Three Ways of Saying Two

While I have been off work over the past couple of months, I have been in a flux of doing nothing, or having the energy to do a lot. I am used to being able to do a lot at once, but lately it’s been a different world. I am looking forward to being back to my normal self. Collecting comics right now has been a place of a lot of pleasure. Seeking out new and exciting work while also diving into historical work. I thought I had a good grasp on underground comics, but the deeper I go, the more obscure things that I find.

I’m sure I have mentioned before about wanting to do an anthology/collection of west coast comics Canadian comics, but I feel like it might need to be a national project. There is just so much out there that has been lost to time, and the people that made it are aging or passing, so I have this sense of immediacy. I need to find a way to harness that want into actual follow through. For now it’s just reading and collecting, but hopefully I can make that next step.

If you want to send something for me to read, please see below.

Inkstuds
#2147 – 720 Sixth St
New Westminster, BC
V3L 3C5
Canada

and only if you are mailing from the United States

Robin McConnell
1685 H Street # 27043
Blaine, WA 98230
United States

or email me inkstuds@inkstuds.com. As well, I have active want lists of comics I am searching for, please reach out if you are looking to sell comics or downsize your collection. I am going to use this space to continue to explore the oddities that I come across through my many years of collecting.

Starting this week out on the note of historical and archival work is the latest Buzzelli collection from Floating World comics. I can’t say enough about my respect for the work that Jason Levian does with Floating World, providing not only one of the best comic stores in North America, but also really working hard at publishing great modern and historical work. When the original solicitations came out about the Buzzelli reprint collection project, it seemed almost out of left field for that publisher, but this work seemed to be bizarre enough to fit the rest of the publishing line. HP is the second of three archival volumes in this series. This book features 2 stories, the first HP, is a post apocalyptic/utopia story that’s kind of like a western meets thx-1138. Buzzelli’s story really takes the idea of 1970’s counter culture of living off grid and communal society and foists it against the dangers of a fascist state. Plus the action just keeps on moving. The second story is a witchy horror story that is beautifully drawn but also set in a weirdo futuristic society informed by history. I knew nothing about Buzzelli before this series, and really appreciate the work in getting it out there.

The last time I was in Floating World, I grabbed this Edie Fake zine that was put out by Swiss Publisher, Nieves. This collection is very different from their other work. It still lives in shapes and structures, but instead of being informed by drawing, this is a collage work. The structures are brought together with delicate precision. The white back ground helps the colours really pop and feel full of life.

Another recent Nieves zine is the Secret of Het-Uma Drawing by Terry Johnson. This was part of a curated collection by Dan Nadel. I first became aware of Terry Johnson through his work on bringing out neat obscure books on the Picture Box webshop. I miss those days. Dan was able to provide some amazing work at really decent prices. I would describe Terry Johnson as a spiritual sibling of Gary Panter. Terry has been making work for probably 50 years in Japan and it still continues to feel vital and exciting. I think Secret Headquarters put a collection of Garo covers by him that is also worth checking out.

Northern Gaze is an anthology of Canadian cartoonists and artists sharing stories of living in the artic. Editor, Kim Edgar, a fantastic multi-disciplined artist in their own work, is very clear of the intension with this anthology, providing space to tell stories with the north in mind. They talk about how work that captures these experiences are told in a way that is almost educational for readers that aren’t familiar with the setting. I think that notion of just telling a story without pre-amble or extraneous information, really works to the strengths of these stories. These are really beautifully drawn snippets of reality that work on such a pure level because of the openness of the world of these stories. Alison McCreesh’s story of living on a houseboat in Yellowknife in the North West Territories is probably my favorite of the book. Other creators in this book include Akeeshoo Chislett from Iqualit, Nunavut, Keith Verbonac from Inuvik North West Territories, Esther Bordet, Chris Caldwell, Juliann Fraser, all from Whitehorse, Yukon, Princess J from Dawson City, Haines Junction’s own Cole Pauls and lastly Andrew Sharp, also from the Yukon. Take time to check out each of these artists. The book itself was riso printed by Moniker Press, and looks AMAZING.

This Dirty Duck comic by Bobby London was published in 1972 and has aged really nicely. London’s comics have more in common with Herriman’s Krazy Kat than any of his contemporaries. There is a really poetry to his writing, where the words just move almost like songs. When I look at one of his pages, I can really feel the work that has gone into it, creating a setting full of life that is honoring his influences. I really hope we get to see collection of his underground comic work one day. It’s so singular in it’s vision.

My pals at Golden Age Collectables here in Vancouver, hooked me up with some great weird comics. This Michael Jordan comic, an unauthorized bio comic from Revolutionary comics is wild. The cover looks like it could be by Carol Swain, it’s so odd. And then on the inside, there is a story drawn by Ken Landgraf. The art is fascinating in it, he will randomly insert photocopies of people’s heads in the art instead of drawing a likeness. But it’s not consistent, it seems almost random.

Monster Boy is by Bob Supina. It’s a pretty straight forward funny comic. Monsterous but also sweetest kid. Some pretty funny gags in this and the art is great too. This was published as a part of Fantagraphics short lived Monster Comics. I think they were throwing a lot of darts at the wall at some point and hoping something would stick with the same success they were getting from Eros comics.

Bushido Blade of Zatoichi Walrus seems to come on the wave of a million TMNT clones, but this one feels kind of different. The art is really nice and you can tell a lot of work went into this. Written by John Holiwski and drawn by Chuck Wojtkiewicz, the comic is pretty straight forward in the topic, just by the title. On the inside front cover the make a point of highlighting that co-creator and editor Peter Brody has spent 20 years studying karate and is a 5th degree black belt, which I think was a way to say that they have more business doing a comic on the subject than their competitors, maybe, I don’t know. It’s so odd. Even includes a photo of him with like 20 other people that is probably from their dojo.

What We Mean By Yesterday is the first collection of Ben Marra’s ongoing instagram comic strip that he started up during covid. It’s a beefy book at around 550 pages but it flows so quickly I inhaled it in one sitting. It’s very funny and also cathartic. What happens if your day goes to shit and you just roll with it and be shitty too? the drawings are sparse and immediate. this came out from fantagraphics a couple of months ago. There seem to be 2 types of covid comics, the diary ones that are incredibly boring because they are almost all the same, someone is sad and lonely, walking an empty street, wearing a mask, cleaning their groceries and sitting on zoom. The other is work like this, loose, fun and an engaging exercise. There’s Matt Thurber’s Mr Colostomy and of course Simon Hanselmann’s Crisis Zone. I have been enjoying Ben’s comics for years. He even did a great strip for a Gossip Girl Zine that I put together.

Lastly is the latest Tardi book also from Fantagraphics. I will buy anything by Jacques Tardi. He is truly giant in comics, telling incredibly personal stories of his family, avant garde comics, fabulous steampunkish stories and historical narratives that need to be shared for us to not only understand the past, but to know how it replays in the present and the future. Elise and the new Partisans is a collaboration with singer, writer and editor, Domnique Grange. There is so much of this comic that is a prescient story of how things change the more they stay the same. Domnique got heavily involved in socialist and labor activism after seeing the suffering of the working people and immigrant communities, especially the Algerians who were suffering through colonial oppression, fighting for their own independence. Much of this book shares her stories from the 60’s and 70’s, a time that was rife with social activism and crushed by government regulation. Through the book, they carefully show the links between vichy era police and their continued violently oppressive works for 30 more years after the war. And then how young participants in fascist national movements ended up finding their place later in right wing governments more recently. You can understand why Tardi rejects government recognition for his work when the government has been so violent and horrible to those facing barriers and suffering. Capitalism and exploitation is at the heart of this story, how systems of oppression are designed to sustain the exploitation, excreting all it can from those working in the system. Domnique story is both heart breaking and empowering, seeing someone who lives by their values but also suffers for those same values. This work echoes into so much of what we are experience in todays society, more than 50 years after the bulk of this book.