Allston resident Karl Stevens went and got himself a Xeric grant a little while back and used it to focus his efforts on Guilty, a slice-of-life comic that ably explores the awkwardness of seeing someone from your recent past with whom you had one of those breakups that was more effort than the relationship deserved. There's no real plot here, but with a work like this, the presentation is what matters, not the actual content1 and what we've got here is the first "real" work from somebody who could, with a bit of effort, find himself in the company of guys like Dan Clowes and Adrian Tomine.The gorgeous black and white art, taken from photos of models and friends, is at first fairly disconcerting. When I look at this work, my eye wanders to the small details that Stevens captures perfectly and I ended up with pacing issues for the first few pages until I came up with a way to view the page that worked for me: start off holistically taking in the entire thing, then go panel by panel, so I had the timing worked out in my head.
Stevens seems to have taken the dialogue directly from actual conversations because it's all there; the strange half-sentences and the not-quite declarative statements that people are fond of using keep you amused because hell, it's voyeuristic and there's a tiny thrill you get from seeing people being themselves. Hell, even the thought balloons reflect a natural approach that's light-years ahead of his apparent experience and I'd love to see more people manage to pull off what he's doing so well in this book.
A few minor quibbles are there: the title of the book should be on the spine or on the cover, even if the art is distinctive and will pull people towards it. Sorry to be pedantic, but it's true - selling a book by name is hard when the name isn't on the damn thing. There's also a fair number of proofreading errors that should have been corrected: misspelled words and an appalling abuse of apostrophes, for instance.
Still, this is an excellent start for someone I'm looking forward to hearing more from in the future. If you'd like your own copy of Guilty, you can send $9.95 + $2 for shipping and handling to:
Karl Stevens
20 Coolidge Rd #2
Allston, MA 02134
I'm not sure if it's still available through Diamond; look under Karl Stevens Publishing when you get a moment.
1I know this goes against my general instincts, but this is explicitly written and drawn to capture "real life," I'm going to discuss technique over story for once.
