Josh Neufeld and Dean Haspiel, along with several collaborators, have taken their minicomic Keyhole to a full-sized comic with excellent results. These two artists benefit from the larger format, unlike some minicomics artists who find the transition difficult. The leadoff story, “Cave of Fear,” depicts a spelunking expedition in Thailand, told through the simultaneous narration of Neufeld and the journals of Sari. The two have been trekking off the beaten path in Northern Thailand when they hear about a guided cave hike. The thought of this appeals to their sense of themselves as “adventurers,” but the reality is more frightening than either could have imagined. They depict themselves as naive and only as brave as the circumstances call for, humbled to have their tourist sense of invulnerability stripped away from them.

Dean Haspiel’s standout story, “American Dilemma,” addresses his anxiety about never having heard from Harvey Pekar regarding some art samples he sent. Throughout the story, he imagines various negative reactions Pekar my be having to his artwork (with humorous drawings of Harvey ripping his work up, throwing it over his shoulder, etc.) Like “Cave of Fear,” the story ends with Dean, the protagonist, unfulfilled and anxious. And the drawing is beautiful! Harvey, write a story for this guy!

Haspiel’s longest story is “Situation Dichotomy,” a superhero parody that, while amusing, seems slightly out of place. Other stories include vignettes “How to Squat” (a lesson in toilet usage in Thailand by Neufeld) and “Waiting” (a cleverly repetitive story of the life of a waitress by Haspiel and Linda Perkins). Both artists are influenced by Pekar and David Greenberger, but some of the realistic stories are clearly fiction. Neufeld’s style is simple and direct, cartoony but with a basic realism that comes from understanding the human figure. Haspiel employs a stylized and dynamic cartooning and his bold thick linework is accented with delicate frills.

This is an impressive debut. I hope we’ll be seeing a lot more from both of these artists in the future.

It might seem hard to believe, but this is in fact the 50th issue of a so far not very well known comic, but one of the very best currently being published, King-Cat Comics by John Porcellino. King-Cat #50 is a celebration not a conclusion, and I suggest, a great place for new readers to begin to explore the magic that makes King-Cat so special, with a written history of John P.’s life and a three-page article on the start of King-Cat magazine. I also believe this is the longest issue so far, a nice 40 pages for only two bucks, so you get a good sized sample of what John P. and King-Cat is really about... Which may be summed up somewhat accurately in a quote from one of this issue’s more amusing stories as, “Art and truth and autobiographical mini-comics.”

This issue features a wide variety of stories that in many ways reflect the best potential of issues past. They include autobiography from John’s childhood to present, dreams, humorous fictitious stories, and even a short biographical piece on jazz musician, Bud Powell.

The tone of all the stories is consistently positive. John seems to always be looking for the best, even out of the worst situations... And the lack of negativity in all of these stories is one of the main reasons this is such a refreshing series of comics.

Another of the main pleasures of King-Cat is John P.’s wonderful, honest and unpretentious artwork. These seemingly simply drawn pictures can convey so much, and complement the stories perfectly. Each panel is a joy to look at. The art is especially effective in this issue’s practically silent five-page story, “In Walked Bud,” which is as achingly beautiful as Bud Powell’s best music... An incredible tribute to an incredible musician.

But the story that stands out the most for me this issue has to be the autobiographical, “Escape to Wisconsin.” Taking place in 1986 and concerning a road trip John takes with two friends from his home in Chicago to Wisconsin, John manages to really bring alive this remembrance as seemingly only he can. Particularly evocative are the scenes of him and his friends skateboarding through the city, when he takes a break to look over a bridge into a river and the concluding scene with the last words, “I was very happy,” and the image of him and his friends wading into a river or lake.

The fact that John Porcellino has managed to create and publish, on his own, 50 issues of this series is an amazing accomplishment. I offer my congratulations, while at the same time suggest that this comic is past due for greater recognition, and represents one of the best hopes for the future of intelligent, interesting, and just plain fun comics.

Superhero fans, like the fan communities surrounding such entertainment enterprises as Star Trek, pro wrestling and country music, have a built-in set of expectations regarding exactly what they want from their chosen entertainment product. Each subsequent successful product adds to that context. One goal, therefore, for a project like Kingdom Come, is to hit as many hot buttons as possible, regardless of whether or not they have actual meaning within the project’s story.

Kingdom Come’s near-perfect replication of past superhero works is therefore a badge of honor. The apocalyptic dread and cultural details of Watchmen meet the outsider narrator format of Marvels meets the fallen hero protagonists of Dark Knight Returns meets the basic plot structure and biblical shadings of Alan Moore’s unused “Twilight of the Superheroes” proposal. Unsurprisingly, elements designed for another writer’s specific purpose are less effective here: the apocalyptic dread loses its Cold War echoes, the cultural details become superhero in-jokes, the narrator becomes a tool for rote exposition, the fallen heroes are introduced as new characters to keep the old ones free from taint (thus losing any hint of ironic commentary about the various pop culture icons on hand) and the basic plot structure — set outside the sacred cow of continuity — loses its ability to inform the reader’s experience of the monthly books.

What’s left is a mediocre script, provided by Big Two regular Mark Waid, and a bunch of painted art, by Marvels artist Alex Ross. The writing is remarkably plain: the dialogue is blandly uniform, the chosen narrator pulls focus from the story, and the unsophisticated assumption — echoes of Marvels — that superheroes (the good ones, anyway) are a great thing is here in full force. A theologian pointing to Superman as the solution to a world’s need for hope is a fanboy’s justification writ large. Or a deeply disturbing joke. Or both.

And then there’s the painted art, which everyone seems to love without being able to explain why. It could be that to the fan, painted art is better than regular art because it approximates real art and therefore justifies his/her fannish preoccupation. It may be that because Ross uses photo models, his characters look different in a way that characters by tenth-generation artist clones can’t. But the point is moot: because of Marvels’ success, painted art — particularly Alex Ross’ painted art — is now a value in and of itself. It therefore probably won’t matter to most fans that removed from Jack Kirby’s (and other early Marvel regulars’) original panel designs and style, Ross’ art is much less effective. Some scenes are remarkably pedestrian (two generic battle scenes) or dead-on dull (characters standing in two lines to shoot at one another).

Ross can still generate an effective panel or two, which in the absence of an interesting story, worthwhile idea, or even any significant riffs on pop culture is all that remains. But should we be jumping up and down over a comic whose most compelling insight is that Superman looks better with short hair?

The essential misguided nature of such a criticism is never more clear than after reading Kingdom of the Wicked #2, the second chapter in a fantasy genre series from the resurgent Caliber Comics. While everything about the comic is professionally executed, it simply isn’t compelling, either in a formal sense or by nature of its content. The end result is a comic which recommends itself only to people who are fans of a specific specialty genre and comic books, marginalizing comics even further.

The story in Kingdom of the Wicked is hackneyed and obvious. A writer of Roald Dahl-style children’s stories is beset by headaches from which he awakens to find himself in Castrovalva, a fictional world of talking teddy bears and folksy villages he had created as a sickly child. Things are predictably grim and gritty for Castrovalva since his last visit: a subsequent visitor to the world has taken over as dictator, forcing the gentle natives into rebellion or degraded circumstances. In issue #2, the protagonist sees a doctor about his headaches and subsequent “hallucinations” (they engage in thematic exposition), and falling asleep at home the writer again visits Castrovalva, where he’s chased around by a monster. The story ends with a revelation as to the identity of the evil dictator, which was painfully obvious from the moment that character was introduced.

It’s not that the writing is awful. Ian Edginton writes comfortable, minimalistic dialogue, he’s skilled with scene-to-scene transitions, and he knows when to let the art speak for itself. That art, by D’Israeli, is accomplished. The characters are well-designed, and some fundamental storytelling skill is evident, as in a well-balanced two-panel transition where the protagonist is beset by desperate, begging creatures that thrust him this way, then that, perfectly underlining both what’s going on in the scene and in the character’s mind.

But mediocrity wins the day. Anything potentially interesting about Edginton’s story — which may be a commentary on the exploitation of creativity — is undercut by the stock situations. And the pacing is awful. The visit to Castrovalva and subsequent chase that take place in issue #2 gives us in a more diluted form that which we learned in issue #1. D’Israeli’s art in interpreting the story’s fantasy world is solid but doesn’t give the reader anything visually interesting, to the point that there’s really no stylistic break between the “real” world and Castrovalva. The most artistically impressive sequence is the conversation in the doctor’s office, an odd thing in a comic where the protagonist goes to another world and is chased around by a goblin who wishes to stick him in a pot and eat him. If this similarity is part of the comic’s general point, one wishes it were more subtly and uniformly made.

In the end, Kingdom of the Wicked #2 doesn’t suffer from a lack of professional quality but from an absence of ambition, particularly concerning the strengths of the medium. We’ve seen this story before, and what comics can offer in terms of visual grandeur and idiosyncratic world views is never utilized. Doing comics in different genres proves the medium’s versatility; it’s the medium’s vitality that’s really at question in the mid-’90s. Kingdom of the Wicked #2 doesn’t provide a winning case for itself, let alone a change in America’s reading habits.

The King of Persia recalls Jay Stephens’ The Land of Nod, as it utilizes the conventions and clear, simple drawing style of animated cartoons for children, yet undermines their traditional and predictable plot structures and themes. Holcombe and Stephens eschew the expected happy ending their choice of art style engenders in favor of bleak denouements. I have to question the market potential for such material, as I imagine many adult readers would avoid it for its kiddie-oriented superficial trappings, and most child readers would find the work fails to satisfy their expectations of unchallenging entertainment. Regardless, the fusion of disparate elements can often produce interesting and odd works of art, and in the case of Holcombe (and Stephens), it does.

The King of Persia is a fairy tale for adults, a parable with moral complexity. The basic plot is an archetypal quest story about a king who must travel to a far land and retrieve a magical emerald that will awaken the woman he loves from a coma. The story opens with “Once upon a time,” but nobody lives happily ever after. Indeed, once the king achieves his goals and enjoys a brief period of happiness with his new bride Ayyala, the tale goes on to chronicle the descent of their marriage into petty bickering, the wife’s suicide, and the king’s misdirected wrath which leads to his downfall and the death of his closest friend, Jamila the camel.

Holcombe has created a wonderful protagonist with Faisal al-Ghazali, a chain-smoking, selfish, foolish old man who happens to be a king and speaks with the diction of a stereotypical New York Jew. He tells a jinn to “Make with the hocus pocus” and relates his heartache to Jamila with phrases like “I’ve got smut fantasy, but what do I know from love? I’m the king, but I can’t even so much as stumble over one quality broad!” Faisal’s impulsiveness propels the action right along and never allows the story to get bogged down. Though Faisal’s fate is not death, he is a tragic hero and his tragic flaw is to be ruled by his emotions without the temperance of reason. He is not evil, but he loves unwisely, hates unjustly, and his folly is destructive to himself and those around him.

Holcombe’s world may be one in which animals can talk and jinns can be bribed with peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, but it is nonetheless a world where lasting happiness is unattainable. The periods of contentment Faisal enjoys are transitory and inevitably replaced with anguish and a longing for something he lacks that he believes is essential to his happiness. The gem that Faisal obtains on his long quest becomes a symbol for Faisal’s misguided obsessiveness. After Ayyala’s death, Faisal throws it against the wall and it smashes, revealing itself to be a phony. Faisal succeeds in achieving the things he desires, but once he has them he is doomed to end up frustrated and disillusioned. An unfulfilled desire also torments Jamila, but his or her (Jamila’s gender is never made explicit) approach to life contrasts with Faisal’s. Jamila harbors an unrequited love for Faisal, but does not pursue his goal with as much ardor and recklessness. Jamila is relatively passive, and his assistance in Faisal’s adventures is actually quite selfless. Like Faisal, Jamila is denied happiness in life, but his fate is kinder than Faisal’s and he is ultimately rewarded for his virtues. Holcombe’s world offers very little hope for its inhabitants, but there is a moral order to it, harsh though it may seem.

Holcombe’s characters, humans and animals alike, are well-drawn cartoon creations. His clean line and exaggerated features allow his characters to express a great deal at a glance. In particular, Faisal and Jamila are exemplary figures depicted in a classical animation style. The only serious flaw in this work is an over-reliance on hatching, the only shading device Holcombe employs, and one that tends to render his backgrounds flat and lifeless. It’s not the best use of black and white, and the pages that use very little or no hatching at all are more pleasing to the eye than the ones that use it excessively. This weakness calls attention to the fact that this type of material really should be seen in color, and the attractive color covers of the book bear this out. If only this were economically feasible for a young self-publisher.

Like The Land of Nod and the work of Chris Ware, who writes the introduction for The King of Persia, Holcombe’s story derives its strength from content at odds with the form in which it is presented. Some critics may argue that the measure of an artwork’s success is how unified all of its elements are towards the achievement of a single artistic goal, and sometimes this is true. Yet to deliberately put together elements in conflict with one another is a valid experiment, and one that can lead to those rare creatures of the arts: the new and the unique. Though I’ve pointed out a similarity between these artists, they all have distinct approaches to their work. Holcombe is a welcome addition to the field and a talent to watch for in the future.

There are several reasons to read Sean Tejaratchi’s masterfully entertaining Kool Man. If you’ve read either the story about editor/publisher Robert DuPree in issue #191’s “Newswatch” or his outraged letter in response in this issue’s “Blood and Thunder;” if you’re a fan of comics gossip and backroom politics (among the original documents included are letters/faxes from R. Crumb, Mary Fleener, Wayno and TCJ editor Gary Groth); or if you’re a fan of attack-dog journalism of the fiercest kind, then you should buy it today, without hesitation. It’s the most compelling comics-related read to cross my desk in the second half of 1996, and the number of people who have read the entire 110-page book in one sitting after casually glancing at one or two pages must agree with me.

Tejaratchi doesn’t pretend to be unbiased — “Of course I hate Robert,” he cheerfully admits in his introduction — and in the first section of Kool Man he details his own run-ins with DuPree, from the initial confrontation regarding Tejaratchi’s ’zine Craphound through the genesis of the Kool Man project. With this information on the table, one is allowed to enter into the body of Kool Man in a properly skeptical frame of mind. Of course, no frame of mind is preparation enough for the barrage of first-person accounts and original documents, lovingly photocopied and placed onto the pages in their original form. It’s not only like reading someone else’s mail, it is reading someone else’s mail.

Better yet, the subject matter is salacious and compelling. The Robert DuPree that you come to understand from a reading of Kool Man is a larger-than-life, nearly Shakespearean figure of deception and cheery false fronts. And the cameos are great, too: from R. Crumb’s biting anger to Wayno’s shoulder-shrugging disdain. Once you start, you can’t stop. You won’t hate yourself in the morning as much as be glad that none of this happened to you.

While my opinion of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’s Marvels continues to improve, its flaw remains obvious: the Marvel Universe was both gimmick and catch, allowing novel thrills to a tired genre while constricting the story’s impact with its continuity nitpicking. Thus, it’s only natural that with Kurt Busiek’s Astro City Busiek would have his cake and eat it too: he’s created a universe reminiscent of established superhero mythos, but with an autonomy that lets him toy with otherwise unquestioned assumptions.

Alan Moore did the same in Watchmen, but its Byzantine structure and claustrophobic plot didn’t explore all the nooks and crannies of a superhero world. Astro City is considerably broader, a vehicle for Busiek’s exploration of American comics’ predominant genre. Thus, it’s yet another test of whether new skins can make old wines more palatable — and judging by the first issue, readers should be prepared to get thoroughly buzzed.

Part of the reason may be that Busiek’s view of superheroes is genuinely ennobling without seeming naive. Compared to the more innately gifted Moore, Busiek takes superheroes much more seriously, adding a layer of good faith and guarded optimism without forfeiting intelligence. Truth be known, I was surprised at how emotionally moving I found Astro City #1; the last time I was this stirred by a comic was when I read Rumiko Takahashi’s romantic comedy Maison Ikkoku. Like Takahashi, Busiek has a knack for playing with timeworn narrative devices to enhance the reader’s enjoyment. One isn’t left with a “deconstruction” of a genre, but an understanding of the emotional wellsprings that make genre fiction so resonant.

The story of Astro City #1 is called “In Dreams” and is narrated by the Samaritan, a Superman-like figure who’s truly the world’s biggest boy scout that the Man of Steel was often thought to be. In the course of the story, we follow the Samaritan on his daily routine: juggling a secret identity, meeting with the requisite super-team, attending a banquet in his honor, and averting one disaster after another. What makes it a wonderful read is Samaritan’s internal monologue: the heroic deeds are perfunctory by his reckoning — someone’s gotta stop a typhoon in the Philippines, someone’s gotta battle The Living Nightmare, and he just happens to be the most qualified. Refreshingly, the god-among-men aspect is forgotten in favor of a workman-like savior.

Furthermore, laced throughout this tale are yearnings that the Samaritan knows he can’t succumb to. The trite I-can-never-love-a-woman idea is played for one mercifully brief page, but another desire recurs as a powerful motif: to fly for the sake of flying, to enjoy soaring through the air instead of super-speeding to save the day. The irony is delicious: a man who can defy the law of gravity feels bound by a very different law, and must rely on dreams to enjoy a gift he possesses when awake. Who couldn’t empathize with this dilemma, with having a desire within reach but ultimately unattainable? Who’s never felt constricted by the demands placed upon oneself, left to measure happiness in too-small increments? This is character identification done the right way — something that seems to have been forgotten by many of the current crop of comics writers.

I also got to read the scripts for #’s 2 and 3. The second issue reads like a gem: it has a newspaperman narrator, but don’t let that whiff of Marvels fool you. The payoff is different from anything in the earlier series — more witty and succinct on the link between truth and credibility. The third issue is about a small-time crook who discovers a juicy secret — and while told well, it’s too reminiscent of other stories with this premise, especially Matt Wagner’s Kurtzman-esque two-parter in Grendel #’s 18 and 19. Artist Brent Anderson may raise the story to a higher level visually, but it’d remain a fun romp through semi-familiar grounds and pale to the first two issues.

While I’ve concentrated on Busiek’s accomplishment, Astro City wouldn’t be so successful without his chosen collaborators. Alex Ross provided most of the character designs and the cover for each issue. With all the awful painted-art comics since Marvels, Ross’s achievements and skill stands out in stark relief: the attention to detail and clarity, and emphasis on “everyday” aspects (people pointing at a sun-drenched Samaritan on the cover of #1, the reporter mulling over a story on #2’s cover) still make for a winning combination.

The interior art is handled by longtime comics veteran Brent Anderson whose work looks much better than memory led me to believe. The art for #1 has a strong sense of mood, imbuing a distinctly human melancholy to the archetypal demi-god. The one big fight scene is as well-done as any other, but Anderson shines in his handling of facial expressions and visual nuances, adding a subtle dramatic element to the script. Letterer Richard Starkings of Comicraft and colorist Steve Buccellato of Electric Crayon round out the creative team: while I’ve only seen few of the pages in color, both do solid jobs at the “overlooked” part of the comics process.

Astro City is an unabashedly fanboy series, and I’d argue that’s its strength: taking the adolescent yearnings and making you relive it in an adult perspective where capes and tights are only a part of the thrill. Along with Batman Adventures and Impulse, Astro City is one of the most well-crafted, life-affirming, and exhilarating superhero comics in recent memory. A handful of such titles won’t eliminate the flood of long-underwear dreck that goes for big, big guns and off-the-rack cynicism, but they at least re-affirm whatever hope I have for the future of the genre.

So if anybody else wants to tap that Inner Fanboy, by all means give Astro City a chance. It’ll make you believe that a man can fly… and not appear silly doing it.

At the ripe old age of 24, Jay Stephens is already getting hassled by people who say his older comics were better. Considering that Stephens only stopped doing his “older” comics last year, this seems a bit perverse. Until you read The Land of Nod Treasury.

This book, which Black Eye Productions published at the end of last year, compiles Stephens’ comics from two series of his book Sin (1992-94). It’s quite simply one of the most wonderful comics of the last year. Mixing abundant charm with cartooning chops, Stephens makes The Land of Nod Treasury into a real anomaly: a kiddie comic for adults.

In a sense, Stephens’ Nod stories are to Walt Disney comics what Bone is to Pogo. But Stephens reworks the funny-animal genre more radically than Smith does, managing to be both cute and obscene at once. In another sense, these stories of slapabout characters whose moods and plots change panel-to-panel are like the best cartoons your kid brother ever drew to amuse you on a family road trip. There’s even a monster who gobbles up the other characters when the ostensible story starts thinning out. Pages later, an equally sudden lottery win has the book’s survivors casting off the tragedy and sunning themselves by a pool. Stephens seem to have been making it up as he went along, without running out of steam.

Despite cursing, bloodshed, and other more adult elements, this is not the standard “alternative” piss-take of children’s comics — for a good example of that, see Archer Prewitt’s Sof’ Boy, in which the doughy titular character gets shot, run over by cars, flattened out by a steamroller, etc. Rather, Stephens has mixed the gentle joys of children’s comics and anthropomorphic characters with buddy-rival humor of the Bob & Doug McKenzie school and some uncynical spoofery of superhero comics. (Many hilarious scenes from ersatz-Marvel comics like The Sinister Horde and The Astonishers didn’t make their way from Sin into this volume — perhaps they’re being saved for their own collection?)

Stephens himself has attributed some of the difference between his work and other modern humor comics to the fact that he was not heavily influenced by Robert Crumb. That means the amount of aggressive attitude found here is low compared to, say, Hate or Eightball. None of Crumb’s misanthropy has leaked through, and none of his irony — the jokes and situations are meant to be funny, not “funny.”

This makes Land of Nod oddly old-fashioned, perhaps even unfathomable to today’s readers. Nothing in the book congratulates you for being hip enough to read it, nothing strokes your sense of media-saturated alienation. Stephens clearly likes his characters, and wants you to like them too. He thinks creatures such as talking bugs are cute — not Disney-cute, but cute nonetheless. He provokes laughter with jokes as simple as the dual Yeti attacks on pages 66 and 69; this is the cartoon equivalent of someone tickling you, stopping long enough for you to catch your breath, and then tickling you again. It’s a surprisingly welcome pleasure in a medium whose practitioners seem to have forgotten how to tickle.

Unfortunately, Stephens isn’t doing Sin anymore. Last year, he switched to a book called Atomic City Tales, a superhero spoof that suffers from similarities to too many projects, including Michael Allred’s current Madman Comics. Longer narratives, full characterization and more “realistic”-looking characters don’t provide the same manic charge that zaps you on every page or so of Land of Nod.

Even those devices that served Stephens well before falter in ACT. When the artist moped around Sin in his Badman costume, it was enjoyably ridiculous. In ACT, Stephens’ frequent appearances are distracting — it’s not clear what he’s doing there, and his character seems annoyingly bland. Chief ACT villains The Maniac Gang have some of The Sinister Horde’s amusing pettiness, but Stephens seems less happy-go-lucky now. For sheer fun, nothing so far in the new series has matched the scene in Land of Nod when Dave, who resembles a sort of deconstructed Donald Duck, has a panic attack over the “serious” direction of his favorite comic, The Sinister Horde. His buddy Merv (a melted Mickey Mouse) takes one look and flings the comic away, exclaiming “Poo! What a reek!” (Merv should write for the Journal.)

The controversy rages in the ACT letters pages about whether Stephens has taken the wrong direction himself; he admits that older readers tend to prefer Sin. Perhaps they (like this reviewer) have already seen the superhero genre lampooned too many times. Stephens himself seems baffled by some readers’ unwillingness to have fun with superheroes, and is sticking to his guns. Certainly, given his track record, Atomic City Tales is worth watching; once Stephens finds his feet with the book, it may embrace the unexpected the way Madman Comics decidedly has not. (When Nod had a cameo in ACT #3, you could practically hear the geezers cheering.)

Meanwhile, Stephens has continued to explore his more mirthful side via the Oddville strip (which appears in The Stranger and elsewhere) and animated shorts for the Canadian TV series, Squawkbox. But for those who want a good long giggle, The Land of Nod Treasury seems to be Stephens’ last-for-now shot at flat-out funny. It is also gorgeously packaged by Black Eye publisher Michel Vrana, so much so you would be excused for thinking it was a volume of slick and saccharine children’s cartoons. It is not, and you really have no excuse for ignoring it any longer.

Could the comix anthology be on a major rebound? Zero Zero and Drawn & Quarterly seem to be thriving as well as could be expected, Portland’s Top Shelf has carved a nice little niche after only two issues, and last year’s excellent Blab from Kitchen Sink will soon be followed with the relaunch of Snarf. Now, after four issues, Last Gasp Comix & Stories has seemingly come into its own as a leading anthology of contemporary alternative comics.

Last Gasp #4 features several excellent and underexposed cartoonists, beginning with Brad Johnson, whose quirky strips strike me as the visual equivalent of a Daniel Johnston song: eccentric, deceptively simple, slightly off balance, yet held together with a charming — if seemingly endemic — naivete.

Other highlights include Danny Hellman, whose illustration work can be seen everywhere from Entertainment Weekly to Screw, and whose comics are just as gorgeous as everything else he does (do more, Danny!). Steven Cerio provides a striking cover and another lavishly illustrated story, which have come to provide the anchor for the book.

The first few issues of this series were marred by filler that couldn’t hold a candle to Johnson and Hellman; the addition of Renee French (Grit Bath), Steven Weisman (Yikes!), and Stephan Blanquet (La Monstrueuse, Zero Zero) provide the missing link this issue. Although there are still a couple of clunkers (what anthology doesn’t have ’em?), the addition of this trio, along with new contributions from regulars Max Andersson (Pixy, Zero Zero) and Mats Stromberg (San Fran Sicko), make for lots more good stuff than bad stuff.

My only knock on Last Gasp Comix & Stories is the uninspired design and production values, but that’s hardly a reason not to check out all of the talented cartoonists inside. They need your support, dammit!