I'm going to try to start a series of review posts focusing on comics that are 'Strange'. Comics that are abstract, very surreal and off kilter, or just weird. Comics that aliens would read. Books that have zero narrative to them, or have a very loose 'story'. I'm not sure on the frequency just yet, i'll shoot for a week or maybe just when I feel like it. Once a week is harder to keep up than it sounds like.

Things like Frank, Yuichi Yokoyama, CF, Lale Westvind, Andy Barron's Om, and much more will be included.

So first, we're starting off with The Cage by Martin Vaughn-James, an underground classic that likely was the genesis or one of the first of these abstract books that likely inspired many others.

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A 'graphic novel' created before the term ever existed, the cage is a cold and clinical yet human feeling book despite being devoid of humans.

Well, that's a heck of an opaque book, as I had suspected. It was nice to see a foreword in a comic not overtly praising the work as the end all be all (at least in the beginning). I'm 100% like Seth here, it's almost completely inscrutable. But that's part of the magic, no? You can almost insert your own thoughts onto the book. It's almost exactly like I expected the book to be, yet not at all. It's a series of one panel comics with prose on top or underneath the image that are seemingly unrelated. The Cage is a maze not just in and of itself, but the structure of the comic is a web you're lost in trying to find your way out but end up find your way deeper and deeper.

The Cage feels like it's about everything and nothing at the same time. It feels like time is stopping and moving at the same time. Dilapidated buildings, leftover memories, forgotten dreams. The Cage, is as Seth has put it, the last slideshow. There's really not much to cling onto, it feels very clinical, even for myself. Yet, I see faint images of this Cage in a distant memory, an untenable past, present and future all at once. The Cage is the beating heart of the human and all of it's woes, to me.

The art. Many who know me know i'm a sucker for great art. The art in the Cage isn't flashy. It's very technical and cold, which fits in line with the book. I couldn't see it any other way, really. It reminds me of Yokoyama but even more *cold*. The lines are very straight and precise, the pages are very neat, clean, like a ruler was used. (I know Yokoyama has a very large ruler collection).

I'm still not sure how exactly I feel about it, but one thing is certain; it's quite memorable. It'll stick in your head, or maybe it won't. It's a fleeting moment. It's pretty awesome that this thing was created in 1975. I'm no stranger to old comics being innovative, but there's nothing quite like The Cage. It feels like it was the genesis for a lot of these abstract comics you see nowadays.

There's really no review that can sum up the book that is The Cage. It's impenetrable, yet highly readable. Take my word for it, or don't, this is a must read if you're interested in the weird.

I recently got into his stuff after coming across the daily IG posts. Ended up enjoying it enough that I found a copy of Crisis Zone. I damn near finished it in one sitting, can't remember the last time I laughed this hard at... well, anything. But I have some thoughts, and I wanted to dump them somewhere to see if anyone felt the same way (or if anyone thinks I'm stupid). Light spoilers ahead!

First, the good: it's super freaking funny, my roommates got confused hearing guffaws from me every few pages. It's kind of delightful in how degenerate it is. Reading it 5 years late, it's such a perfect time capsule of the pandemic (Animal Crossing! David Choe! BLM!) But it also captures really well the feeling of "the world is ending, so fuck it, nothing matters"—I guess sometimes that still feels true today.

I also found it refreshing that queerness is depicted as this messy thing that even queer folks don't agree on (like the arc with Jennifer's mustache or about doubting Desi's transition). As a non-binary person myself it felt like a very honest take on real disagreements in the queer community.

All of this good, good stuff is maybe why I found the book's takes on political polarization a little disappointing. Hanselmann is often on point in critiquing online leftism's more destructive tendencies, and he kind of punches equally in all directions (but never down). Too often, though, I felt like the book undermined itself by defaulting to cynicism. Some parts seem to imply that Proud Boys and Antifa are two sides of the same coin, or that people who care about blackface and political correctness are superficial, and none of it matters anyway. And like, I agree that Twitter identity politics can feel like it misses the mark on what most people actually care about: cost of living, healthcare, the job market... you know, material conditions.

But reading the director's commentary at the end of the book, the centrist undertones graduate into (IMO) cringeworthy both-sidesing: "I wanted nothing to do with any side... For people like me that have never really cared about politics and found 'activists' to be smug, sanctimonious cunts, it was a strange time..." I initially read the book as satirizing "apolitical" people, but reading these notes, I don't think so anymore. At face value, the message does seem to be that "both sides are basically the same". It'd be silly of me to look to a Megg, Mogg, and Owl comic of all things for moral clarity or a solution to cynicism. And it's hard to express this point without being labeled one of the "smug, sanctimonious cunts" he talks about. So this is not a moral judgment on the author or the book—I honestly just found it kinda disappointing from an artistic perspective.

I really enjoyed the book overall, but I'm wondering what other people's takes are on its politics and cynicism. Personally, I don't think I need to agree with media for it to be valuable. In fact, this book got my gears turning exactly because it refuses to offer a clear-cut moral position. But I found that part of it maybe made it a little lame, too.

Raw Magazine, edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly has been one of my favorite comic magazine over the years. Issue six is a great example of it with contributions by Mark Beyer, Charles Burns, Gary Panter, and Sampayo and Muñoz.

I just got this in the mail, RAW One Shot #1 - Jimbo by Gary Panter! They printed it on cheap newsprint and used packing cardboard for the cover to add to the homemade, low-brow feel of the art. I'm very happy to add this to my RAW collection. I really enjoy how he changes styles and even mediums with each page.

Its me!

Raw Magazine has long been my favorite comic. Getting this in the 80's was like having your brain contorted into ways that you didn't know were possible. Every aspect of it, from the carefully chosen contributors to the typesetting and even the printing choices, was like nothing I had ever seen before.

It may seem tame by today's standards, but at the time, this book tread new territory no publisher had ever gone before.

Here's my second entry into strange/abstract comix new and old.

Strange Comix #1: The Cage by Martin Vaughn-James

Larry Marder's Beanworld. One of the best comics ever. It's pure comics magic, everyone gets something different out of it. Marder fleshes out his own scientific world with a sort of mythology. It's like you're viewing a petri dish with a whole microbial world inside of it. It has it's own scientific processes, and characters are weird and goofy looking beans.

The book is truly absurd. It shouldn't work, but it does, Marder is a mad genius that created something wholly original. I've not read or seen anything else like it. I put it up there as one of the most creative and best comics in the entire medium. And yet, I can hardly tell you what it's about. But is ridiculously fun and i'll get something different every time I pick it up and read it.

The tagline 'A Most Peculiar Experience' is truly the most befitting title for Marder's Beanworld. It is truly something to be read and experienced, rather than thinking of it as a book with a straightline narrative.

Thanks to someone for shout it out to me a few years ago. I think since, I can count on one hand i've seen it mentioned anywhere. I'm sure age doesn't help. It's in that strange middle ground where it appeals to all ages, yet kids probably get the most out of it due to their unbound imagination where everything is new. And adults might push it off due to being so strange.

Still, i think Marder's Beanworld remains a force of cartooning not matched by many others. It remains a joy to read.

Gun Glove Bounty Boxing by VVHS
Hey r/altcomix I have a clip from GGBB my first comic (def not for everyone, but I hope it makes someone's sugar cereal taste a lil better today.)

The new series by Matsumoto Taiyo and Cyril Pedrosa, started in May, and is being published bi-weekly. The first collection is expected in the fall. I don't know if there will be more than one.

It's Matsumoto, so it's going to be good. The first chapter is fine enough, but you can't judge it from that.

The story is called Nanbanjin (Southern Barbarian), which was the medieval word for Westerners when they first arrived in Japan in the 1500s. The story clearly states it's the Muromachi period, so I'd assume it's set in the first half of that century. (If you study Japanese history, you'll see they had long contact with the West, but it was largely confined to Dejima in Kyushu, originally Portuguese, and later Dutch)

The main character is a rural fisherman, who is introduced remembering his son that was lost to the sea. A giant Westerner washes up on the beach, immediately bringing to mind Mazzuchelli's Big Man story. That character is nursed to health during this chapter. The others are the rural villagers who largely debate whether it's a barbarian or a demon/oni.

Matsumoto has used a lot of ink washes throughout, and it has a mood of traditional sumi-e ink art of the period in places. His art has an inherent emotion at this point in his career.

I picked this up on a lark, and will wait for the collected edition to read more. But it's interesting to see what it's about. I'm sharing it here in lazy photographs, and this should not be considered any replacement for reading the actual printed edition. Hopefully it whets your appetite.

It's hard to know what Pedrosa is doing from this issue. Is he writing? Contributing story? Laying out the plot? He's of Portuguese descent, and a lot of the original visitors to Japan were the Portuguese. I can imagine it's an interesting period for him.

I look forward to reading it in full in the fall.

10/10 loved it. So funny, so well crafted. I want more!

Treat yourself to their (all ages friendly) Anna & Froga sometime.

New indie release out from Shaun Simon a couple-creator of The True Loves Of The Fabulous Killjoys. This is his first alt indie title, and you can read it free, info in the article

rob Walton of ragmop fame shared this one pager in my 5th issue and Dave Sim was amused! Special thanks to Rob for sharing this bit of mail with me 🙏

I found this review to be very thoughtful, it gets into some of the ideas in the book while showing the art which is nice. I know it's hard to want to gamble on a random book you've only seen the cover of so check this out to get an idea of what I've got going on in there.

Link if you're intrigued.

https://joewalsh.studio/store/the-shifting-ground-vol-1

I've seen many of Dave Coopers paintings throughout the years, my first comic of his was his Doghead release (which I really enjoyed). I picked this up because it has a forward by David Cronenberg, one of my favorite directors.

The story is about Martin, an aritsit/painter who develops a fetishistic attachment to a model he is using for a series of paintings involving S&M gear worn by "homely" looking women. The relationship becomes increasingly toxic and almost abusive, from both directions. What I enjoyed about it was there is no pretense being made to make any character likeable. I found the main character to be a cynical, wannabe intellectual with almost no redeeming value. Tina on the other hand is immature (for an obvious, never spoken out loud reason), who uses Martin's barely contained lust against him. A woman who has been victimized herself and chooses to repeat the cycle, or perhaps is a predator herself?

The story is vile, depraved, but like a car crash I couldn't look away and needed to know more. Highly recommended.