Archive for the 'top ten' Category

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Weekly Top 10

Published on February 28, 2012 0 Comments

1. The Chicagoan #1 $19.95 – The Chicagoan ressurects a long defunct jazz-age magazine and focuses in on non-profit production, local distribution and general excellence in writing and design.

2. Inside Pee-Wees Playhouse: The Untold Unauthorized and Unpredictable Story of a Pop Phenemenon by Caseen Gaines (ECW) $19.95 – Thanks to everybody that came out to this event this past Friday. We were told Large Marge sent them. The word of the day was AWESOME.

3. Notes For A Peoples Atlas: People Making Maps of Their Cities (AREA Chicago) $8.00

4. Truckface #15 $3.00 – Third year teaching high school English for CPS starts with LB hacking up a foreboding bloody clotball snotball. Truckface continues to be an annual report of both teaching and being taught- moving through all the drama, anger, goofiness and apathy and learning how to learn from it all. -EF

5. Mono Kultur #30 Win 11/12: Chris Ware a Sense of Thereness -  Well, yes…..Surprising, compelling interview zine import with Mr. Ware. 24p, red and black ink, color cover, 6″x8″

6. Gangsta Rap Posse #2 by Benjamin Marra (Traditional Comics) – You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.

7. Chameleon #2 by Jesse Balmer and Jonny Negron $10.00 – Rage exercises and messy ends. Jesse Balmer gives us a dirty line to feline mind control, Jon Boam does a room study that reminds me of Luke Ramsey’s Islands’ Fold books, Patrick Kyle sends us to the trollverse and keeps us there, Uno Moralez keeps it pixelatin’, Roman Muradov works some stylish melancholy into his piece on sheltering umbrellas- it reminds me a little of Laura Park’s work for Mome- Jonny Negron drafts a great, gritty street fight and Zejian Shen takes the cake with a nocturnal mission – her drawing of a pool of virgin blood is maybe my favorite thing in this book that’s already all-thriller, no-filler. Look straight into these eyes, kiddies. -EF

8. Hark a Vagrant by Kate Beaton (D&Q) $19.95

9. Bust Feb Mar 12 $5.99

10. Giant Robot #65 $4.99

Weekly Top 10

Published on February 14, 2012 0 Comments

1. Soup and Bread Cookbook: Building Community One Pot at a Time $20.95 – Thanks to everybody that came out for the event for this wonderful Soup and Bread Cookbook, compiled by Martha Bayne from the Hideout’s weekly winter soup nights of the same name.

2. Kramers Ergot #8 ed. by Sammy Harkham and Dan Nadel (Picturebox) $32.95 – This latest Kramer’s anthology feels a little bit like cocaine and a reptile tank. The contemporary comics contributions are bookended by Robert Beatty’s retro-digital airbrush wizardry and bisected by higloss cgi still lives by Takeshi Murata. Then there’s a mouthwash Preface by Ian Svenonius’ space cowboy essay “Notes On Camp, Part 2″. Followed by some great cartoonists paring it down and playing it cinematic and cool – CF’s Hunger-ish scenario, Harkham’s Kubrick’s cube, Ben Jones gives us a long yarn in a dental floss line, Frank Santoro and Dash Shaw do a foggy bit about sexual predator entrapment hued in Cold Heat pervert-purples. Johnny Ryan delivers a space carnage ramble, Chris Cilla does some smut with David Heatly flavor overtones. Tim Hensley does Svenonius’ essay one better in a single panel National Lampoon sort of gag. Despite a icy hands-off feel to much of book there’s still a pulpy heart beating here-Gabrielle Bell nails down something sinister in pastel California colors. Leon Sadler is at the best I’ve ever seen him here – grungy characters in a feral bizarro smurfville. I may be biased, but I’m especially partial to the converging and diverging paralell multiverses of Anya Davidson’s brutal “Barbarian Bitch” which I think acts as a great counterweight to the book’s closer, a 40-page reprint of Penthouse’s “Wicked Wanda” that’s a (yes) campy  combo like if you remade “The Mouse That Roared” with the plotline of Hothead Paisan. -EF

3. Monocle vol 5 #50 Feb 12 $10.00

4. Adbusters Mar Apr 12 #100 vol 20 #2 $8.95

5. Juxtapoz #134 Mar 12 $5.99

6. Dazed & Confused vol 3 #6 Feb 12 $9.99

7. Mono Kultur #30 Win 11 12 Chris Ware: A Sense of Thereness $15.00 – Well, yes…..Surprising, compelling interview zine import with Mr. Ware.

8. Raw Deal #13 – Formerly “Loitering Is Good”, “Raw Deal” picks up in the West Oakland trainyards, an ode to California’s sun-drenched post-industrial shitscape. Partially about acclaimating to a job as a rookie brakeman for the Southern Pacific Rail, RD#13 incoroporates plenty of curmudgeonly appreciation for the yards’ old-timers and lots of salty anectdotes of train history. With a palpable sense of love-hate for West Coast wastelands, the segway gets made to the obsessive neccessity of punk botany. Like a beligerent Johnny Bad Appleseed, the heart of this issue is an account of cultivating rare trees, seed smuggling, survival and botanical accountability, renegade urban improvement, and the deep feeling of connection once you set your sights on an ecosystem as the big picture. Written with a ton of passion and a little swagger, it’s a little similar to Erick “Iggy Scam” Lyle’s personal-is-political-is-punk writing, totally badass and hungry to get at the core of it. Best two bucks yer going to spend all day.  -EF

9. Bikenomics How Bicycling Will Save the Economy if We Let It by Elly Blue $5.50

10. Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek by Joshua Chapman $1.00 – I mean, why stop with Season One, right? -EF

Weekly Top 10

Published on January 31, 2012 0 Comments

1. The Point #5 Spr 12 Symposium: What is the Left For $12.00 – Chicago-based philosphy/criticism/literary journal.

2. 1-800-MICE by Matthew Thurber (Picturebox) $22.95 – 1-800-MICE is Matthew Thurber’s comic book anthropological study of the imaginary city of Volcano Park: a cross between Thomas Pynchon, Robert Altman and J.R.R. Tolkien. Over the course of the story we meet Peace Punk, a punker on the verge of a bourgeois lifestyle; Tom Chief, a beat cop with an identity crisis; and Groomfiend, a daffy creature who leads the narrative. The serial has earned Thurber rave reviews from, among others, cartoonist Ben Katchor, who writes: “Matthew Thurber has singlehandedly revived the Surrealist program of revolutionary politics through dreamwork. What more can you ask for in a comic-book?” This edition collects five issues of 1-800-MICE, plus 48 pages of new material.

3. Hi Fructose #22 $6.95 – For lovers of Juxtapoz.

4. 1Q84 HC by Haruki Murakami (Knopf) $30.50 – The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.”

5. King Cat #72 by John Porcellino $3.00 – Porcellino feels out the fall apart as life unravels…and unravels some more….the first half of this issue travels through some solitudes and stillnesses. An LSD story rustles the banches a little and punctuates a South Beloit diary. Also squirrely letters and bat dancers. Understated, quietly eloquent comics… but you already knew that, right? -EF

6. My Aim Is True #4 by Carrie $1.00 – Winter reviews and recipes, talking about loving yrself and fat femininity, sex toy stories, cursive typewriter cut-n-paste school.

7. Remedy Quarterly #7 Heritage $7.50 – Inside you’ll find an interview with Patrick Martins from Heritage Foods USA (and Heritage Radio Network and the new Heritage Meat Shop) that will leave you inspired. Allison Kave of First Prize Pies fame shares her recipe for Bourbon Ginger Pecan Pie (yup, you read it right) and a story about finding inspiration in your kitchen, Erin Wengrovius whipped up a lovely illustrated recipe for us, and Zara Gonzalez Hoang gives us a peek into her Puerto Rican Christmas. Plus you’ll find even more stories, recipes, and tips inside.

8. The Femicide Machine (Semiotexte intervention ) by Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez (Semiotexte) $12.95 – “In Ciudad Juárez, a territorial power normalized barbarism. This anomolous ecology mutated into a femicide machine: an apparatus that didn’t just create the conditions for the murders of dozens of women and little girls, but developed the institutions that guaranteed impunity for those crimes and even legalized them. A lawless city sponsored by a state in crisis. The facts speak for themselves.” This title is Semiotext(e) Intervention Series #11.

9. Handbook vol 6 #1 2012 by by Darren Ankenbauer $6.00 – Another meaty issue of this cock-fueled nouveau physique rag. -EF

10. Maximumrocknroll #345 Feb 2012 $4.00

Weekly Top 10

Published on January 25, 2012 0 Comments

1. Femme a Barbe vol 2 by by J. Bee $2.00 – True tangles of bearded ladies, gender reformations, hirsute identity and all permutations of feminine stubble, well worth a thorough comb-through. -EF

2. King Cat #72 by John Porcellino $3.00 – Porcellino feels out the fall apart as life unravels…and unravels some more….the first half of this issue travels through some solitudes and stillnesses. An LSD story rustles the banches a little and punctuates a South Beloit diary. Also squirrely letters and bat dancers. Understated, quietly eloquent comics… but you already knew that, right? -EF

3. Monkey In the Basement and Other Delusions by Corinne Mucha (Retrofit) $5.00 – Mucha’s got this special brand of world-enhancing “deductive reasoning” paired with an uncanny untuition – part clown, part private eye, thoroughly entertaining. -EF

4. Gary Book 2 by Tyrell Cannon $7.00

5. Maximumrocknroll #345 Feb 12 $4.00

6. Food Stamp Foodie #1 A Mini Zine of Inexpensive Vegan Cookery by Virginia $2.00

7. Truckface #15 by LB $3.00

8. Bitch #53 $5.95

9. Mojo #219 Feb 12 $9.99

10. Grantland Quarterly vol 1 $25.00 – Grantland #1 is the McSweeney’s launch of a physical sports magazine geared for folks who like multiform sports, McSweeney’s writers and blogs you can hold. You know who you are. -EF

Weekly Top 10

Published on January 17, 2012 0 Comments

1. Bizarre #184 Feb 12 $10.50 – A magazine I simultaneously have to look at but can’t.

2. Shit I Didnt Tell You #1 by Lynne $1.50 – Compelling footnotes to various friends and relations, “Shit I Didn’t Tell You” is exactly that. It’s a nice checkup about sorting out how feelings get felt and life gets lived. -EF

3. Exxxtinction by Sy Loady $3.00 – Fuckasoreass Triceratopz.

4.   Show Me The Money #36 $2.50

5.   Hi Fructose #22 $6.95

6.   Mojo #219 Feb 12 $9.99

7.   Truckface #15 by LB $3.00 – Third year teaching high school English for CPS starts with LB hacking up a foreboding bloody clotball snotball. Truckface continues to be an annual report of both teaching and being taught- moving through all the drama, anger, goofiness and apathy and learning how to learn from it all. -EF

8.   More Pictures About Feminism by Brad Troemel $10.00

9.   Judas Goat Quarterly #51 by Grant Schreiber $1.50

10. Study Group Magazine #1 win 12 (Study Group Books) – I imagine the rousing success of last year’s fantastic Study Group 12 anthology (#4) has spurred Study Group Magazine into existence. Like Austin English’s Windy Corner before it, SGM #1 is a full-up ideosyncratic combo platter of comics, interviews and examinations. Articles on Eleanor Davis, Brecht Evens and Craig Thompson and a hearty sampling of comics and illustration from Jennifer Parks, Daria Tessler, Aidan Koch, David King, Malachi Ward, Chris Cilla, T Alixopulos, Zack Soto, Jonny Negron and Michael DeForge. Amen. -EF