The Joys of Airports: A Short Travelogue

I am back in Vietnam with a huge new stack of comics I brought from the USA! Some of these were pulled from a box of unread comics in my storage unit. The rest were purchased at two conventions and a variety of comic book stores that I visited during our month-long visit home.

I'll post a pic of the full stack as soon as I get them all unpacked and consolidated in one place.

In the meantime, the awesome Million Year Picnic store in Cambridge MA is a great place to shop for minicomics and all sorts of other small press goodies. This is a minicomic that I picked up there.

Title: The Joys of Airports: A Short Travelogue
Publisher: Kristen Toohill
Date: 2011
Writer: Kristen Toohill
Artist: Kristen Toohill

This seemed like a good one to read while recovering from jet lag.

Eight-page half-size minicomic telling the tale of the artist's misadventures on a flight from Boston to Montana via Denver. This was the kind of fun autobiographical story that I enjoy (even if I had the initial reaction of "If she thought that was bad, she should try Newark to Brussels to Mumbai to Ho Chi Minh City!").

There were some fun details here. I loved her observations about bathroom tornado shelters in Denver! The art style is simple and charming, and the story has a cute epilogue, plus a back cover featuring bisoncopters!

Witty and fun from start to finish.

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

Dan Is Silly

Title: Dan Is Silly
Date: 2010
Publisher: Kristen Toohill (ktoohill@gmail.com)
Writer: Kristen Toohill
Penciler: Kristen Toohill
Inker: Kristen Toohill
Letterer: Kristen Toohill

Half-sized minicomic from Kristen Toohill's classes at Vermont's Center for Cartoon Studies. Dan Is Silly introduces Kristen's friend Dan through a series of geeky slices of life. They discuss Facebook games, WOW, Bejeweled, vuvuzelas, and the distinctive oxygen-extracting mechanisms of gills and lungs. Both characters are amusing, and the artwork and lettering is more crisp and clear than is typical for a lot of slice-of-life minicomics. If you're into autobiographical geekery, this is a nice little book.

Rating: 7.5/10