Little Things: A Memoir in Slices

For those that don’t know (and I’m assuming it’s a lot of you) I’m now a staff-reviewer at CBR. I recently posted my review of Jeff Brown’s latest release, Little Things: A Memoir in Slices in the CBR reviews section. Still, a couple of weeks have passed, so I’m now reposting it here - excuse the fact that it might be slightly condescending at times - after all, the original was for a wider audience, not just the Jeff Brown fans!

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Jeffrey Brown epitomizes all that is good and bad about a certain kind of indie comic. If you ever hear people criticizing the black-and-white navel-gazing autobiographical emo-indie comic about boys who can’t get girlfriends, then they’re talking about Jeffrey Brown. If you hear people praising the insightful, witty, emotionally-open alternative to spandex and testosterone-filled mainstream comics, then they’re also talking about Jeffrey Brown. You may even already known which side of the fence you fall on, so let me warn you — if it’s the former, move along now. You’re not going to find anything you like here.

If, on the other hand, you’re a Jeffrey Brown fan, well good news! You’re going to be pleased! “Little Things” is simply more of the same, though I mean that in a wholly positive way. While packaged in a format much closer to Brown’s autobiographical Girlfriend Trilogy books, “Little Things” also shares much in common with his minicomic collections, like 2005’s “Minisulk” — the contents are occasionally lifted from existing self-published works, though given the limited print run they will have received, it might as well be all-new.

The book sees Brown dispensing with the comedy/parody interludes that permeated his more recent publications — presumably, these things are being saved for the release of his new quarterly anthology, “Sulk”, later this year — and concentrating again on autobiographical short stories. Given that this is the first time Brown has taken his autobiography to a mass-market publisher, it makes sense to present a more straight-up work. After all, a mass-market publisher will hopefully translate to mass-market readers, who will have different expectations to his regular comics audience.

As such, the story ploughs through various events in Brown’s life as experienced over the course of the last few years. They are presented in Brown’s now-traditional non-chronological order in a way that invites the reader to draw parallels between the stories themselves. Recurrent motifs include car crashes and medical problems, and very specific references to the music accompanying certain events or frames of mind. That said, one of the longer chapters, “Missing the Mountains” is atypical of Brown’s work, if only because it occasionally pauses to capture the visual moments in the relative vista of a single-panel splash page — it represents a welcome departure from the norm, to see Brown’s artistic side being unveiled.

As ever, Brown’s main talent is in insightfully capturing the emotional essence of a moment, be it funny or sad, or angry, or calm, and then using his superficially crude drawings to evoke it on the page. The expressive art style Brown uses makes his world both relatable and accessible to all readers. That’s always been the case, of course, but it never hurts to explain his charm.

It’s not for everyone, admittedly. Some people simply won’t get the appeal, which is a fair enough matter of taste. Fans will, not unexpectedly, get exactly what they wanted. If you’ve never read Brown’s work and are anxious to go for something a little less graphic and emotionally brutal than his Girlfriend Trilogy, then you’re in luck — this is as good a place to start as any.

Buy Little Things from Amazon (US)
Buy Little Things from Amazon (UK)

 

Feeble Attempts

Feeble Attempts is a 48-page collection of Jeffrey Brown’s short comics - something of a “pilot” for his forthcoming series, which is expected to be launched under the title of ”Sulk” some time this year.

When it originally came out in May ‘07, I was incredibly pleased that it was bringing together a lot of material from many disparate sources. I’d read a couple of the strips online, and one or two I’d found in other comics, but as I’ve said before, being a die-hard, completist Jeffrey Brown fan can be incredibly hard work, trying to track down all the curios, so comprehensive collections like this are exactly what I’m into. They showcase all of his styles, bringing together comedy, autiobiography, and even superheroics all under one title. The topic of religion even gets a look in which is something he rarely tackles so openly.

Even now, it remains one of my favourite releases of his, simply because there’s so much in there. 48 pages from Brown means a LOT of work, since most of the pages contain a number of panels that’s well into double figures, crammed with dialogue, if not necessarily action. It’s really packed in there too - the inside covers have glorious, full-colour comics printed on them. There’s nary an inch of free space in the entire volume, and for $5 it’s incredibly well-priced. You could pay 5 times that for an anthology of similar quality.

The longest story is a reprint of the Bighead piece which can be found in Project: Superior, though not the Bighead anthology, and that alone is worth what you’ll pay for it just to see more of Brown’s take on Superheroics, with his art being taken to a rarely-seen level.

It’s hard to know what sort of beast Feeble Attempts is. Certainly, I’d give it to someone who wanted to get into Brown’s work because it’s got it all in there, it’s like a Jeffrey Brown sampler - but I’m finding it hard to think of a situation where someone would want to get into his work without already knowing what they like about it, so I dunno. All I can say is that there’s no excuse for a Jeffrey Brown fan not to own a copy.

Buy Feeble Attempts from Top Shelf (Intl.)
Feeble Attempts Preview pages from Top Shelf

 

Cat Getting Out of a Bag

Given the popularity of Lolcats, it seems like Jeffrey knew he was into a fairly safe bet with the release of his observational cat-based humour book, Cat Getting Out of a Bag, which predates the lolcat explosion by several months.

The book mostly comprises 9-panel comics shorts - almost a hundred, in fact - depicting the observations Jeff has made about the various cats he has owned. These are broken up by detailed and realistic life-illustrations of cats, though it should be noted that the entire book is monochrome. The bulk of the artwork for the book appears to have been done with brushes, actually, though the comics are noticably in Jeff’s traditional style and it’s mainly the shading and depth that shows hints of a more painted style. It’s an interesting new take on his artwork.

I have to admit - ultimately, this is one for cat owners only. As a Jeff Brown completist, I bought it, but I found it frequently humourless and uninteresting, and the point being made in of many of the strips eluded me entirely. I gave it to my friend who once owned a cat, and he found every page hilarious. So that probably explains it. I’m not an animal lover, the behaviour of cats doesn’t amuse me, and therefore the book wasn’t really aimed at me - it’s no wonder I didn’t really enjoy it.

Still, I can’t fault the package - it’s a hardback with a nice fabric-covered spine (perfect for claw-sharpening antics, one suspects) and it’d make a really good gift for the kind of people who are REALLY into their cats. You know the kind. It seems well-aimed at the mass market rather than Brown’s usual comic-reading public. It’ll never be essential reading, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it sold better than some of his other work, and indeed it certainly world, if only it could get on the shelves alongside its real contemporaries - things like the Bunny Suicide books - though sadly, I’m not sure people would think to put it there because of Brown’s name being attached to it.

Buy Cat Getting Out of a Bag from Amazon (US)
Buy Cat Getting Out of a Bag from Amazon (UK)

 

I am going to be Small

While Jeff’s earlier work focuses mainly on fragile emotions and how badly screwed up his life can get, it should not be overlooked that he is also one of the greatest comedic voices in the medium. I am going to be Small is really a sequel, of sorts, to Minisulk, as well as being a “special edition” re-release of his original minicomic. This book is utterly crammed with minutae that you would otherwise have one hell of a time finding, from complete reprints of minicomics, to single-frame jokes he drew for Too Much Coffee Man, to advertising posters he has drawn. At the time, I called Minisulk a completist’s dream, but I was wrong- this is.

This book shows that he’s got range, and he’s not afraid to use it. It’s sometimes offbeat, sometimes emotional, sometimes crude, sometimes twisted, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes just enough to make you smirk. The only consistent thing it’s got is that it’s all great. Except for those last 50 pages or so of some tragically crap animal cartoons - A minicomic called “Cuticle” featuring some talking animals and their relationship dramas, but god help me, I think it’s probably the least entertaining thing Brown has ever written.

It’s fair to say that Brown’s more emotionally involved work is his best. However, it’s also plenty accurate to say that it’s worth buying anything he does on the strength of his name alone. I’ve bought entire anthologies just to get a one-page strip by him, and this book allowed me to do a decade of catchup in one sitting. While the last few pages in Small weren’t my favourite, there are an additional 350 to pad out the rest of it. On those pages are well over 500 pieces culled from Brown’s previously unpublished or uncollected work, spanning a 9 year period - with single-panel jokes, text pieces, fake adverts, more conventional comic strips, and god knows what else, you could entertain yourself with this book for an incredibly long time. If you’re the type of person who enjoys reading on the toilet, it’s perfect for it, though you could end up permanently affixed to the crapper while caught up reading just one more joke.

All that said, I’m not sure I’d recommend it as the best way to get into Brown’s work. It’s fairly unrepresentative of his other stuff, most of which is actually much more satisfying in the long run. The previous compilation of his work, Minisulk, is far more about the laughs. If that’s his “Greatest Hits,” this seems more like a B-Sides collection for the hardcore fans. I love it, I encourage everyone to buy it, but it probably shouldn’t be your starting point.

Buy I am going to be Small from Amazon (UK)
Buy I am going to be Small from Amazon (US)

 

Every Girl is the End of the World for Me

With a title like that, you can probably see where this is going.

This short volume, released in 2005, serves as an epilogue to Brown’s “Girlfriend Trilogy” which comprises his three autobiographical books, Clumsy, Unlikely and Any Easy Intimacy. It describes events which occurred over Christmas and New Year 2003-2004.

Perhaps the focus of this book is Jeff’s slowly re-kindling relationship with Allisyn, the girl from Unlikely. Jeff has moved on in life, but a series of the usual coincidences brings the two of them back into contact, both wondering if they’ve changed enough to make another go of it. Now, I won’t spoil the ending for you, but let me put it like this - it wouldn’t make for a particularly dramatic story if they did and everything was fine, would it? Interspersed throughout the book are encounters with other women of various eligibility that Jeff, by his own admission, lives and dies over. It’s essentially a story about being too wrapped up in your relationships. Still, calling it a “story” is perhaps overly charitable. While the thread of his relationship with Allisyn neatly wraps the book up, large parts of it are vignettes/chapters devoted to other women entirely.

What I enjoy most about EGITEOTWFM (besides the ridiculously large acronym) is the size of the artwork. We’re still on 4 panels to each fairly small page, but these are huge, very clearly printed panels we’re talking about. It somehow manages to realise Brown’s work even better than before. Due to the dates, the book takes place in Winter and this really showcases Brown’s talents for conveying the nuances that bring things to life. The level of detail is both remarkable and satisfying - you can practically feel the frost on the page sometimes.

Given that Jeff is now married and has a child, it’s probably fair to say that this is the final word on all things female from him. Assuming he doesn’t want to tell the story of his current relationship, that is, but in fairness the man deserves his secrets (and christ knows there appear to be previous few of those left) so as entertaining as it’s been, I think that for now, that chapter is complete.

Buy Every Girl… from Amazon (UK)
Buy Every Girl… from Amazon (US)
View Preview Pages for Every Girl… at Top Shelf

 

You Ain’t No Dancer, Vol. 2

You Ain’t No Dancer, volume 2, came out a year ago this month, October 2006, only shortly after I purchased the previous volume. Like the previous volume, it’s packed with indie talent, in a fairly unconventional package that forces the use of a widescreen format. While that’s fairly standard for a certain kind of strip (Webcomic creator Mitch Clem is undoubtedly right at home) it’s not something you see in the mainstream, or even indie mainstream very often, and it gives these books a distinctive look. The strips themselves are also fairly short - 23 stories in 95 pages, and only one or two get past the 6 page mark. To New Reliable’s credit, they’re really crammed a lot into this.

Jeffrey Brown’s story in YAND Vol. 2 is entitled “Chimney Preference” and revisits the familiar setting of the “Young Jeff” autobiographical comics that I’ve previously discussed in the review of Minisulk. It’s a 2-page comedy piece that makes the most of Brown’s style, though I have to admit if you’re buying this collection just for the Jeffrey Brown in it, you might not be fully satisfied by 2 pages and one joke. It’s less of a snack, more a morsel. That said, I have to admit, in these kind of strips half the humour, for me, comes from the expression on Young Jeff’s face, which is inherently hilarious for reasons I can’t begin to articulate.

If 2 pages isn’t enough brown for you, well, then, good news, because he’s also painted the cover! A wraparound cover, no less, depicting Young Jeff and his brother in the playground at autumn, a rare example of coloured work from Brown.

Now, 2 pages is a bit small for a full review, so let’s quickly look elsewhere in the anthology. My favourites of the remainder were The Eve Of, by Blaise Laramee, and Phil McAndrew’s Sharp Young Minds, both stories united by a theme of childhood exploration and cameraderie, the former going with a confessional psychological tone, and the latter with a more humourous turn.

Overall, volume 2 feels more disjointed than the original, and contains fewer “name” creators to put you on familiar ground for the fairly steep price point. With generally less conventional material, even fans of the first volume might find this challenging, but as ever it remains a brilliant way to expose yourself to new creators and stories. As with the previous volume, the quality of both is consistently high, but the quantity of work means that it’s impossible for everything to click - given the range of work available, don’t expect to come into this and love everything, just consider that what you do enjoy is going to be worth the price, and the rest of it is bonus material.

Buy You Ain’t No Dancer from New Reliable (US & Int.)
You Ain’t No Dancer v2 Preview Page (Jeff Brown)
You Ain’t No Dancer v2 Preview Page (Blaise Larmee)
You Ain’t No Dancer v2 Preview Page (Phil McAndrew)

 

Drawing Between the Lines

Another week, another excuse for not updating. This week I had a whole bunch of (paid) work taking up my weekend and Monday so I had to postpone the work I do gratis for you gentle readers. Naturally I would’ve updated today, but I’m going to go and see Neil Gaiman do a talk at the Criterion Theatre in London, so I’m afraid I won’t be able to do a review tonight, either.

In which case, as is traditional, I’ll instead give you some further reading on the subject of Jeffrey Brown.

It has been brought to my attention that there exists a documentary entitled Drawing between the lines. The official site says this:

Drawing Between the Lines is a short documentary examining the autobiographical world of Chicago cartoonist Jeffrey Brown. Whether sitting in his apartment, riding the L-train, or traveling the country promoting his work, Brown spends his time filling the pages of his sketchbooks. His graphic novels provide a humorous, yet intensely personal look at love, sex and relationships. Drawing Between the Lines explores Brown’s candid approach to storytelling and unconventional method of cartooning and provides insight from friends, fans and fellow cartoonists.

There don’t appear to be any screenings scheduled just yet, but keep an eye on their site in case any come to light. It looks fantastic, and while the chances of ever seeing it outside the US seem fairly slim at this point, who knows what the future may bring?

I hope that’s entertaining, anyway. Come back in a few days for a new review!

 

Project Telstar: A Different Place Then

Project Telstar was the first of three themed anthologies from Adhouse, featuring a ridiculous amount of indie comics creators all throwing a short story into the mix. Anthologies are always hit and miss, but the Science Fiction-themed Project Telstar, printed in black, white and metallic blue (featuring futuristic rounded corners!) contains barely a single duff story, setting an almost impossibly high standard for the anthologies that followed, Project Superior and Project Romance.

It’s with some trepidation, then, that I have to deliver this fact. I was kind of disappointed by Jeffrey Brown’s story in this one.

Hear me out on this - it’s not that the story is bad, because it isn’t. It’s got everything you could want from Brown’s non-autobiographical work: action, comedy, some tragic romance. The problem, in fact, stems from just this. Where almost every other creator at least appears to have gone outside their comfort zone and created something unique and occasionally, very profound, it feels a little like Brown has taken a fairly standard approach with his work and just chucked in a token robot for good measure. Where’s the adventure?!

Admittedly, out of context, it’s great - it’s about a man in space who breaks up with his long-long-long-distance girlfriend, and then, awaking the next morning from a drunken stupor, discovers that in his heartbreak, he programmed his robot to be a violent killing machine that he must then disable. It sits unassumingly alongside the stories of Project Telstar or any of Brown’s other work, though notably in tone it’s most like Brown’s super-hero parody, Bighead, than anything else. Still, we knew Brown had more than this in him, if only because a few years later he finally finished the brilliant Transformers parody, Incredible Change-Bots, which features a far more compelling story about robots and space travel, and one which treats the subject matter as more than the mere background elements of a stock Brown romance plot.

Still, if you’re a fan of the work of Jeffrey Brown, then the Project anthologies remain a must-buy. Mainly because they’re a must-buy whether you like Brown or not. The sheer amount of creators I’ve discovered from this line can’t be understated.

Of particular genius in Telstar are Joel Priddy’s Long Slow Flight of the Ashbot, depicting a robot surviving (barely)  as he floats in space until the end of time, and Gregory Benton’s Passover, a story showing the final remnants of the human race deserting a polluted and destroyed Earth in brilliantly pedestrian fashion. Best of all, though, may be Paul Rivoche’s Robot in the Rain, mixture of detective noir and cold-war sci-fi aesthetic with an undercurrent of paranoia so powerful you’ll have to use a crobar to prise the book away. Project Telstar outdoes itself in every possible way, and even if I was a little hard on Brown’s contribution, that’s only because the rest of it sets an incredibly high standard. For what it’s worth, Brown’s inclusion in Project Superior, the second part of the Project trilogy, is far better. But I’ll get to that next week…

Buy Project Telstar from Amazon (UK)
Buy Project Telstar from Amazon (US)
Please be aware that Project Telstar is out of print, so availability may be limited and prices may be ridiculous.

 

Your Heart is an Empty Room

Another packed weekend means no time for a massive update, but here’s another something special that I’ve been saving for when I wussed out of a review. This is (youtube allowing) the Jeffrey Brown-directed video for Death Cab for Cutie’s song, Your Heart is an Empty Room from the album, Plans.

The story is, in great Brown tradition, semi-autobiographical. It was animated by Eliza Chincarini, who may or may not be the same one currently working on Robot Chicken (and if so, great work on that too!)

This video, alone with a rare video interview with the man himself is available on the DCFC DVD companion to Plans, entitled Directions.

Buy Directions from Amazon (UK) *
Buy Directions from Amazon (US)

*Note that the Directions DVD is Region 1. For the love of god ensure you can play it before buying it.

 

Incredible Change Bots

This week, it’s all-new Brown as his latest book, Incredible Change-Bots, finally hits UK shores (or, more importantly, the shelves of my local comic shop). Here’s what the inside cover has to say about the plot:

Far away in space, there is a planet full of robots able to change from robot form to vehicle form — the Incredible Change-Bots! Leaving their war torn planet, the Change-Bots arrive on Earth, where their battle continues — BUT AT WHAT COST?!

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Perhaps like a cartoon you used to watch, some toys you used to play with, or perhaps a movie you remember watching this summer (possibly while choking back vomit) - yes, you somehow figured it out - Incredible Change-Bots is Jeffrey Brown’s take on that loveable robot-based megabrand, the Transformers.

Now, before we go any further, I should warn you - I am what you would call “fairly obsessed” with Transformers. Be prepared to witness some even worse nerdery than usual. I promise I’ll be back to “normal” next week.

As Incredible Change Bots opens, the Awesomebots are embroiled in a fierce, ongoing, er, election campaign, with their rivals, the Fantasticons. The leader of the Fantasticons, Shootertron, wishes to gain control of the government, blaming the Awesomebots for slowing their planet’s economy with their lack of warfare. He seizes power by rigging the voting machines, and as a result, fighting breaks out between the two factions. This is what you’d call a thoroughly ironic take on the conflict presented in the original Transformers series, where the factional differences and power structures were poorly defined, if at all. The fight eventually spreads to Earth, and naturally, hi-jinks ensue.

Brown effectively parodies the tone of the original Transformers series - the characters speak with bombast, shouting slogans at each other during battle and making vague declarations about good and evil. As portrayed by Brown, the Change-Bots display the kind of human qualities most robots get to avoid - they interrupt one another, they leave awkward silences, and they irritate others with their stupidity. They have personalities, but each only really has one character trait which they then display at every opportunity. It’s all funny because it’s only a shade more ridiculous than the truth ever was. Moments like Awesomebot leader Bigrig having to set up his trailer after transforming Incredible-Changing, and the human characters pointing out to him how much of a coincidence it is that he changes into a truck, given his alien name, all point to an author who, like the target audience, might just have thought about the original Transformers cartoon a little too much.

Brown doesn’t make mockery his only concern, though - while there’s a joke on virtually every page, the story does also serve as an action-adventure in its own right. Indeed, the plot itself is fully played out within the pages, in a suitably epic tale that even leaves room for a sequel. It’s half-parody, half-love letter to the original Transformers concept, and Brown’s affection for the material beams from every panel. If you love the idea of a transforming robot but also recognise its inherent ridiculousness, well, be assured - so does Brown. For those deeply into Transformers, there are a couple of references that only the obsessive will get - you could count them on one hand, though, and the vast majority of the jokes are going to work for anyone with even a passing familiarity with the concept.

Incredible Change-Bots is most immediately distinguished from the rest of Brown’s catalogue by being his first full-length work in colour. It’s bright and bold, and has great texture. Whether or not he does further work with colour, it’s hard to believe it’ll ever look as good as this. It’s an utter magnum opus, equalling the recent Transformers movie in scope (indeed, the movie release is what inspired him to complete the story he’d been hanging onto for some time) and justifies every centimetre of every page.

To be honest, I could go on, but there’s so much to talk about it could get ridiculous. I’ll leave you with a nicely quotable closing statement (because I don’t do grading, you ingrates): Jeffrey Brown’s Incredible Change-Bots is a must-own for anyone who grew up on 80s toy-commercial television, but it’s still brilliant in its own right. Buy it, love it, thank me later. Preview pages available below!

Incredible Change-Bots Preview Pages at Top Shelf
Buy Incredible Change-Bots from Amazon (UK)
Buy Incredible Change-Bots from Amazon (US)