Hideous Energy: "We read everything."
That is a direct quote from our interview with Liz Suburbia. She's a comic artist and writer, and does a webcomic called "
Sacred Heart." During our interview we asked Liz what comics she reads (both from the shelf and online), and she gave us a huge list and made us realize we don't read anywhere near "everything." That's a good thing though. She gave us a list of things to discover, and we thought we'd share her suggestions. We won't be able to post a review of them, as it would mean we'd have to put the list up a few months from now after we could formulate opinions on them. For right now it's just a list. Maybe there's something new on here you've never heard of. There definitely was for us.
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Achewood - Written and illustrated by Chris Onstad, the site says this:
"“Achewood,” like wormwood, was used by antebellum slaves in the production of “achewater,” a long-since outmoded and outlawed Southern beverage. Drinkers of achewater experienced hallucinations and euphoria, but the after-effects of the liquor produced a deep and lasting melancholy (hence its name). Modern science has confirmed that achewood oil, the active ingredient in achewater, is a powerful depressant which causes irreversible neurological damage. Achewater is generally thought to have inspired many Southern folk songs and fables, such as “The Story of Poor John Ritch,” “Sullivan’s Bear and Dried Bird” and “I’m Following a Little Round Lord.”" It looks like a book that can cause pangs of nostalgic melancholy, or force you to laugh at the ridiculousness of everything. It definitely has us intrigued.
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Templar, Arizona - Here's what the "Templar, Arizona" site says about the comic, written and illustrated by : "I
’m Spike. I’m a lady. I live in Chicago, with a dog and a man. I was born in Washington, D.C. the day that Jim Jones poisoned 900 members of his doomsday cult in Jonestown, Guyana. I’ve been thinking, drawing, and writing about Templar since I was a kid. I started the comic in summer of 2005. I’ll finish it before I die, but probably not soon. It’s pretty long. Templar, Arizona is a story about a town that doesn’t exist, and the people who live there. I alternately describe it as speculative fiction, an alternate timeline, and an alternate history. This isn’t the Arizona you’re probably thinking of. This is a different Arizona. This is a slightly irregular Arizona that fell off the back of a truck somewhere, and now all the power outlets are a weird shape and a couple of wars never happened. Templar’s populated with junkies, fuck-ups, pretty girls, millionaires, hockey teams, weird religions, dumb subcultures, and people in love. So it’s a lot like the cities you might already be familiar with, except the air there gives you Miner’s Lung and nobody has a cell phone." Yep. We are reading this now.
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Girls With Slingshots -This comic is written and illustrated by Danielle Corsetto, and she says: "
In October of 2004, [I] began Girls With Slingshots, and a couple of years later [I] was doing the strip full-time. It’s now updated 5 times a week at some god-awful hour. In addition to GWS, [I] wrote and drew The New Adventures of Bat Boy for the Weekly World News, taking the reins from Bat Boy’s kind & talented former creator Peter Bagge."
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Eat That Toast! - Written and illustrated by Matt Czap. This webcomic has all kinds of great shit happening. I read one about weather and suicide, one about a beauty contest where a lumberjack wins, and one about a bird peeing into a cup for a drug test. Read it? Yes.
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Moon Town - This one I accidentally stumbled across while reading "Eat That Toast!" It's written and illustrated by Steve Ogden. Here's his plot synopsis:
"The year is 2087. Earth has been mined into a shell, so mankind is mining the moon. But when ore shipments begin vanishing amid rumors of pirates, a new sheriff comes to town in the form of rookie security guard Cassandra Quinn. Can she solve the mystery of the missing ore? Or will she find out too much? Some secrets can get you killed…
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Curvy - With art that is somewhat reminiscent of Alex Robinson, "Curvy" is described as:
"A sexy sci-fi adventure comic for adults. New pages every Saturday." I read a little of it and saw a girl with her head implanted on a guy's body.
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A Softer World - The synopsis of this webcomic is as follows:
"A Softer World is a comic that was created by Emily Horne and Joey Comeau so that people would recognize them as important artistic geniuses. Sometimes the "comic" is sad or harsh. It should be noted that this is in the tradition of George Simenon's 'romans durs' (or 'hard novels') and not in the lesser traditions of comics like Peanuts or anything else not French. Comeau is a French name. (Pronounced kuh-moe, by the way. Joey is very important, please say his name correctly. Emily is also very important but her name is easier to pronounce.)"
Sorry there aren't more in-depth reviews of these comics. Maybe it isn't such a bad thing that you'll be going into reading them with no one's opinion other than your own, though. If you check any of them out, let us know what you think. Thanks to Liz Suburbia for the list.
