Walk

by Paul Tucker

When you grow up in a place, and stay there for any length of time, you begin to have all sorts of associations and random memories of it.

In Walk, a comic self-published by Paul Tucker, who is currently killing it on Black Mask's Nobody Is In Control, he goes for a 4.4 kilometre walk from his house in St. John's Newfoundland to the comic story and back.

Each page shows a different memory or small story set on a different street.  Along the way, we get a sense of how St. John's has changed over the years (an old hockey arena is now a grocery store, something that has happened here in Toronto too), but also how it stays grounded in its sense of place.

I love work like this, which is both accessible and incredibly personal.  Tucker's art conveys a deep love for the city.

Tet

Written by Paul Allor
Art by Paul Tucker

I'd thought about getting Tet when it was first published by IDW as a miniseries, because I'm a big fan of stories set during the Vietnam War, but held off because the creators, Pauls Allor and Tucker were unknown to me.  Recently, Tucker started working on the Black Mask series Nobody Is In Control, and I was intrigued by his Paul Azaceta/Tommy Lee Edwards-like art.

When I saw him at TCAF this year, I figured it was time to finally get my hands on this story. It is the story of an American lieutenant who fell in love with a Vietnamese woman while he was stationed in Huê City.  He was partnered with a Vietnamese detective when a friend of his was killed, but their investigation was cut short by the Tet Offensive.

From there, the story picks up in 1984, where we see that Eugene, who was injured badly, never got past what went down.  He ended up losing his girl, but when he receives word that Báo, the cop he worked with, has finally tracked down someone who knows what happened to his friend, he returns.

This is a dark and moving story, that is told very well.  Tucker's thick lines add real weight to things, as we get to know these characters, and understand how war wrecks just about everything it touches.  I recommend this book.

Sobek

by James Stokoe

It's been way too long since we've seen James Stokoe do his thing.  Sure, there was that great Aliens four-parter he did last year, but there's something that makes a creator-owned book a little more special.

Sobek is a one-off comic, with a gold foil cover, that centres on the Egyptian crocodile god.  A boat piloted by three acolytes travels to Sobek's home to let him know that denizens of Set have invaded his temple and are causing problems for his worshippers.  Sobek sets out to address the issue, in his own time and fashion.

As a Stokoe comic, the story becomes secondary to the insanely detailed artwork.  This is a beautiful comic, full of humour and lush colours.  It's a quick and fun story, and I'm glad I was able to pick it up.  Personally, I wish Orc Stain would get finished one day, but I'm also always going to be happy to get a comic like this from Stokoe.  It's worth searching for.

The Pitiful Human-Lizard: Some Heart Left

by Jason Loo

I've been a fan of Jason Loo's Pitiful Human-Lizard since I first sampled it at TCAF four years ago, buying the two issues on offer at that time.  I immediately fell in love with the way Loo portrays Toronto in his comics, and also enjoyed his everyman approach to superheroics.

Lucas has been doing his best to become a hero for our city, despite the fact that he's not really all that good at it.  Loo built a large ensemble cast for this series, including other heroes, villains, and some unique people who became a part of Lucas's life and world.  The book started as a self-published venture, and then got picked up and reprinted by Chapterhouse Comics, before that company apparently went into hiatus.

Now, at this year's TCAF, Loo debuted Some Heart Left, the final Pitiful Human-Lizard comic.  I think there were some digital comics released after Chapterhouse stopped publishing physical ones (I'm still holding out hope for a trade), but really, this is the first that I've seen Lucas and friends in a while.

This self-published comic is mostly made up of short strips of one page or so, which check in on Lucas and some of the other regulars, showing us what's up with them.  Lucas is working for "Food Dash", delivering takeout on his bicycle, and is finding that the costumed business is not as satisfying as it used to be.  His father is starting to decline, and he is not seeing a lot of his friend Kenneth, the Majestic Rat, so much.  Mother Wonder is still off in space.

In a lot of ways, this goodbye to these characters is a sad affair.  It feels like everyone is moving forward except for Lucas, who is a little sadder than normal because his optimism makes him feel a little clueless.  At the same time, this book has a number of high points, such as Lucas facing his fear of heights.

Perhaps my favourite part of this book comes in the form of a folded page tucked into the middle, which shows Lucas visiting Kim's Convenience, a local corner store that is the set of a sitcom on TV (and Netflix).  Loo captures those characters beautifully.

I'm going to miss seeing more Pitiful Human-Lizard, but look forward to seeing where Loo goes next with his career.  It's guaranteed that I'll be buying his next work.

Pope Hats #6

by Hartley Lin

Pope Hats is one of those books that I most associate with TCAF, the Toronto Comics Arts Festival, as I think I've bought every issue so far at the festival.  Much of Pope Hats's previous issues were recently collected in the graphic novel Young Frances, and the book's creator, recently did away with his pen name, Ethan Rilly, and embraced his own name, Hartley Lin.

This latest issue is a departure from previous ones.  This issue is much more autobiographical, as Lin muses on becoming a father, moving, finding his relationships with old friends changing, and generally moving into a new stage of his life.

Lin is Canada's Adrian Tomine, and his stories share a similar insight into humanity.  This issue's shorter strips don't allow the space to really dig into and explore any one topic, but the overall effect of reading this issue forms a gestalt image of where Lin is in life.

This was another solid issue in this series.

Ginseng Roots #1

by Craig Thompson

Craig Thompson, best known for his blockbuster graphic novels Blankets and Habibi, has returned with a serialized comic book called Ginseng Roots, which is about his childhood growing up in Marathon Wisconsin, the one-time centre of American ginseng production.

As a kid, Craig and his brother Phil worked through the summers alongside their mother, picking weeds and caring for ginseng plants on large farms that specialized in the delicate and lucrative root.  As we learn about how this labor shaped him, we also learn a great deal about the root itself, its needs, and some of the folklore and history that surrounds it.  We also see how the Thompson boys' love of comic books helped motivate them to work in difficult conditions (they calculate their wages in number of comics they can buy per hour).

This is a very solid piece of work, beautifully illustrated and coloured in grey tones with red highlights.  The book itself is printed on newsprint, giving it a real old-school feel, but is also beautifully drawn.

This series is expected to last for twelve issues, which is interesting to me because this first one feels so complete.  I'm not sure where Thompson intends to go with this from here, but I can see a wealth of potential, considering how unique the ginseng industry was (and probably still is), with its difficult manual labour, its great potential to create millionaire farmers, and the intricacies of interacting with a largely Asian market in 1980s middle America.

I like that this book is going to be serialized, and while that is going to make it more expensive than a one-off graphic novel would be (despite what the photo says, this issue's cover price is $5), it will make the individual issues something to be treasured.