Mister Beecher: The World's Worst Teacher

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Mister Beecher: The World's Worst Teacher
Publisher: Marek Bennett
Writer: Marek Bennett
Artist: Marek Bennett

Mister Beecher has a new system in place for motivating his students and it involves a pool of jellyfish! Eight-page quarter-sized minicomic that is really just two jokes. They were reasonably amusing, so the book accomplishes its purpose. Mr. Beecher has a fun look, and the concept has plenty of room for expansion.

Rating: 5.5/10

Civil War: Dr. Hawk's Diary #1

Here's a historical minicomic that I picked up from Marek Bennett at MeCAF.

Title: Civil War: Dr. Hawk's Diary
Publisher: Marek Bennett
Issue: 1
Date: 2013
Writer: Marek Bennett
Artist: Marek Bennett

This minicomic comes from Marek Bennett's Live Free & Draw series of comics on New Hampshire history.

The comic is adapted from the diary of Esther Hill Hawks, one of the first female doctors in the United States. After finding herself not allowed to join in the war effort as an army doctor or nurse, she volunteered to work for the National Freedmen's Relief Association, working to help former slaves in South Carolina.

The story, using words taken from referenced primary sources, begins with Dr. Hawks' voyage South via New York City in 1862. Caught in a storm off of Cape Hatteras, Esther and the other women of her mission deal with seasickness as a ship that was never meant for ocean travel taking on alarming quantities of water.

When she finally arrives in the Carolinas, Esther finds her adventures have just begun.

Great true story about a fascinating historical figure.

You can read this entire comic (with a full color cover!) online here.

Rating: 8/10

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 Hole

A Minicomic I traded for at the Rochester NH Free Comic Book Day Festival.

Title: The Hole
Publisher: Marek Bennett
Date: 2013
Writer: Janessa Libby
Artist: Janessa Libby

A tale of two girls, a lava hole, a stick, a marshmallow, the sun, several clouds, a fire, and a baby fire. This is a quarter-sized minicomic by a young creator in one of Marek Bennett's minicomic workshops. The small panels and dialogue make this one a bit hard to figure out, but it has several really cute panels, and a generally bizarre feel.

Also included is a preview of the upcoming sequel featuring the Blob Horse, which has 10 legs so it can run really fast. And a big tail!

Rating: 6.5/10

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

The Little Artist Who Could

First of all, sorry for not updating in a while. It's getting toward the end of the school year, so it's crunch time at my day job, plus I've been busy with my own writing and comic projects. Dandelion Studios just finished a string of convention appearances at Portland's Maine Comics Arts Festival, which is where today's review comes from.

Title: The Little Artist Who Could Get Ripped Off By A Mighty Corporation (A Cautionary Fable)
Date: 2012
Publisher: Marek Bennett
Writer: Marek Bennett
Artist: Marek Bennett

I got to sit next to Marek Bennett at MECAF, and he's always a wonderful source of incredibly creative minicomics on a wide range of topics.

This micro-mini takes a "not naming names" approach to the situation with Jack Kirby and this ongoing dispute between Kirby's descendants and Marvel/Disney.

Told in stick-figure form with a faerie-tale style of narration, this is not an attempt to make a legal case, but rather a moral one, as it does a good job of pointing out the basic unfairness of Kirby's treatment over the years.

Ends with a nice tribute panel to the King (and the first mention of Kirby by name in the minicomic).

Rating: 7.5/10

Trees And Hills Anthology #10: Woods

Another comic I picked up at the Spring Zine Thing last Sunday in Somerville. I am currently going through a bunch of comics from recent shows (Spring Zine Thing, South Attleboro Collectibles Show, and Anime Boston). More show finds ahead too, and I'll be at four more shows in the coming weeks (Boston Comic Con, South Coast Comic And Toy Show, Rochester NH Free Comic Book Day Festival, and Maine Comic Arts Festival).

Title: Trees And Hills Anthology #10: Woods
Date: 2012
Publisher: Trees And Hills
Writer: Colin Tedford, Marlene O'Connor, Rio Aubrey Taylor, Bill Tulp, Sarah Margaret Frye, Elizabeth Neronski, Colleen Frakes, Matt Levin, Liam Gyori, Madsahara, Carl Mefferd, Glynnis Fawkes, Jay Goldspinner, Marek Bennett, Mike Lynch, Daniel Barlow, Randall Drew, Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Colin Tedford, Marlene O'Connor, Rio Aubrey Taylor, Bill Tulp, Sarah Margaret Frye, Elizabeth Neronski, Colleen Frakes, Matt Levin, Liam Gyori, Madsahara, Carl Mefferd, Glynnis Fawkes, Jay Goldspinner, Marek Bennett, Mike Lynch, Daniel Barlow, Randall Drew, Anne Thalheimer
Editor: Colin Tedford, Daniel Barlow
Cover: Colin Tedford

Hefty 68-page digest-sized minicomic that features seventeen stories around the theme of "woods".

This is a nice mix of autobiographical and environmentalist stories, almost all of them set in Trees & Hills' home territory of western New England. Everything here is good. Some standouts include Marlene O'Connor's story of about a young man's escape into the woods from an abusive home and his meeting with the Native American spirit Nukumi, Bill Tulp's history of the Green Man, and Marek Bennett's account of a hike gone wrong and told in an incredible linear series of tiny drawings.

Nice variety of art styles and lots of good stories and images.

Rating: 8/10

The Weeks Act Story

Another missed day yesterday due to internet outage combined with general circumstances. Maybe this week I'll be able to do a couple of multiple-review days. Not tonight, though. Here's a quick piece on an educational mini that I picked up at the Maine Comic Arts Festival.

Title: The Weeks Act Story
Date: 2011
Publisher: Marek Bennett (www.markbennett.com)
Writer: Marek Bennett
Artist: Marek Bennett

This is a fairly minimalist comic, consisting of both sides of a single 8.5 x 11 inch sheet. It's also sponsored by the Weeks Act Centennial and the Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire. The stick-figure comic gives the history behind the Week Acts, which was enacted by congress a century ago this year. This was one of the first important environmental laws, and it protected watersheds and established National Forests.

Marek Bennett works with stick figures here (well, President Taft can't exactly be described as a "stick"...), but he does a very nice job of capturing the political maneuvering that was necessary to pass the Weeks Act (not surprisingly, it resembles the political maneuvering necessary to get anything done in Congress now).

This was a cute comic, and I learned a bit of history from it. The format isn't polished, but it since it is licensed for reprint for non-commercial use, the objective is obviously to make it easy to reproduce with a photocopier.

Rating: 7/10