Successful Slaughter

Back to Slovakia we go with Marek Bennett. This is another minicomic that I traded for at the 2013 Rochester NH Free Comic Book Day Festival.

Title: Successful Slaughter
Publisher: Marek Bennett
Date: 2012
Writer: Marek Bennett
Artist: Marek Bennett

The artist is visiting distant relatives in Slovakia and gets invited to help with "slaughtering half a bull". He's expecting blood, guts, and chainsaws, but there has been a bit of language confusion. The bull has already been slaughtered, and the work that remains is to prep the meat for storage. And drink vodka. And then drink more vodka.

In between all of the meat-cutting and vodka-drinking, we get bunches of insights into Slovakia's language, culture, and lifestyles. All with the narrator drawn as an anthropomorphic bunny.

And in case you might be wondering why anyone would want to travel to Slovakia in the first place, Marek Bennett conveniently wrote another minicomic that addresses that exact question. I reviewed it here.

Successful Slaughter is funny, loaded with insights, and was, well, successful at entertaining me.

Rating: 8/10

Bloodfurs Shame

Another product of Marek Bennett's workshops for young creators. This was in the batch I traded for at the 2013 Rochester Free Comic Book Day Festival.

Title: Bloodfurs Shame
Publisher: Marek Bennett
Date: 2013
Writer: Katharine Sprague
Artist: Katharine Sprague

Minimalist tragedy involving cats, some sort of feline war, and a rather unforgiving road.

Katharine Sprague does a good job of getting the bare bones of the tale across with simple images and just a bit of dialogue. Nice use of storytelling in a small space.

Rating: 7.5/10

The Gold Griffin

Reviewing comics at the beach! This is the life!

Title: The Gold Griffin
Publisher: Marek Bennett
Date: 2013
Writer: Amelia Maccabee
Artist: Amelia Maccabee

This is a minicomic from one of the students in Marek Bennett' comic workshops for kids. I picked this one up at the Rochester Free Comic Book Day Festival in Rochester NH this past May.

When the Silver Griffin gets his wings wet in a waterfall, it's up to Gold Griffin and his trusty lasso to save the day. But it may take some extra help from Misty the winged dog before the griffins are fully out of trouble.

Cute story, and a griffin using a lasso is definitely something you don't see every day.

Rating: 7/10

Why Go To Slovakia?

Why Go To Slovakia?

This comic that I picked up from Marek Bennett at the Rochester NH Free Comic Book Day Festival answers that very question.

Title: Why Go To Slovakia?
Publisher: Marek Bennett
Date: 2011
Writer: Marek Bennett
Artist: Marek Bennett

Another micro-minicomic. This was written and drawn by Marek Bennett as an answer to the title question. As it turns out, there are many reasons, and Bennett presents a mini-lesson in Slovak language as he lists them.

With the narrator in anthropomorphic bunny form, the reader gets a mini-tour that covers art, food, music, history, and culture in 30 small one-panel pages.

I particularly enjoyed his perspective on church murals and stained glass as an ancient form of sequential art (comics are komisky in Slovak!).

This was a nice bit of insight into Slovakia as well as the artist's life and thought process.

Rating: 8/10

Crazy People

Here's a minicomic that came from a comics workshop for kids run by Marek Bennett. I picked it up at the Rochester NH Free Comic Book Day Festival.

Title: Crazy People
Publisher: Marek Bennett
Date: 2013
Writer: Jackson RoBichaud
Artist: Jackson RoBichaud

Quarter-sized stickfigure minicomic created by one of the participants in Marek Bennett's comics workshops for kids. This book has two stories. The first involves a person falling off of a table in a less-than-conventional way. The second is about crazy drivers, or rather, it is a profile of two drivers, one of whom is crazy. The other is not.

I had to squint a bit to read some of the dialogue, but this was funny in an oddball sort of way.

Rating: 7/10