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| Oh no, August books weren't quite as good as usual. |
Running a subscription service for quarter-size mini-comics, Oily gives readers a chance to get a variety of comics and creators in their mailbox every month. There are certain series that run every month, while others come and go as the creators provide new issues. Given that I am a big fan of reading comics from as many different people as possible in the mini-comics world, I love services like Oily.
My thoughts on August's comics are below. Being honest, this wasn't the finest hour for the publisher. After finishing these, I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed.
Goblins by Sam Gaskin opens by admitting the comics were created while "mostly drunk." That might have been funny to him, but I found it off-putting that from the get-go, you're trying to lower reader expectations. Well, it worked, as this series of one-page jokes was mildly amusing in a few places but mostly failed for me. Gaskin's art looks rushed and done with one pass of a Sharpie marker. It has its moments, but I felt let down.
The Intern from Scott Longo features a variety of vignettes punctuated by words about love and song lyrics. There's nothing holding this one together, though, and there's not a lot of room for Longo's art, given the amount of words going across the page.
Teen Creeps #2 continues Forsman's new series, and this one was the highlight of the batch. He gives us more time with our two female high school students, who scam cigarettes from an amputee and talk about life. They're not nice people, but that's the point. Ending with a brief fight in the locker room, Forsman's still in set-up mode here, but his illustrations remain simple by strong, telling the story and giving each character their own unique look and voice.
Word & Voice 7 from Aaron Cockle continues as a glacial pace, filling in back details as we go. I'm still not sure how I feel about this series, but I thought the way Cockle shows us the breaking down of language in the dialogue boxes was extremely clever. His art remains stark, often taking a back seat to the words, which I guess makes sense in a story like this one.
In Conversation with Sean Ford features another text piece from Michael Fiffe, talkin to the creator about his new project, work he's done in the past, communicating with fans, another topics. I'm not familiar with Ford, so this didn't do a lot for me, but the chance of pace is an interesting touch for Oily.
All in all, this might be the weakest batch of Oily comics I've gotten so far. It was missing Lou's conclusion, which I hope is in the September group, and two of the other four minis just weren't very good. But that's the chance you take with a pre-paid subscription. Sometimes you dig it, sometimes you don't. Come back for the September group, which I hope will show a rebound.
