Review: Beasts of Burden

Let's get my bias out of the way: I like stories with talking animals. I was predisposed to like Beasts of Burden. I don't like scary stories, so I usually don't like horror comics.

But when I saw issue number 2 on sale at the comic store, with Evan Dorkin as writer, and Jill Thompson as illustrator, I immediately went to the back issue bin to find number 1. Bought them both, love them both.

The premise: A group of dogs and a cat band together to be the occultic protectors of a small town.

The review: Dorkin and Thompson do such a wonderful job of pulling you in. The characters are funny, and they have clear personalities based on their breeds, like a war movie. The art is a pleasant watercolor. There's banter, and then the horror clicks on. You can see the formula, but it's still so fresh.

Issue 1 was sort of weird, featuring a rain of frogs. A corgie. A character dies. Issue 2 was fantastically macabre. I was totally suckered by the horror of that story. I still think about it.

You can read the short stories where these characters debuted online at the Dark Horse Comics site. It's worth a few minutes to read.

you can also read the first 10 pages of issue 1 at the Dark Horse site.

Then go buy the comic to support this great thing.

February Linkdump

Grammar of comic book lettering
This is the sort of detail that I read and try to memorize. I don't know what that says about me, but I'm afraid it might be bad.

Penn gets proselytized
My ground rule for evangelicals in America is, "Tell them you follow Jesus, and then don't be crazy." Here's a video of Penn telling a story about that guy.



Water that kills salmonella
According to the L.A. times, it's not too good to be true, but you'll think it is.

Movie: Bulletproof Monk

Bulletproof Monk
(official site | imbd)

This is the sort of aggressively dumb movie that makes you lose respect for its leads, specifically Chow Yun-Fat. Seann William Scott and Jaime King were sort of expected to be bad.

I hope that Michael Yanover and Michael Avon Oeming at least got decent-sized checks for their creation.

November Linkdump

Thursday ended before I got done with it.

Here's everything I've had open in a tab for the last month thinking I was going to get around to doing something with it.


Stem cell controversy: effectively over.
Now let's get on with the business of growing larger penises for insecure men.

Covering the Mouse.
A blog of covers of Disney songs. I like the idea, but this is like, a mini-series blog, right? Are there really that many cover tunes of Disney songs?

Update! Kurtis assures me that he has enough Disney cover tunes to last until the heat death of the universe. Go have a listen, whydoncha.

Heavy Ink.
This might be my new comic book store. I can't tell yet.

Photos and video of real-life Shaolin monks.

Tricksy military camouflage.
Rubber tanks! Neat!

How to make your own tact-tiles.
The manufacturer of this RPG aid apparently decided they were tired of making money or something. I emailed them six months ago asking when they might be selling their wares again, and they said they wouldn't make any more at least through the end of the year, and now their Web site is down. So screw it, I'll make my own.

Rice Boy

For the most part, I feel like I've got the Internet down--not technically, but culturally. I'm hip to all the cool memes. I read Boingboing, Fark, Metafilter, and Slashdot with varying levels of regularity.

Yet, every so often a new thing heaves into view, and I learn it's been around for a while, and I knew Jack-minus about its existence.

Enter Rice Boy. This is the latest thing that makes me feel strange and my brain juices fizz. It's an epic story about the savior of a fantastic world and his adventures and supporting cast.

Been happening since April 2006, but I only learned of it two days ago. I was absorbed. Read the whole thing in one sitting, despite pressing freelance obligations.

Creator, Evan Dahm says it started, "as an exercise in surrealism, and has evolved into a wandering psychedelic epic."

I can't say for sure you'll like it. But if you like the kinds of things I like, you'll love it.

Finishing School

Rob Schrab did a semi-surrealist comic book in the '90s, called Scud the Disposable Assassin. It's a sci-fi comic full of ideas I wish I coulda had.

Schrab moved on to other things, and left the story hanging, but to hear him talk now (full interview at Newsarama.com), he seems more inspired and productive than ever.

Now he's finally finishing Scud, following his own instruction. Advice I would like to learn too:

And always finish what you start. Even if it sucks, it’s better to have a complete project than an incomplete project. And it’s better to have a complete piece of ____ than nothing at all. Finish. Finish everything. Never leave anything unfinished.

T-rex plays the role of "me."

Today is a good day I think for linking to Dinosaur Comics.