Rilo Kiley: More Adventurous

Well, yesterday was the first day I missed in 2014. Not a bad run to start the year.

Here's a minicomic that was sitting in the massive stack of unread comics, but probably didn't come from a comic show. I have a friend who did some work for the band Rilo Kiley in the early 2000s and I've been to one of their shows in New York, and I also went to see Blake Sennett's band The Elected in Boston once, so I'm guessing I picked this up from my friend or at one of those shows.

Title: Rilo Kiley: More Adventurous
Publisher: Sina Grace
Date: 2004
Writer: Sina Grace, Rilo Kiley
Artist: Sina Grace

This is a fan minicomic based on the almum More Adventurous by the band Rilo Kiley. It consists of a set of illustrated vignettes accompanying the lyrics of songs from More Adventurous. Some have complete lyrics and others just show a piece of the song with accompanying artwork.

The featured songs include "It's a Hit", "Does He Love You", "Ripchord", "Accidntel Deth", "Love and War", and "It Just Is".

A lot of the illustrations are reduced down to a pretty small size to fit the minicomic format, so some of the detail work gets lost, which is too bad because artist Sina Grace does a nice job with images that reflect the feel of the lyrics.

I only got to see Rilo Kiley perform once, but they were a lot of fun. This was a nice sample of their songwriting talents, combined with some good artwork. It's obviously going to have extra appeal for fans of the band, but I enjoyed this book just on the level of interesting words and pictures.

Rating: 7/10

The Walking Dead: The Covers

Slight change of plans. Today was going to be another item from one of the recent cons, but someone bought this book from me and so I figured I'd read it and review it before I ship it off.

By the way, if you read and appreciate my comic reviews and are wondering if there was a way to support the effort, I would point you in the direction of my own comic book small press, my books for sale on half.com, my assorted geeky ebay auctions, or my books for trade on paperbackswap.com.

Title: The Walking Dead: The Covers
Date: 2010
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard
Artist: Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard
Colorist: Tony Moore, Cliff Rathburn
Cover: Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn
Editor: Sina Grace

This hardcover edition collects the cover illustrations from the first fifty issues of The Walking Dead. Each cover gets a full-page treatment (just the art without the cover lettering), and on the facing page are notes from Robert Kirkman and from the artist along with sketches and alternate versions.

The artwork is great, and the book's format does an excellent job of showcasing it. The notes sometimes tend toward the technical side of the artwork, with some decent insights for artists into the processes involved. Tony Moore writes a lot more than Charlie Adlard does, but I thought there were some good anecdotes from both artists.

Rating: 8/10