Angus

It's 2015, and that makes it New Years Resolution time. Usually this is the time of the year when I resolve that this blog really is going to be a DAILY comic review.

Not so, this year. I've only got a small stack of comics that I brought with me to Vietnam, so I'll be reading them slowly until June when I head back to the States. I plan to bring a bigger stack back with me at the end of that trip, so the pace of the reviews may pick up during the summer.

For now, though, I have the small stack of books I brought over here, including a couple of graphic novels, and opportunities to buy additional comics have been limited. I picked up one graphic novel in English at a used book sale, and I've bought several volumes of Vietnamese-language manga. However, reviews for those will be slow in coming, because it's going to be a slow process working through the language barrier.

I did visit the Saigon Comic Con, but in spite of there being a couple of dealers there selling some Marvel and DC comics imported from the US, I ended up just getting a few more items in Vietnamese. If you're interested in seeing what a con looks like over here, your can find my pics here.

I did get one recent influx of new reading material. I backed a crowdfunding project for the Boston Zine Fair last fall, and I just got my reward forwarded to me: A random grab bag of zines and minicomics!

I'll be reviewing all of these here, even the zines that are not technically comics, over the next few weeks.

Let's start with this one!

Title: Angus
Publisher: Sarah Ruggiero
Writer: Sarah Ruggiero
Artist: Sarah Ruggiero

The subtitle is "A Pocket Guide to Chinchilladom". This is, in fact, pocket-sized. It's an eight-page folded format micro-mini, with some hand-colored highlights on the cover. It features anthropomorphic portraits of the title chinchilla in various motifs, including "grumpy Yoda" and "Pikachin". The center spread shows the chinchilla in action, along with the writer/artist.

This was adorable in the way that a lot of cat minicomics are, and it features a chinchilla, so it has fewer rival comics to compete with. The drawings were fun and quirky and conveyed a lot of personality.

Rating: 6.5/10