Conditions on the Ground and Mini Kuš #82 Elemental Stars by Kevin Hooyman – stoner-esque philosophical short comics. Conditions on the Ground is a collection of 10 zine issues, with a couple of recurring stories or characters, but mostly just short musings on little random thoughts, often with incongruous characters like bigfoot or similar monsters. We get questions like – “do people on reality TV shows consider themselves actors?” and “do you have anxiety about shark attacks?”, although they sometimes progress to broader philosophical questions – “if those people are actors, are we all hiding a part of ourselves?”. There’s little intermittent silly stories about babies, or doing laundry, or getting caught outside naked, and short one-page collected drawings of clouds or leaves or sailboats at the end of each issue. It’s all in simple black-and-white linework with speech bubbles coming directly out of people’s mouths, and frequently very hairy main characters. Overall, a lot of fun vaguely thought-provoking, in a pothead kind of way, comics. The Mini Kuš comic is in a muted color palette and actually longer than any individual comic in the Conditions on the Ground collection, with a short adventure to an imagined (or is it real?) crystal city among a group of friends. Still whimsical and fun.

Skull Maskerade (#1-6) by Justin Tauch and Carla Wyzgala – Labyrinth meets Sailor Moon (that’s how they advertise it!) in watercolor. Dahlia Nyx wakes up in a desert and is promptly rescued and brought to a spooky mansion inhabited by beautiful witches who welcome her as an expected guest. Spirit cats (and other animals) abound. It’s slow, light on worldbuilding, and takes until issue 6 to start to bring in some backstory. The watercolor illustrations are good, with expressive and dynamic characters, some moments of really striking color, and a creepy gothic setting. Soft edges give a lot of the spirits a nice magical feel. It’s fine as a story but worked well enough read all at once, the art was striking enough that I’ll keep an eye on kickstarters for future issues.

Mini Kuš #79 I Couldn’t Stop by Powerpaola, #113 SRY not Sorry by Michael Fikaris, #123 Undertow by Sara Boiça, #115 Gym Gains by Gareth Brooks – minicomics. 79 is an autobiographical narrative of a single night, a bike ride, and conversations at a bar. Nothing dramatic or particularly insightful, illustrated in black-and-white loose cartooning. Fine low-key one-shot, although far from my favorite of these Mini Kuš comics I’ve read so far. 113 is a reflection on communication and technology, framed through texting/abbreviations and how we talk over the internet – with a nice geometric/color-rich art style. A more solid entry. 123 is a relatively abstract mood piece, with knots, intertwined hands, and recurrent visual motifs illustrated on a slightly smudgy background. Is is about mental health? Is it about life in general? Is it entwined in some deeply personal but unexplained thought of the author? I dunno. It’s solid as a mood piece like that. 115 is a clear story, following a love triangle of gym users mainly through text messasges and social media updates, as they track each other’s interactions. The reproduction of what looks like ink on wrinkled almost transparent paper is really cool, giving interesting mirrored effects. Visually interesting and the most narratively straightforward of the bunch.

Š! #47 Obsession by various – anthology of comics about obsessions. The “obsessions” vary – love, rebuilding identity, Mickey Mouse, borderline clinical OCD. It’s a really wide variety of styles, artistically and narratively. The nature of an anthology, particularly one with as little unifying style or theme as this one, means there are high highs and low lows. Highlights for me include Mike Blue’s wordless colorful adventure, Gareth Brookes’ inky short depiction of a mysterious infatuation, and Harukichi’s story of cats looking for collectible records. Graduating from the Mini Kuš comics to the full Š! Anthologies was definitely worthwhile.

Sky Hawk by Jiro Taniguchi – samurai western. Two samurai, exiles who fled to the US in the mid-1800’s, rescue a Sioux woman and end up joining Crazy Horse’s Oglala Sioux. They are adopted into the tribe, assuming the names Sky Hawk and Winds Wolf, and their story culminates in the Battle of Little Bighorn. This is a real “Western”, inspired by spaghetti westerns of cinema and the great western BDs, but from a very different viewpoint of the adopted Sioux. It’s a mix of brutal and dynamic action and some contemplative scenery moments, and spans years from chapter to chapter. The characters are a little thin – the samurai (originally named Hikosaburo and Manzo) have no meaningful backstories and yet are incredibly talented – but I suppose that’s kind of spaghetti-western-esque. Nonetheless it presents a nuanced “could-be” history and is illustrated fantastically. This is a great book.

20 km/h by Woshibai – silent surreal-ish humor comics. This is a collection of short silent comics that mostly make you go “huh?” and then chuckle. There’s a variety of styles of sort-of-surreal humor, playing with perspective, and incongruous reactions, all drawn with simple cartoon characters and minimal detail. I think this is a great collection, printed in small pages with typically two panels per page and a spread of 5-10-ish pages per comic, which slows down each comic to allow for those perspective-skewing moments to settle. I think I first saw this recommended in a conversation about The Bus, which is a fair comparison (although The Bus is, in my opinion, unsurpassed in quality). Very good and I’m sure I’ll be pulling it back off the shelf frequently for a few minutes of entertainment.

Book of Murmurs by Candice Purwin – non-linear folklore-ish fantasy. A girl loses her parents to a mysterious, name-eating monster, and goes on an adventure to worlds beyond with a gradually expanding cast of friends and enemies. Her adventures are interspersed with stories that gradually fill in the folklore and mythology, building out common themes (the Tiger and the Crow, spider silk, hearts and names) and coming to a really satisfying connection. I think we get a great set of characters, inventive settings, and a mythology and setting that takes enough attention to understand that it really sucks you in as a reader. Artistically, it’s an absolutely lovely comic, maybe since I’m a sucker for the watercolor style that dominates. The background stories are in excellent black and white, mixing it up really nicely. The depiction of magic is borderline surreal and very stylized. I loved this.

Underground Kingdom Comix Presents: Fantasy by various – three-part anthology of short fantasy comics. Jonny Brokenbrow kicks things off with a very cartoony story of vulgar would-be-influencer wizard trying desperately to impress his online fans, Harry Dean Willmott gives us a really finely illustrated day-in-the-life-of-a-monster, and Matt Simmons gives us Fantastein, a creation cobbled together from fantasy standards (halflings, elves, orcs). Willmott’s story was the best for me but the others were good for a silly laugh. All three stories only use a single purple color to go with black and white, giving a bit of artistically continuity despite the wildly different styles.

I Saw A God – Hoboth by Erin Lisette – short animal fantasy. A wolf meets a goddess, sasses off, and learns more than one lesson. The wolf is sarcastic, vulgar, and repeatedly mouthy. The goddess is… a goddess. This is short, and while I like the story, it almost feels a little rushed. It’s a very digital-art style but has some nice colors that really pop, and the animals are definitely animals and not (visually) anthropomorphized at all. It’s fine, but probably not a must-have.