The following is a review/analysis. If plot details or analytical conjecture would ruin the experience for you, please read the album first. Enjoy!
Aurora the Sprite
A dead child is only the beginning of cruelty in Fabien Vehlmann & Kerascoet’s Beautiful Darkness. This eurpoean graphic album, available stateside from Drawn and Quaterly, juxtaposes the life of a child with the death of child in a manner that breaks the heart and chills the spine. Continue reading
Here’s a discovery. Startling Comics #49 from 1948 has an early appearance of a particular bending unit from the year 3000. Continue reading
Creator: Eric Haven
Publisher: Fantagraphics
In order to have alternatives, you must seek out alternatives. Vague Tales is not a comic to pick up if you like comics as they are. It’s a comic to pick up to see what comics can be. They can be weird. Continue reading
Imagine you are thrust into a carnival. There are clowns and carnies, barkers and bakers, animals and amusements. You look around. You have no idea what is going on and it’s fantastic. It is the feeling of newness, of not knowing, that drives you onward. Your senses are reborn. Suddenly throwing a dart at a deflated balloon to win a KISS poster isn’t depressing, it’s an adventure. The mystery, the wonder, creates the experience. When you go home you don’t even hang up the cardboard frame, but you’ll remember the carnival.
So it is with comic books. Continue reading
Last week, I wandered into a different universe. In the back of my local newsstand, an anachronism itself, I found a spinner rack. On that spinner rack, along with prepackaged collections of Marvel comics, I found a miracle. Continue reading
