I've made it through three comics in the last couple weeks by the established and up and coming greats of the
autobiographical comics genre.
The first of these is
SunDogs (parhelion) by Adam Pasion. The series of short strips within is a daily journal covering 2 months of his life living in Nagoya, Japan. There's plenty of funny anecdotes about his family, work-related stress, and just about getting old! I think that this comic is his first in which the art and storytelling are consistently great. His old
Tales From The Sharpie series has it's own dashed-off charm, of course, and
The Trouble With Change and
Cattlebro both present good stories but they always felt like they were missing a little development or something... I'm not sure exactly what, but, regardless,
Sundogs definitely shows Adam hitting his stride. He also avoids the "Japan is so wacky" trap that lots of foreigners fall into when documenting their experiences there, while still portraying in an honest way how he gets by in a setting that isn't 100% familiar yet.
Rumor has it that
Sundogs part two is on the way soon!!!
You can order it and many other comics directly from him at
BIGUGLYROBOT.
Next up is
Delayed Replays by Liz Prince. This is her second book published by Top Shelf productions, her first having been 2005's
Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed?. This one continues to collect her strips about life's funnier, sadder, weirder and more poignant[er] moments. I think that Prince has a great knack for capturing the spirit of a moment in just 3 frames, but that the storytelling over the course of the entire book suffers a bit from the lack of a consistent narrative. Certainly, each individual strip alone doesn't shy away from sensitive topics, but seemingly important things seem to slip through the cracks between strips. I also got a little annoyed by the sloppiness of the art, and the visible pencil marks that weren't completely erased. The style of the art itself is great, but I just wish it was a little bit more cleaned up, I guess.
Nitpicking aside, I enjoyed reading the book very much, and I look forward to seeing her next book in which my friend Dave will be prominently featured, as so:
You can read her comics for free on her
LIVEJOURNAL or buy them from here at her
WEBSITE. NICE!
Finally, I'd like to talk about the newest book from Jeffrey Brown,
Cat Getting Out of a Bag and Other Observations. This one appeared out of nowhere to me, even though I'm a big Jeffrey Brown fan. Why was this book at the local Japanese book store instead of at the local comic shop? Regardless, I managed to find it, and it was NICE! This book departs a bit from Brown's usual autobiographical material to become more of a sort of fringe-autobiography featuring the cats in his life as he observes them. Most noticeably, I thought that this comic was a HUGE step up for Brown artistically. His art style remains simple and cute, but with so much more incredible, yet subtle, detail, especially since 90% of the comic is without dialogue. The cat observations are the same sort of thing that every cat lover notices, with a particularly touching introduction about how Brown became a cat owner as a child.
You can order the book from the publisher,
CHRONICLE BOOKS, or check out his
OFFICIAL WEBSITE.
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