Reviews: Bunny Blues: Leaves and Air Ghost Illustrated

Bob Corby is the creator and organizer of the Small Press and Alternative Comics Exposition (SPACE Con).  He is also an accomplished writer and artist of small press comics himself.  If you haven’t read Bob’s Bunny Blues comics, you should.  If you’ve ever been to SPACE or exhibited there and haven’t read Bob’s stuff you REALLY REALLY need to!!  Today I’m going to review Bob’s Bunny Blues: Leaves series because I recently reread it and I think it’s about time I write a lengthy review of his work!

Mike Blues is a rabbit, thus the title of the book.  The characters in this comic are all anthropomorphic animals.  Though this isn’t really a funny animal book.  It is funny, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t funny like Disney or Spongebob or some such. It’s funny because Mike is such a loser.  Mike is a Private Investigator with no money, no work, and no ability to tell the woman he loves, Kit Jones, that he’s crazy about her. By the ay, Kit is a cat.  Pretty cool, huh? Mike is such a loser that he’s easy to feel sorry for.  He’s one of those “sympathetic characters” I recently was blogging about (check the recent archives, you’ll see what I mean).  In fact, he’s such a loser he might even be more of a “pathetic character”.  Either way, he’s very entertaining to watch.

The main plot of the series is Mike taking a job helping Kit travel across country looking for places to sing as she reconnects with her musical roots.  While doing so Mike desperately wants to connect with Kit, but things always go wrong somehow.  To help him along the way, Mike has his friend Marcel (a penguin) who is Kit’s manager, but he’s not much help.  For real sage advice Mike turns to a dust bunny named D.B., who may or may not be real.  (If talking animals are real, can dust bunnies also be real?)  D.B. (wonder what that stands for?) mostly tries to convince Mike to talk more to Kit.

My favorite little bits in the story are when Mike runs off the road and walks to the nearest gas station with Kit and when they meet an old nemesis of Mike’s who hits on Kit pretty strongly.  There’s some excellent artwork, in particular the scenic views during the road trip, and some extra including short stories and artwork by some other small press artists.

Bunny Blues: Leaves can be purchased at Bob’s website: http://backporchcomics.com/ along with a bunch of other comics of Bob’s such as Vugs and OH, Comics!

I have one more comic to review this week: Air Ghost Illustrated by Jim Gullett.  Air Ghost Illustrated continues the story of Ziff begun in Candy or Medicine #16.  In this chapter, a Lizard named Komodo who is mad at Ziff because Ziff killed their mutual employer captures Ziff. Ziff uses his brains to get the best of Komodo…maybe.  The art is in Jim’s style of using lots of lines and textures.  The pictures are clear, however, and the action easy to follow.  It’s a neat rendering style, except I’d like technology (in this case, guns) to be a bit more defined.  There are also some sketches and a short backup feature called Gilai.  Jim can be found at his blog: http://jimgullett.blogspot.com/

That’s it for today, though I would like to remind readers about my webcomic, Mutant Elf, which will soon reach the conclusion of the first story arc!