevin