Andrew Roller Presents
C O M I C U P D A T E
FREE! Internet Edition May 11, 1995
R E V I E W S
conducted by h0ly joe
Board of Superheros 1, 50¢. Minicomic, 8 pgs. Matt Feazell, 3867
Bristow, Detroit MI 48212.
I first was introduced to Matt Feazell back in the '80's, as I
trudged down a windblown street. I saw a minicomic lying in the
gutter. At first I thought it was just another one of Roller's pubs, as I
am always seeing those in the gutter (where they belong!)...or jammed
into toilets in public restrooms...or sometimes I'll come across one of
Roller's pubs in the little girl's lavatory at the school where I work as
a janitor. (Don't ask me how it got in there.)
Anyway, it turns out this particular pub was one of those rare
gems put out by Matt Feazell. Unlike one of Roller's pubs, this one had
been carefully preserved in a hermetically sealed plastic bag, complete
with acid-free backer board. Obviously, some unfortunate collector had
lost part of his prized collection. I picked the zine up. I thought about
advertising it in the lost and found section of our local paper, but lust
and greed quickly possessed my mind! I tore the comic out of its
plastic bag and quickly devoured its contents. Then I took it to the
bank, where I was able to exchange it for a crisp $100.00 bill! I spent
the night at the Holiday Inn, masturbating over the Playboy channel. Ah,
life!
Board of Superheros is yet another of Matt's beautifully rendered
minicomics. He's always been the best mini-maker of the genre. In the
mid-80's his books had a clean but punk rock "sketchpad" feel to them.
Then, in the late 80's, as he picked up work selling stickmen to the
mainstream press, his work became downright beautiful. The beauty
remains.
Board's story is a fairly clever "corporate politics" tale.
Boardman goes on sabbatical and leaves Stickboy in charge, who quickly
mires his superhero employees in mindless paperwork. With regard to
the final panel, I would have written "No Smoking Breaks," instead of
"No Smoking On Breaks." I don't understand why Mr. Stickboy would
want to prohibit smoking on breaks. However, prohibiting smoking
breaks seems an excellent idea, since that is when his employees spoke
unkindly of him.
Comic Update 140, 141, 55¢ each. Minicomic, 8 pages. Frank G. Lloyd
Jr., P.O. Box 486, Richwood, W.V. 26261-0486. [The current issue of
Comic Update is number 178. It is available from Jim Corrigan, P.O. Box
3663, Phenix City AL 36868. It is free for a SASE.]
Comic Update is the oldest living small press reviewzine. Begun in
August 1986 by the immortal Andrew Roller, Update has struggled
through various publishers over the years and, amazingly, has been
published on a rigorously consistent basis. These are statements that can
be made of no other zine in the comics small press. Yet, for all its
fortitude, Update has continually been subscribed to by less people than
almost any other reviewzine. It's probably had more publishers in its
lifetime than subscribers.
This is not to say that Update has passed unnoticed through the
comics world. Nearly everyone in small press has written at least one
nasty letter to Update (all published, with spelling errors pointed out by
Roller's remorseless sic). Both the mighty and the unknown have been
excoriated in Update's pages. Update was even investigated in a face-
to-face confrontation by the F.B.I.
The Update tradition of potent, even toxic commentary on the small
press continues in this latest pair of issues. Lynn Hansen takes Andrew
Roller's Naughty Naked Dreamgirls #11 to task for "not set[ting] a good
example for younger readers...who may practice sex indiscriminately...and
so get AIDS." Lloyd delivers a short but devastatingly humorous editorial
against Comics F/X, and even manages to liken Ian Shires to Jeffrey
Dahlmer.
Dockery provides insight to the life and recent death of Freddy
Mercury as a part of his regular "Like a Monkey on My Back" column in
Update. Whether you knew or cared about this singer, Dockery's writing
(particularly in this installment of his column) struck me as absolutely
fascinating. Mike Taylor is present with his prickly review column in
Update #140. Taylor is an excellent addition to the Update team, still a
relative newcomer, having been with this zine for only about 35 issues.
The mainstay of Update, of course, is Lynn Hansen, with his educated,
well-rounded reviews of both small press and independent comics. I
would suggest to Brooks, Dockery, Roller, and whoever else is involved in
Fugitive Factsheet that they get Hansen on their team. His prescient
reviews of independent comics are just what Fugitive Factsheet needs to
get into mainstream comics stores. But then, I'm just a newcomer. For a
cup of coffee I'll review anything, even a comic by William Dockery.
Green Ringlets, 50¢. Minicomic, eight pages. William Dockery, P.O. Box
3663, Phenix City, AL 36868.
A chapbook, from whence the first poem provides the title. Each
book apparently comes with a free coffee stain. (Mine did, anyway.)
Care for some disjointed images, rendered with varying degrees of
proficiency, complete with a bizarre, Egyptian pharaoh cover? This is the
book for you. There's a poem about the south and several about females. I
could write this thing up really good, but I'm full. I had to feed the
hamburger Dockery threw over the bridge to me to a cat. It was lukewarm,
anyway. If I'm to work for food, Dockery, it has to be hot. Anyway, the
onion rings were good. For those I'll quoth several of his better lines:
"Answers like seeds being dispersed into
"the breeze...
"...We stood in the marsh of reeds...
"...The Science Ladies
"wandering inside my soul (pg. 5)."
There ya go. Thank God Wilson quit publishing.
felt, 50¢ postpaid. Minicomic, eight pages. William Dockery, P.O. Box
3663, Phenix City, AL 36868.
On the back cover of this tome is written the words, "Second
Printing." I was going to joke that with Dockery, this means my copy is
not only the second printing but the second copy. However, this damn
thing is actually very well written. Maybe he did actually print more
than one copy in the first printing, and sold out!
felt begins poorly, but picks up at the top of page four. Then things
really get going at the bottom of page four, and the lines roll on through
thunderous poetic crescendoes right to the end. There are amazing images
here; Tatumville park, the memory of Tracy, the father who's "a grey cat,"
even a lake of disappearing paths.
I highly recommend this chapbook on two counts, as a stunning book
of poems and as a sample of the best the comics small press has to offer.
C O M I C U P D A T E S T O R I E S
The Fading Universe
Part One
by Andrew Roller
Chapter One
"Well, I think it's immoral," the fat boy said.
"We did it anyway."
"Yeah, Marv; but, I mean, think of all the innocent little children
we killed. And we didn't even get her."
Marvin yawned.
The steel girder jutted awkwardly out over the bice blue pool.
The two boys sat perched atop it, fishing.
"How could Perry have known the police chief's daughter would be
playing hooky the day we blew up the elementary school?" Marvin asked
defensively.
"You ought to be our boss instead of Perry."
Marvin shook his head. "No, Flaherty. Perry may have syphilis, but
he's still the best strategist the tunnels have ever seen. Do you think I
could have mapped out that escape route we took after we blew up the
school?"
"People bomb buildings all the time."
"Yeah, but they don't sit across the street on lawn chairs and
watch," Marvin protested. "They watch it on the evening news. Or read
about it in the paper."
"I've got one," Flaherty announced, suddenly distracted from the
discussion. The chubby youth shifted to his knees and reeled in the line.
"Feels pretty big."
Suddenly the line snapped. Flaherty let out a yelp as he toppled
forward. Marvin grabbed the back of his checked shirt and, straining,
pulled the chubby boy upright.
"Damn. Fuck! What a cheap line." Flaherty glared at the water.
Marvin reeled in his own line and cast it out farther. He chewed
absently on a wad of gum as he slowly drew the line back toward shore.
It was hard to tell Marvin's age. His face had been charred in a
fire when he was 12. He appeared to have a receding hair line; thin
patches of hair were all that had ever grown back through the portion
of his scalp that crowned his forehead. Only the hairless, sculpted
chest between the unzipped halves of his tattered mulatto vest hinted
that he was a teen.
"Hey! She's gone!"
Marvin and Flaherty glanced over their shoulders at Perry; a
skinny boy running in frantic circles amidst the banks of equipment
that stood in silent clumps, their glowing frames stretching to the
ceiling that arched over the lake.
"What I don't understand," Flaherty continued, "is how someone
who dotes on little girls, like Perry, could bear to blow up an
elementary school? I mean, there must have been dozens of pretty
little things who attended that institution."
"I believe you're turning into a pedophile, Flaherty."
"No I'm not, Marv. But I am empathetic."
A girl with luxurious shoulder-length hair and sunglasses stepped
down out of a battered delivery truck.
"I'm glad your little girlfriend ran away. You shouldn't be fucking
5-year-olds," the 15-year-old brunette snapped at Perry.
"She's not 5, she's 8," Perry, his own eyes hidden behind a pair of
shades, retorted.
"If you ask me, she's run away for good," Marvin called out.
Perry spun on his heels and stomped off between the racks. His
retreating figure carried with it an air of the ridiculous. He wore the
threadbare remains of what had once been a splendid suit; and he had
run outside without first pulling on his trousers. His bony legs were
white and hairy, his black dress socks sagged beneath his ankles.
Marvin laughed to himself. The shadowed recesses of the metal
cavern echoed as Perry took out his frustration on the stoic columns of
machinery. Auxiliary lines cut in automatically, bypassing the damaged
circuits. A few shafts flickered and died.
Countless generations had abused the corridors and their
contents. Doubtless many more would. Perhaps they had a right to.
After all, it was man himself who, ever increasing the number of his
species, filled the universe with a latticework of metal tunnels; fenced
in the stars and harnessed their power to feed the inhabitants of
billions upon billions of tiny apartments all bursting with happy,
productive people. Or so the story went. The one Marvin had read once
in a book. Today nobody really knew anything about life before the War.
During the dim centuries since that cataclysm the ancients' only legacy
had become the metal catacombs; glowing with the feeble
incandescence of emergency power.
"Ouch! I cut my foot," Perry whined. He hobbled out from behind a
rack, his sock torn and dripping blood.
Elsa glanced at him contemptuously, tossed back her hair, and
strode over to the beam that held Marvin and Flaherty above the deep
pond.
"Let's get out of here," Elsa said to Marvin. "If Perry's little
squeeze finds her way back to the city she'll lead the cops straight to
this lake."
"Perry," Marvin called. "Let's get going."
"Can't," Perry said. "Harrigan and Frankie are still off somewhere
frigging."
"Fags," Flaherty scoffed.
"We'd better find 'em, then," Marvin said. "I'd rather see those two
die from AIDS than from the electric chair."
Ten minutes later Frankie and Harrigan were led stumbling out of
a nook between the racks. Harrigan was clumsily divesting himself of
the bondage gear which had restrained his six foot figure while Frankie,
still playing, nipped the man's ankles with a riding crop.
"You've got a semen stain on your pants," Elsa remarked to
Harrigan.
"Is that out of fashion, dearie?" Harrigan asked Elsa. His voice
was deceptively deep for a homosexual. But it matched his bald pate,
puffy cheeks, and gap-toothed smile. Harrigan was always smiling, in a
stupid sort of way, his eyes squinting behind his smeared, circular,
gold-rimmed spectacles.
Marvin grinned at Harrigan. "You think you could loan that get-up
to Elsa this evening?"
"No way," Elsa said.
"Can't lend it," Frankie piped up. "Harrigan's been powerfully
naughty and I must punish him all night tonight." Frankie was quite
forward for his size. A dwarf, he stood only three and a half feet tall,
and the oversized red wool ski cap atop his head only emphasized his
childlike aspect. The sleeves of his pullover sweater were rolled up to
the elbow of the fabric, but Frankie's fingers barely managed to clear
the cuff.
Frankie continued to cavort about Harrigan as the man seated
himself behind the wheel of the van and started the engine, wrapping a
cord around Harrigan's thick neck in a playful attempt to strangle him.
Marvin sat nonchalantly in the seat beside Harrigan. He gazed through
the cracked windshield at the chromium walls that snaked away into
eternal twilight. Behind him Perry was quoting to Elsa from St.
Jerome. Flaherty popped open a can of beer and gulped down its
contents as he rummaged through a set of makeshift wooden cabinets
for a snack.
C O M I C U P D A T E N E W S
presented by holy joe
WILSON THE BUM
There are three types of homeless people in this world. There is
the Hobo, which is a migratory worker. Then there is the Tramp, which
is a migratory non-worker. Finally, there is the Bum, which is a non-
migratory non-worker. This I learned recently from my researches at
the Phenix City library. Learning this, I decided to investigate certain
personalities of the small press, to see which category they fit into
(and to justify peeking into Carol Horny's window!)
Rick Howe Ñ a Hobo. Migrating from South Carolina to Columbus,
with plans to move on to Sacramento, but working at McDonald's.
John Jones Ñ a Tramp. Migrating from Philly to a trailer park in
Phenix City, never gainfully employed (except by the government), and
always one step ahead of the law due to his "art" photos.
p.d. Wilson Ñ a Bum. Never going anyplace, and never working
either. (I think he accidentally wired himself to his junkyard computer
and can't get loose, but that's no excuse.)
Carol Horny Ñ Welfare Queen, and purveyor of living room
performance art porno shows, which she doesn't know has a nationwide
audience, thanks to my VHS Handicam.
A. Holer Ñ I was going to list this AOL a-hole as a Bum, but
recently he threw away all his Penthouses and became gainfully
employed! (As the Regional Coordinator of the Boy Love Society.)
NOTE: The premier issue of Comic Update is posted on
alt.comics.alternative. It is the issue for May 10th. It consists of
three parts: COMIC UPDATE (Part One), COMIC UPDATE (PART TWO), and
COMIC UPDATE (PART THREE OF THREE).
ROLLER PUBLICATIONS Founded 1972. Continuously publishing since
1986. Send a stamped, self-addressed return envelope (preferably a
greeting card-type envelope) to us for the latest FREE hardcopy issues.
(Including material never seen on the Internet!)
Or send $1.00 cash and we will supply the envelope. Order from:
Jim Corrigan, P.O. Box 3663, Phenix City, AL 36868.
Send comix, news, letters, and poems to Jim Corrigan.
Our titles:
COMIC UPDATE The latest small press comix news and reviews.
NAUGHTY NAKED DREAMGIRLS Sex kittens in compromising
positions. (Include an age statement-18 or over.)
DREAMGIRLS WITH SHAMAN America's most popular poetry zine.
ALL poets are urged to contribute frequently!
THE ORATOR Militant views by misguided mortals.
END OF TRANSMISSION
Subj: Comic Update, May 11, 1995 (Matt Feazell, Wilson the Bum)