RETROFIT/BIG PLANET YEAH!! 'Eyelash Out' by Ben Sea
This humble blogger is extremely flattered by the big ol' stack of comics he got in the mail from Retrofit/Big Planet and he'll be featuring their books for much of the near future. I should take this time to mention to the 120 or so people who just started following me that you should submit your comics for review. First up, starting with the best of the bunch, although the whole bunch is honestly fantastic, we are going with 'Eyelash Out' by Ben Sea. Wotta humdinger!!
Ben Sea, who I think used to be Ben Constantine, is one of those guys like a Marc Bell or a Ron Rege who packs his worlds with line up on line, splotch upon splotch, hatch upon hatch of all sorts of things you or I know nothing about yet it all obviously makes a whole lotta sense to him. Little cloud creatures, tears, mountains, trees, faces with legs, black blobby starburst things; it never stops. I have his collected 'Plump Oyster' comics and I've been reading the book at about a rate of one page a day, I don't want to miss anything. Lets talk about this here page here:
This is the first page of the book and shit is starting out hot and heavy. When you start a book with 'OUTTA MY WAY, I SEE SOMETHING I WANT!' everyone knows shit is real serious and we've got to really pay attention because its gonna be intense. Now lets look at what's happening. He's running. Hes crying. He's got some of those 'looking/suprise' boinky slashes coming out of his left eye. His head is bandaged, what happened there? There are some squiggle cloud creatures hanging out, one has an orbital ring. Do they really exist? Are they splotches that no one can see? No, they exist. We know this because this little fellah conks one with his left arm and the poor guy is getting the wind knocked out of him! Look at his feet. Is he slipping on something? Or does water just come out of the soles of his feet? The bottom of the page: a cloud creature is heading into some inky void, possibly another dimension; this might be the start of a great adventure for that thing.
We did this shoot in a hot tub, thought it would be fun, no comics were harmed. Anyways, when I look at a Ben Sea comic I am taken back to that day in the late 90's when I walked into my local comic book store and discovered 'Jim'. What is this? WHO is this? What are these things? Why are they doing things? I love a comic that leaves me with more questions than answers. I love ink, man, look at that fucking INK he's putting on that paper!! Look at this panel:
Ok, this is obviously the thing that the guy wants. He's jumping! He has a lot to say. He's kinda bashful. What is he snatching exactly? The person he's snatching from is a little flabbergasted. He/She is siting on some weird cosmic throne, does He/She hang out with Galactus or the Living Tribunal? Look at the fellah as he's jumping on him/her, he is somehow making him her produce... milk? Its coming out in this crazy stream that he's leaping over?!?! There's some mountains in the background.
I get so happy reading this kinda shit, I feel like a cat confused by the tv, thank you retrofit and ben and big planet and go buy it now by clicking on this link!!!
