Hell yes amazing new RISD/Providence talents. The awesomely off-register cover silk-screening yanked me halfway across the room, and the insides, when I got there, were just as good.

Providence has somehow developed this comic style all its own, all goopy scribbles and phantasmagoric scuzz, spawn of Fort Thunder and RISD artpunk. Not that this is Providence-only, but it's operating out of there, and the style totally comes through. Wrestling arachnids, geometric hair-scapes, lifetimes spent with a single facial expression, lots more stuff that gracefully navigates between abstraction and good (though often totally insane) narratives. Here're some sample pages I grabbed off of their site:


Allison Dubois. Just look at this wake-up sequence.



Tom Toye, with a story that starts almost normal compared to his own Illogical Comics. But then, yeah, wrestling arachnids spawned somehow by a space VCR. Or something. It's pretty great and makes just enough sense to be really crazy as opposed to sheer nonsense.

Actually, I think JUST ENOUGH SENSE TO BE CRAZY would be a good tagline for most of this.


KJ Martinet's wind-blown surrealism.


Tim Beckhardt, who turned out my favorite comic and is a quality animator. (My own crappy scan cause the site is broke.)


Zejian Shen, who edited this, and who I'd previously only known from our own Fake Heads Two compilation.


Victo Ngai's roller-coaster of existence.

And a bunch of other equally good material. Definitely my favorite find of this year's MoCCA. Watch out for all these people.