MoCCA Fest Pile 5.0

EGG is a great name for detective comics, especially "Hard-boiled Stories" like these. EGG #1 is a collaborative effort - all stories are written and colored by Eric Skillman, and drawn by various artists (a la Harvey Pekar). The comics range from three to eight pages each, each one a complete noir tale. It takes talent to develop characters and tell a tight story in a few pages, but EGG has no clunkers. I'd gladly order another serving of EGG.

Illustration below from "Below the Fold", written by Eric Skillman and drawn by Jorge Coelho.

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Peter Quach also employs lean, economical storytelling in the first issue of TRANSIT. He has a great, clean style that really captures NYC, especially the subways. It's also interesting how he grays out the art for flashbacks. Peter is kind enough to offer TRANSIT in entirety for free on his site. Hopefully this will become a multi-issue series.

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THE GOOD CATHOLIC #2 is a collection by Matthew Young, a student (possibly alumnus by now) at the Center for Cartoon Studies. This issue contains three stories and a few "demos" (sketches, samples, etc.) By far my favorite is "Articles of Faith", the quest for the identity of an unknown song that just happens to play exactly when the lead character needs it the most.

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SPROCKET: GAPS IN FILM is an interesting hybrid of art and text, a guide to lost, unreleased movies that never actually existed. It's a well-written parody of film guides, and writer John Ira Thomas really knows his cinematic history. I am especially impressed at how he placed these non-existent films in the correct era. For example, "Dump, The Musical" was set for release in 1980, which was also the era of truly bad musical films like The Apple, Can't Stop the Music, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. "Quarters" was set for release in 1984, at the height of the teen sex comedy craze, but was shelved when the U.S. drinking age was raised to 21 that year. "Pericles" was an epic about the "great Athenain leader" and his plans for the city. Set for release in 1973, the actual buildings of Athens - e.g., the Acropolis - were to have speaking parts. In 1973, a film such as this could have actually been made.

The posters that accompany each of the essays fit perfect as well. Shown here are the posters for "The Questoleros" (a Goonies rip-off from 1987, art by Will Beard), and the particularly impressive "Dump, The Musical" (Art by Will Grant). (Click to enlarge for details.)

Carter Allen is also the creator of THE ADVENTURES OF NIKKI HARRIS, an action-packed, straightforward superhero comic, set on earth after the galactic war with the Voyd. (Info about both Sprockets and Nikki Harris can be found at the Candlelight Press site.)

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(See the mocca2009 tag for all reviews.)