A Couple Of Comics I Bought At MoCCA That I Finally Read

I’m finally getting a bit of a chance to sit down with the haul from MoCCA and really dive into things. Funnily enough, the first thing I grabbed was actually something that debuted at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, not at the show. 5 is a sort-of-jam comic by Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Rafael Grampa, and Vasilis Lolos where these indie artists all tell fanciful stories about each other. Ba, for instance, gives us a version of Becky Cloonan that’s released from prison and is adjusting to life outside while Lolos shows Grampa fighting evil with the power of comics. It’s a well-produced object, with a gorgeous wraparound cover and a paper stock that lets the high-contrast black and white art these creators revel in shine. It’s $4.50 on Khepri, or look for Cloonan and pals at San Diego this year, as they should have some left.

The first four issues of Elijah Brubaker’s Reich are sublime examples of the biographical comic. There’s a minimal amount of presentation here: Brubaker’s sure enough to let his material do the talking with footnotes at the end providing context when it’s needed, and I admire his ability to have Reich’s erratic, obsessive nature just be without any real explanation. The distorted, cartoonish figures with their huge heads atop disproportionate bodies are an artistic tic that many can’t pull off, but Brubaker manages it with great aplomb, with excellent architectural and background details selling the world as a whole. You can order the issues from Sparkplug books, or look for them at the San Diego Comic-Con as well.