INDIE SPOTLIGHT: 40 OZ. COLLECTED REVIEW

[Alex Groff]

<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/covers/ind/40oz.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/covers/ind/40ozt.jpg" align=left alt="INDIE SPOTLIGHT: 40 OZ. COLLECTED REVIEW"></a>Reviewer: Alex groff, al_groff@yahoo.com
Quick Rating: Good
Format: Minicomics, collected.


Jim Mahfood is the minicomics king of funk


Creator: Jim Mahfood
Design and Front/Back Cover Colors: Jack Gray
Publisher: Jim Valentino for Image Comics


Without the name Jim Mahfood attached, one would wonder who at Image was doped up enough to approve this book. Don't get me wrong, I hit the small press expo every year to check out the mini-comics and meet the creators; however, putting together a mini-comic trade paperback is akin to publishing a deluxe hardcover of your sixth grade son's refrigerator art. Mini-comics are personal works that act like small conversations between close friends. I look forward to the day that I can trade my mini-comic for yours, because that's what they're meant to be. They're imperfect in a way that works for friends and conversations, and doesn't always work for comic book collections.

Enter Jim Mahfood.

Jim Mahfood is the king of funk, at least in comics. His Generation X Underground Special shows his love for irreverent youth and music. His two Grrl Scouts miniseries show his love for urban culture, pointless violence and music. His series, Stupid Comics, shows his love/hate relationship with pop culture and his love for music. Throw all of this together and you have 40 Oz. Collected: a book about fun and love. And music. The book is rough around the edges, as all minicomics are, but there's an energy that drives the book, an enthusiasm that lets you ignore any flaws.

Unlike most books, which follow a specific cast, 40 Oz. Collected shows Mahfood exploring genres and styles. There are two stories about a trio of dealers who we all know as the Grrl Scouts, which I think any Mahfood fan would expect. However, there are also two stories about a pseudo-superhero named Rocket Boy, and half a dozen stories about the undead hero, Zombie Kid. Now, when I hear the name "Zombie Kid," I normally run the other way. However, what we have here is something that is campy and fun— like watching Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness or Rupert Everett in Cemetery Man. These are not so much superhero stories as the writer playing with genre cliches. This is a Mahfood standards. Even the everyday life stories— which includes a tale of two friends searching the city for the kind bud— are filled with absurd characterizations and over the top action.

And, of course, Smoke Dog.

Artwise, there's hasn't been a great deal of change between these mini-comics from the beginning of his career and the recent Grrl Scouts. His influences are a little more obvious, in that I could picture Chris Bachelo drawing the first Zombie Kid story, and his work has simplified (compare his self-portraits at the beginning of the book to those at the end and you can see the difference). Otherwise? Mahfood has always been the master of line weight, and this book is just another example of his talent.

Even with all of this, I was up in the air about 40 Oz. Collected. Not because it's a bad book, but because my tastes are a little more formal. You don't give a James Joyce fan James Brown and say, "Have fun," which is a bit how I feel. It's a good book that I just have a hard time getting into because it's much more scattered than Grrl Scouts or even Stupid Comics. The other item that infuriates me is this obsession with reducing tpbs so that they are half the size of regular comics. I don't blame Image— it seems to be a growing trend with publishers, with Oni shrinking even further and Marvel offering the Tsunami titles in digest size— but the art is designed to be a certain size, and it gets muddled and confused when its shrunk. This is true for Blue Monday, it will be true for Runaways, and it's true here. If you want smaller books, move the panels around and add more pages. Shrinking panels is like making a radio edit of a song: rushed, awkward, and hard to appreciate.

What finally won me over? Well, the Smoke Dog stories and the final, autobiographical story about how Mahfood got into comics definitely helped. But the real winner here was the huge number of pin-ups and advertisements that Mahfood and co. drew. These are not the kind that you pull out and put on your wall, but they do make you stop and look at them, and maybe even mutter— man, Food One is just brilliant. The adverts are for past signings, other books, musicians he works with like Art Thugs— and like the pin-ups, they show Mahfood showing off his knack for drawing. Really, there's something for everyone here. If you've never read Mahfood before, I wouldn't start here because of its disjointed nature— give Grrl Scouts a try first— but any fan of minicomics of Jim Mahfood should give this a look.

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Disclaimer: Certain words in these images have been bleeped out in respect to ComiX-Fan's all-ages policy.
The publication itself does NOT censor expletives in its creative capacity.</center>



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[BoomBot]

I picked this up too and was slightly disappointed. I love his artwork and Stupid Comics is pretty good but you described this pretty well and my feelings about it. On the format, it worked with this book and does with certain collections like this. Books like New X-Men need that epic feel that TPBs or HCs give while digest-size is right for Runaways.

[devin]

Originally posted by Alex Groff
putting together a mini-comic trade paperback is akin to publishing a deluxe hardcover of your sixth grade son's refrigerator art.

Except that 40 oz collected contains at least 4 stories that have been professionally printed (two are listed here, on the table of contents of 40 oz Comics #4.

I wish everyone loved mini comics as much as James Sime (see Comics Kill Nazis and Going Big for the Mini). I love this quote from Sime, "[Mini comics] strip the medium down to its bare bones and expose raw talent and the bleeding edge of comics innovation". I just wish that mini comics were easier to get a hold of. This tpb contains 5 cover pages that each say $3. I do not have to go to a convention to buy it . This makes me think that a mini comics collection is a great thing.

Also posted by Alex Groff
The other item that infuriates me is this obsession with reducing tpbs so that they are half the size of regular comics. I don't blame Image— it seems to be a growing trend with publishers, with Oni shrinking even further and Marvel offering the Tsunami titles in digest size— but the art is designed to be a certain size, and it gets muddled and confused when its shrunk. This is true for Blue Monday, it will be true for Runaways, and it's true here. If you want smaller books, move the panels around and add more pages. Shrinking panels is like making a radio edit of a song: rushed, awkward, and hard to appreciate.

I assumed that 40 oz Collected reprinted Mahfood's mini comics at their original size. The tpb measures 5 1/2" X 8", which is pretty close to an 8 1/2" X 11" piece of printer paper folded in half.
Moving panels around and adding more pages can upset the artist's page layout. I'd rather see the page in it's original composition, even if it's small. I didn't have a problem reading any of this tpb.