February 7, 2012

Why Chicks Cry: Teardrop City


(I have been both surprised and humbled by the attention "Why Chicks Cry" has received. It has been Facebooked, Twittered, even mentioned in Time Magazine. If you're late to the party, check out the original and also part two. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the third installment. Cheers!)

"They say that into every life a little rain must fall, especially if you are a female trapped in a romance comic. I never read romance comics much, and more's the pity, because I could have learned a lot about the fairer sex, such as what makes them cry. Turns out, pretty much anything..."


      
Romantic dinners 


Man-icures    


 Joggers and pigeons

 Bus rides

 Fine Corinthian Leather

Rotary dial finger cramps

 Inkwelled pigtails

 Just because

"Escalating" tensions

 Unclaimed garments

 Broken pencil points

 Bad poetry skills

 War and Peace

 Soap operas

 Dragon breath

 Swan fountains

 Really tall guys

 Picking the wrong plastic surgeon

 Eye forests

 Being sandwiched

 White weddings

 Slow mail days

 Hair tangles

 Chlorine

 Lazy chameleons

 Confused grooms

 Knick-Knacks

 Lousy DJs

 For good luck

 Going down

 Constellations

 Hair-lipped dogs

 Wet dreams

 Daylight Savings Time

 Calcium deficiencies

 Running water

 Moving pictures

 Stinky pits

 Improper handling techniques

 Splinters

 Catch-22s

 Jaywalkers

 Not having correct change

 Major epiphanies

 Repo men

 Marching bands

 Cricket Song

 Block parties

 Unhelpful trees

 Misfortune tellers

 Clarinet solos

 Chilly hands

 Montages

 Office politics

 Gaudy neckties

 Tiiiiny bubbles

Engine noises 

 Visiting the in-laws

 Having "man hands"

 Carpet stains

 Blowing the recital

 Two for one deals

 Doctor's orders

 Ring around the collar

 Getting stuck in the fridge...again

Happy endings


May 17, 2011

"It's Franz Kafka, Charlie Brown!"

Gregor Samsa has awoken with two problems. Not only has he somehow been transformed into a huge cockroach, but he has also been transported into the wacky world of Charles Schulz's Peanuts gang. This development comes courtesy of R. Sikoryak, a master of such world colliding.

I have not yet obtained a copy of Sikoryak's Masterpiece Comics book published by Drawn and Quarterly, but I soon will, and I think it's safe to recommend it to literary-minded comics fans, based on this excerpt first published in Raw Vol. 2, Issue 2 (1990) and another story I read in Drawn and Quarterly #4 (2001) in which the enterprising artist retells Arthur Miller's The Crucible using Little Lulu characters. Fascinating juxtapositions.

R. Sikoryak's website is here.