Joshua Malbin

Comics for Grownups Episode 21 with Alex Rothman is now out on iTunes. Direct RSS link for Android users here. In this episode we briefly discuss the upcoming Comic Arts Brooklyn show in November, and then review: 

Beach Girls and Dweeb by Box Brown and James Kochalka

Trillium #1 by Jeff Lemire

Lose #5 by Michael DeForge

A33 by Josh Burggraf

The Outliers by Erik T. Johnson

It Will All Hurt by Farel Dalrymple (available online at Study Group, but you should buy it anyway)

As You Were: A Punk Comix Anthology #1by Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club

Todd, The Ugliest Kid on Earth vol. 1 by Ken Kristensen and M. K. Perker

Rex Libris by James Turner

Alan’s War by Emmanuel Guibert

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The Strange Tales trade paperback is the result of a brilliant marketing gimmick: Marvel revived a classic title and under its banner invited many of the most popular indie comic book authors in the country to create very short stories featuring the company’s superheroes. As far as I can tell, they let the authors do whatever they wanted.

The results are about what I’d have expected. Authors I liked a lot from their other work produced the vignettes I liked the best here.

Peter Bagge’s Spider-Man stories alone are worth the cover price, for example: Spidey finds out his saintly uncle Ben was really just a petty crook, and in his disillusionment reads Ayn Rand and decides to use his great power selfishly. He becomes a corporate tycoon and spends his time tormenting JJ Jameson, now his underling.

By contrast, Johnny Ryan, author of Prison Pit, is exactly as puerile doing superheroes as he is in his own work.

Fortunately, there are a lot more good authors in the mix than bad ones. Tony Millionaire does Iron Man; James Kochalka does The Hulk (of course); Jason does Spider-Man; and Max Cannon does The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.

A good gift book for someone who likes comics, especially if you’re not sure what type he or she prefers.

Preview here.

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