Bored Angel

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Bored Angel
Date: 2008
Publisher: Aya Rothwell
Writer: Aya Rothwell
Art: Aya Rothwell

Cardstock minicomic with a hand-stitched binding.

Standing guard alone can be a pretty dull assignment for the angel in this nearly-wordless story, which is really just a clever setup for a visual punchline. The whole thing is done so adorably, and the spacing and expressiveness of the artwork is so good that it really works way better than it could be expected to.

Brought a smile to my face.

Rating 8.5/10.

This Is A Sampler!

From the random unread comics stack.

Title: This Is A Sampler! Of Aya's Cartoons
Publisher: Aya Rothwell
Writer: Aya Rothwell
Art: Aya Rothwell

Cute tiny minicomic featuring Aya Rothwell's single-panel takes on various topics from film school to Harry Potter to X-Men, along with a conversation between two turtles.

Nice representation of the artist's wit and a fun little bit of geekery.

Rating: 7.5/10

The Eye of Aya

From the random stack of unread comics. I bought this minicomic directly from the writer/artist at one of the Boston-area conventions.

Title: The Eye of Aya
Date: 2008
Publisher: Aya Rothwell
Writer: Aya Rothwell
Art: Aya Rothwell

This is subtitled "Cartoons From Daily Life", and fits into that geeky autobiographical subgenre that I always enjoy reading. This was extra-fun for me because of the Boston-area references (both geeky and non-geeky): Anime Boston, the Boston Marathon, Haymarket, and Boston Comics Roundtable.

The sequence on film school was particularly amusing. Aya Rothwell's cartoon style manages to be expressive even in tiny drawings, and she does a nice job of capturing quirky moments.

Rating: 8/10

A Conversation About Spiders

Continuing to make my way through the stack of recent convention finds. I ran into Aya Rothwell the second day of the Boston Comic Con. She was there with Boston Comics Roundtable. I picked up her latest minicomic.

Title: A Conversation About Spiders
Date: 2012
Publisher: Aya Rothwell
Writer: Aya Rothwell
Artist: Aya Rothwell

As a fan of biodiversity in all of its many (and many-legged!) forms, I can very much relate to the poor nature geek in this minicomic. He tries so hard to describe the wonders of the arachnid world to his arachnophobic friend, but she gets more and more disturbed by each new fact. This is an amusing and informative minicomic (quarter-sized), and it contains a bonus page of spider-sketches.

Rating: 7.5/10

The Million Year Picnic's Jam Comics From Free Comic Book Day 2011

Title: The Million Year Picnic's Jam Comics From Free Comic Book Day 2011
Date: 2011
Publisher: Million Year Picnic
Editor: Aya Rothwell
Contributors: EJ Barnes, Alex Firer, Jay Kennedy, Nathan Kitler, Laurel Leake, Dan Mazur, Aya Rothwell, Kristen Toohill, Andy Wong

This half-sized color minicomic is a collection of jam comics done at Million Year Picnic in Cambridge MA on Free Comic Book Day 2011. The comic are done in color markers, and are standard jams with each artist taking a panel as the page is passed around. Coherence is not necessarily an objective.

The group presents a lot of bizarre and surreal material while touching on themes that include fancy ballerinas, caterpillars in space, Superman renouncing his US citizenship, rogue teeth, berries, and a conqueror named Nern.

High-quality paper and production values make this a nicer package than the typical jam minicomic.

Rating: 6.5/10

Reading

Title: Reading
Date: 2011
Publisher: Aya Rothwell
Writer: Aya Rothwell
Artist: Aya Rothwell

This is a short story based on Aya's "Mark and the Aliens" comic. The main character, Mark, is stranded on a distant planet inhabited by strange but generally friendly aliens.

In this quarter-sized minicomic, Mark and one of the aliens sit on a hillside and read books. What follows is cute and funny. This is a full color minicomic with some nice watercolor work on the art. Very pretty little book.

Rating: 7.5/10

Bonus Review: The Wolf and the Sun

Title: The Wolf and the Sun
Date: 2011
Publisher: Aya Rothwell
Writer: Aya Rothwell
Art: Aya Rothwell

Aya Rothwell presents her interpretation of the myth of the wolf swallowing the sun (or in this case, curling up to sleep around the sun in the night time). Full-color quarter-sized minicomic that tells the tale of Sunwolf and the shadowy Quiet Wolf and their race to chase the sun. Rothwell's vivid watercolors give this mini a unique look, and I enjoyed her quirky wolf characters.

Rating: 7.5/10

Bonus Review: How The Trendy Dog Went To Salem MA And Became Ichabod Crane

Title: How The Trendy Dog Went To Salem MA And Became Ichabod Crane
Date: 2008
Publisher: Aya Rothwell
Writer: Julia Abrams, Aya Rothwell
Art: Julia Abrams, Aya Rothwell

This quarter-sized minicomic was drawn as a jam between Julia Abrams and Aya Rothwell at a cafe in Salem MA in 2008. The trendy dog in introduced in proper surreal style before the action moves to a tarot reading in Salem, followed by a Legend of Sleepy Hollow themed brawl. A nice moral wraps things up at the end, while the introductory page shows a quick guide to how a jam comic is put together. Not quite coherent (not that you'd expect that from an improv like this) but surreal and quirky with some good laughs.

Rating: 6/10

This is a bonus review. of a book I picked up at the Arisia convention (shown in the photo with writer/artist Aya Rothwell). Look for more Arisia reviews tomorrow.