Reviews on Syndicated Zine Reviews blog

Dan Murphy of Syndicated Zine Reviews was kind enough to ring in the new year with two Birdcage Bottom Book reviews. Read his review of 'Tales of Good Ol' Snoop Doggy Dogg' here and 'Old Man Winter & Other Sordid Tales' here.

Reviews on Indie Street Radio

Nick Rennis & Eric Murphy of Indie Street Radio (a podcast) gave short reviews of both Old Man Winter & OST (click here to read) and Tales of Good Ol' Snoop Doggy Dogg (click here to read).

Speaking of, I am down to the last 8 copies of Tales of Good Ol' Snoop. I'm going to reprint a 2nd edition of 250 copies, though, so no worries. Since that particular mini seems to cause the most stir, I'm thinking of redrawing the cover image and silk-screening it onto t-shirts, totes, thongs, etc.

Reviews on Pop Damage & Book Loons

Joe Babinsack gave another stellar in-depth review of Losers Weepers issues #1 and #2 (not that he'd reviewed them before...he reviewed some of my other comics) on Pop Damage.

Also, there's a short not-so-in-depth (but positive, nonetheless) review of Old Man Winter by Ricki Marking-Camuto for Book Loons.

Still hard at work on my celebrity dream comics...finished inking Arnold Schwartzenegger, and I've inked three pages of a new Snoop dream.

Lulu Mae can now wave hello/goodbye, but she does it like she's holding a gun. Must be the influence of living in Brooklyn. It's like, "hey, I acknowledge you, but keep your distance please". She also takes literal baby steps if we hold on to her hands.

Old Man Winter review on Pop Damage

As if to prove the subjective nature of art, Joe Babinsack provides a review of Old Man Winter & Other Sordid Tales that is nearly polar opposite of an earlier review by Andrew Wright on the same blog (Pop Damage).

To paraphrase, Joe loved it, Andrew hated it! However, Joe is an incredibly eloquent writer AND he penned a book of essays titled "Professional Wrestling Intellectual". I may be biased, but I'm going with the guy who could probably execute a pretty decent sleeper hold on me.

You can read Joe's review here.

Review in Inkstuds

Thanks to Carrie Try Harder for her review of "Old Man Winter & OST" on the Inkstuds blog.

In between diaper changes, I'm keeping myself busy with the second chapter of "Losers Weepers" (just over half done with tight page sketches) and preparing "Snakepit 2009" for print.

On Monday, we went to the funeral service for David Levine, an old friend of Karen's family and an accomplished caricaturist and painter. You will undoubtedly recognize his work from regular publication in The New Yorker, Newsweek, Esquire, Playboy, The New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, etc., etc. I never met him personally, but I've always admired his work. The service was in our neighborhood because he was born in Brooklyn and lived in Brooklyn Heights. From the many speeches given, I gather that he was a principled and loving man with a great affection for Brooklyn and the underappreciated blue collar worker. He will be missed!

New reviews

I have the after-comic-convention saddies that I've heard so much about. You spend months working your butt off, hang out with tons of like-minded folks surrounded my incredible talent, and then...it's over. Back to real life where nobody around you really gives a crap about comics.

Oh well, time to get started on the next issue of "Losers Weepers".

I did get a couple of reviews while I was gone. Chris Allen reviewed "Old Man Winter" on his blog Chris Allen Online (click to read it), and Brian Warmoth reviewed "Tales of Good Ol' Snoop Doggy Dogg" on Warmoth.org (click to read). I was especially tickled by the in-depth interpretation of the influence of Schulz's "Peanuts". That reference was more or less meant as a throw-away joke for the cover and doesn't really carry through to the actual content of the stories, but Brian just about had me convinced otherwise! I have to admit that I was obsessed with "Peanuts" as a kid, so it's not hard to imagine it creeping into my subconscious and affecting everything I do.

Review in Brick

My old pal Tod Parkhill (first guy I met at college, first guy to publish my comics) was kind enough to send me a copy of 'Brick', a weekly alternative newspaper in Richmond, VA that has a review of my comic in it. The review is written by Patrick Godfrey, the owner of Velocity Comics in Richmond. Since it's not posted on their website, I've transcribed it here (P.S. the cover is not from the pertinent issue, but it was all they had up on the website, plus Rob Ullman drew it, so...bonus!)

Patrick Godfrey - Brick

Seriously, gang, is there anything more hilarious than animal cruelty?

Woah, lynch mob – kidding! But I bet I got your attention. Very few topics invite as passionate a response as animal cruelty, a major topic in newcomer JT Yost’s collection of short stories. It’s nice to see a rising cartoonist comfortable wearing his heart on his sleeve yet backing it up with some smarts; It happens less often than one would hope. But Yost succeeds, particularly in brief gut-wrenchers ‘All Is Forgiven…’ and ‘Roadtrip.’ These two punched me in the gut and kept me thinking well beyond my time reading them.

Overall, this one’s a handsome little sampler of an artist clearly on the incline. The cartooniness of Yost’s line is in distinct oppostion to the horrors depicted, and dang if it doesn’t work. I look forward to watching this guy continue to find his voice with a longer format.

One minor quibble: cover’s a little ugly. It’s not a deal-breaker or anything, but the cover copy’s a bit tough to suss out and the stark palette choice of black, white and pink is a bit of a puzzler. Don’t let that stop you from checking it out, though.

Man, now I feel like a dick.

Nah, don't feel like a dick...most people hate the cover.

Review in Comic Book Brain

I think this is the first review in which the reviewer breaks the comic down into each short story and reviews each separately, and then notes how they are connected as a whole. I have to admit that every story was done for a different purpose or publication and were not meant to be connected together. However, there does seem to be a common theme of unintentional (or sometimes intentional) cruelty running throughout. You can read Erik Weem's review on Comic Book Brain blog here.

I don't want to color any one's reading of my comics, but I am surprised that two conscious themes have yet to be mentioned in any of the twenty-something reviews "Old Man Winter & Other Sordid Tales" has received thus far.

SPOILER ALERT (don't read if you don't want to spoil the ending of the title story): I purposely left the circumstances of the old man's death ambiguous so that it could be interpreted as a suicide or as simply dying of loneliness after his partner's death. Nobody has yet interpreted his death as a suicide, so either it was TOO ambiguous or people have a more hopeful outlook on life than I do! Please don't take that as a cry for help or anything...I'm actually a very content person, and I can honestly say I've never thought of taking my own life! There's a lot of cruelty in this world, though, and for some reason that's what I tend to focus on in my artwork (in my comics, at least).

The second theme that hasn't been commented on is the cycle of abuse I tried to hint at in the "Circus" comic at the end of the book. The boy is beat by his father, runs away from home and becomes a caretaker for the elephant in the circus. The elephant's back story involves being domesticated through a traditional ritual of being separated from its mother at an early age, caged and beaten for days on end and dragged through the village until it shows no signs of rebellion before being worked to exhaustion. The combination of cruel trainers (or mahouts) and their powerful but spiritually broken subjects is a perfect storm for disaster. How many zoo or circus animals have to freak out and kill people before it is concluded that this is simply not the way to treat animals?

Barnum and Bailey's circus consistently claim that they do not use intimidation or beatings to train their animals even when countless undercover footage repudiates these claims. Jumping through hoops of fire goes against every instinct of a tiger, walking on two legs is unnatural and undoubtedly uncomfortable for an elephant, and they are not going to do these types of "tricks" without being intimidated.

In contrast, the diminutive Thai woman who runs Elephant Nature Park is able to gain her elephants trust through loving behavior, even when they have been previously abused and neglected. She doesn't ask them to perform for guests, but visitors are no less impressed. They each display a unique personality and consistently show compassion for one another.

I didn't start this post intending to sermonize. I tend to work myself up. Sorry!!

Review in Arborcide

This has to be my favorite introduction to a review of my "Old Man Winter" comic yet:

"I was torn about whether or not to write about this title, as I always am with Xeric books. I find myself habitually weary of kicking up-and-comers in the proverbial unsuspecting balls, particular since I'm afraid they'll hold a grudge and seek revenge for any slighting I may dish out on them."

That sounds like a warm up to a bad review, but the review by "Mister V" on his Arborcides blog is actually quite flattering. He doesn't like the bleak didactic nature of the animal-welfare themed stories (he's not alone in that!), but he's very complimentary about the artwork. I assume he would probably enjoy my Snoop Dogg mini since it is light-hearted and has no morality tales.

Anyhow, you can read the review for yourself if you'd like (click here to read it).

Reviews in Comics And...Other Imaginary Tales & Poopsheet Foundation

We just got back from our last child-free vacation, and there was a few nice reviews waiting for me. The first is a review of "Old Man Winter" by Jim Martin & Lee (don't know his last name) of Comics And...Other Imaginary Tales blog (click here to read it). Their focus seems to be more toward superhero comics rather than indie (although Lee does like slice-of-life comics). I always like to get an outsiders perspective, and I'm glad that they both seemed to enjoy my comics.

The other review was for my "Tales of Good Ol' Snoop Doggy Dogg" mini comic. I didn't send these out for review since sending out review copies of "Old Man Winter" nearly bankrupted me, but I did send one to Poopsheet Foundation since they specialize in minis. Robert Newsome gave it a great review, so thanks Robert (click here to read it) !

Review in Optical Sloth

I missed an incredibly generous review of "Old Man Winter & Other Sordid Tales" by Kevin Bramer on the Optical Sloth blog (click here to read it) posted back in June. Another comparison to Joe Sacco, which is beyond flattering. I don't think I could pull off the detail in his panoramic scenes, but I do try to put lots of background details into my own work.

I haven't been posting much lately because I'm hard at work on a new comic, which I've probably mentioned. I've moved on from the thumnail sketches to more fully realized whole-page sketches. I've got about seven or so pages done. I would put some up on this here blog, but I don't want to give away anything about the plot. Well, I can tell you that it involves a bunch of letters, notes and journals I've found over the years. There, happy?

Review in File Under Other

Shannon Smith wrote a very flattering review in File Under Other (click to read it) in which he compared me to several of my favorite comic artists.

Oh, I got my first purchase order from Diamond Comic Distributors, which means that they didn't drop me! I sold 600, which is a far shot from their $2,500 minimum, but my contact there explained that there are other factors (such as my Xeric Award) that are taken into consideration. Anyway, that's a huge weight off of my shoulders.

Review in GutterGeek

A very kind review by Jared Gardner on GutterGeek (click to read it). Thanks, Jared!

Review in Bookgasm

A pleasant review of "Old Man Winter & Other Sordid Tales" by Rod Lott at Bookgasm.com (click to read it).

Chris Terry from D.I.Y. Punk magazine Razorcake also wrote a positive review, but it hasn't been published yet so I don't have a link.

I've started writing a new comic that I'm very excited about. It's sort of forming itself based on a loose framework I've set up. I'll tell you about it as it develops.

Review in Comixtreme

Oops, I lied in that last post...there was actually a good review in between the two bad ones. I just forgot to post it. So, here's Andrea Speed's review on Comixtreme (click to read it). Now I don't feel quite as bad...thanks, Andrea.

Review in Sequential Tart

In the name of full disclosure, I present to you the worst review I have ever gotten:

Marissa Sammy's review of "Old Man Winter" (click to read it)

I know I should expect emotional responses to my comics that deal with emotionally charged issues, but I didn't expect the amount of vitriol slung at me by Ms. Sammy. I'm accused of creating "ineffectual holier-than-thou guilt trips", "privileged , clueless pontification" and even racism!

The animal welfare comics she refers to are meticulously researched. The events depicted in both "Roadtrip" and "Circus" are firmly based in reality. The vast majority of our livestock in this country is horribly mistreated from birth to death. If this makes you feel guilty for choosing to indulge in animal products, congratulations - you're human!

As for the 'Circus' comic, it was directly informed from a visit to the wonderful Elephant Nature Park (a sanctuary for abused elephants) in Thailand. The traditional 'breaking of the spirit' of elephants involves removing them from their mothers, caging them and beating them for days on end until they are submissive. Shamans overlook the proceedings, rubbing poltices on the baby elephants and delivering beatings with sticks about their most sensitive areas. In a response to an email from me, Ms. Sammy says my depiction of the Thai natives is a racist shorthand. She is incorrect. The outfits shown are from recent reference photos of the traditional cruel domestication process.

The only point I'll concede is that the pranks in "Logging Sanjay" may well have been construed as racially motivated by his family. Obviously we didn't mean it as such, but kids (especially two white kids) don't always have the best sense. I was at the butt end of plenty of teasing from my good friends Matt & Sanjay, but this particular line of pranks (as I admit in the comic) went too far. That said, I find Sammy's suggestion that I'm framing Sanjay as violent by begging him, "Please don't hurt me!" after my confession ridiculous. If she knew Sanjay and my relationship (we're still great friends), she would realize her folly.

Anyhow, besides most people hating the cover art, this is the first negative review I've received. I will try to take something positive from it, but I suppose I won't be using any of this one on my review quotes page!