Flora and Stone Cold Fish
Toby Craig
Free

Best known for his surrealistic Modern Tales series Punish The Dead and Death Swamp , Toby Craig first flexed his graphic novelist muscles in a series of shorter works for the Engine! anthology. These pieces are well worth looking back at.

Flora is an early work where the protagonist embarks on a dream odyssey from a flower shop into a grassy field, then plunging to the bottom of the ocean, then ascending into the skies. He experiences a sojourn in skeletal form, then must break free from an iceberg. Many puzzling images confront him along the way. This is Craig at his most playful; the pages are delightfully composed, some with a dozen or more tiny panels squeezed into the confines of the square minicomics-size pages.

Most of Craig's work is devoid of dialog. In Stone Cold Fish he departs from this convention, resulting in one of his most accessable pieces.

A young man receives a phone call from a woman who desires sex with him. He rejects her, then sits and considers his situation. Dreamlike images reflect his sense of lonely isolation, and he has a dream dialog with a phantom girlfriend. Returning to the real world, he calls the girl back, with disquieting results.

Speaking of Craig, his website abounds with comics by other talented artists. Todd Webb's Monster Rumble is an amusing standout in this group.

Read This Comic.

--Joe Zabel

Atland
Nate Piekos
Free

Nate Piekos, font guru and founder of Blambot, knows fun when he draws it. His Atland strips are a comical collision of carousing cartooning, illuminated by rousing colors, and splendidly weird character exaggerations. Atland is fun to look at, fun to read aloud, and fun to imagine where it’s going next.

The story begins not so much in medias res, but certainly without much preamble. By page four, the main character—Barry the Brave—dies, decomposes, and rises again with a ghastly green pallor and his dimwitted sense of humor still intact. With a nod to Monty Python, the tale verges on antiplot with its structure of what I call “incremental instances”—where you just get caught up in the rollicking run of odd occurrences –but by page 31 (where I left off) a solid narrative—silly and bawdy as it may be—has begun to open up out of the rolling ball of instances.

Piekos deftly handles the landscape format, and he enhances the episodic pacing of the strip with careful deployment of his puzzle of panels. If the strip has an overarching flaw, it is the abruptness of some transitions between episodes, but this is not a major negative factor.

Atland works well as a serial, but it reads even better in batches of installments. This is a young strip with huge promise—just the sort of read to remind you how enjoyable cartooning can be.

Read This Comic.

--Steven Withrow

Lamp-lighter
James Hindle
Subscription (Serializer.net)

Another issue of the Examiner, another snapshot of a Serializer Showcase comic. Technically, this one doesn't rise to the heights of Moon Lake, but it's an intriguing sojourn with a comics newcomer who's going places.

Lamplighter captures the enigmatic threads of an evening out and a casual party for a group of young friends. The vague, formless conversations of the youthful characters are juxtaposed with silent sequences focused on the suburban landscape. There is little sense of plot or progress. The gradual filling of a parking lot with cars (depicted in the story) seems to have as much consequence as one character's foregoing of sleep to make some kind of spiritual breakthrough. Drinking and a fist fight leave two party-goers stretched out unconscious on the lawn, with mock crosses erected over their inert bodies. Perhaps this signifies spiritual death, but I suspect that would be taking it too seriously.

Hindle's blue duotone art is loosely rendered but does a good job of evoking the realistic scenario. His lettering seems to be deliberately obscure, giving the effect of faintly overheard conversation drowned out by the wind-- but a little of that kind of interference goes a long way, if you know what I mean. The best parts of Lamp-lighter are the architectural sequences; they capture the atmosphere of the summer night, and reflect back the ennui of the characters.

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--Joe Zabel

This wry and dry send-up is a cross between film noir and sex-in-the-city romps.

Amanda Kayne is a spunky ex-boxer being stalked by a hapless hitman after refusing to take a dive in her last match. As a further complication, she must maintain residence in "one of the most decrepit buildings in the city of Middlebay," as a condition for inheriting her Uncle's fortune.

Amanda takes her situation in stride, and fends off neighborhood muggers and junkies with aplomb. She spends her spare time wise-cracking with her landlord, an armoured-car-driving boyfriend, and her black cat. Sometimes she sings in a jazz quartet.

Artist David Wade does a good job of keeping the comedy dark but not morbid, and his humor is subtle and very low key. The earlier episodes are the best, however. He's recently started telling longer stories, and so far they don't seem to have as much punch.

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--Joe Zabel

Motel Art Improvement Service
Jason Little
Free

A sequel to Shutterbug Follies, Motel Art Improvement Service keeps the focus on Bee as she takes a cross-country bike ride. Little's meticulous, detailed cartooning style and subtle, true-to-life storytelling are fully in evidence. Only six episodes have been published so far, but we're confident in predicting that this will be one of the most outstanding new webcomics of the year.

Read this comic.

--Joe Zabel