Phonogram # 1; Punisher War Journal # 1; Angry Youth Comix # 12

Phonogram # 1
Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

I actually have issues 2-3, which I plan to read, and also review. But I was so excited by this book, that after reading the first issue I wanted to do a backflip into a moving vehicle at 120mph, before punching my own stunt double in the face. This book is that freaking fantastic.

The premise of Phonogram is basically that music is magic. Instead of lame dwarves and elves being draped over a story as the predominant mysticism, it's britpop, and Scout Niblett. It's a world where music casts spells on people. Where being on the list is a magical act. It's so fatsuck cantastic that honestly if you aren't bum rushing your local grocery store and demanding that loaves of bread be replaced by stacks of this book, then something is lacking in your human condition and you should seek high grade medical assistance immedietely.

This is the type of book Jesus would have read before he threw wine on the mobs of idiots outside his church. It just does something to you. You're like, "this book should have been written already, Grant Morrison should have already figured this one out". But it's Gillen and McKelvie, kids. And it's beautiful. Please please please be buying this. Even if you wait for the trade.

Punisher War Journal # 1
Matt Fraction- Ariel Olivetti

This is a Civil War book for right now, but that doesn't stop it from being a lot of fun on it's own right. Ennis's Punisher this ain't. Fraction's punisher owes more to Spider Jerusalem than he does the serious maniac from Garth's book. It's a pretty enjoyable book. The art is some weird balance between cartoony and realistic. It really looks neat.

Fraction has a complete ball with this book. It's Punisher as a running psycho-comic monologue. It's a book with a lot of promise. I don't think it will ever reach the lofty perches of Ennis run, but it might be a lot more enjoyable. It's got that hip self-awareness pop-culture lingo going on for it, which Fraction has somehow woven into the Punisher character very effectively--in that respect the aforementioned art is perfect, as it seems to easily bound between the cartoonish and the serious.

This book is definitely an exercise in the serious and the absurd. With a slight tilt to the absurd.

A book to keep an eye on. If you're not a punisher fan, this book might be for you.

Angry Youth Comix # 12
Johnny Ryan

This book is definitely not for the faint of humor. Think of the most offensive style of humor, the most perverse sick twisted ideas your sad sack mind can imagine, and then realize that you don't even come close to being in the ballpark of Mr. Ryan.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. It is refreshing to read humor that is edgy, without seeming to try to hard. This book reads almost stream of consciousness from someone who is just raging at the way society is. It's really a great book for the repressed liberal, even though most liberals might get very offended at it. It's a book so wrong, it's right.

There's a real sense of traction with this book that I think if someone else was trying to push these ideas, might come off a lot wrong. The Fantagraphic Books seal of approval helps a lot to get this book read in the proper context. Low the humor may seem, this is high art stuff.

If you're looking for something edgy and funny to read, definitely look for it. Johnny Ryan has two collections out of his work, I haven't read either, but I am very interested to give them a try, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone else doing so as well.