Comixology's submit - stuff that didn't fit anywhere else.

This the last of the books from the Comixology: Submit sale we talked about in March.  This bundle isn't available anymore but the books in it are, and are well worth looking at.  Here are the remaining five that we think are worthy of note.

Smut Peddlar - short anthology of smutty stories.  Clearly for adults only and not safe to read at work. This may not have been in the bundle, but is an indie book and is good sexy fun.  It's got a mix of pairings - male/male, female/female and male/female.
Writers and artists: various
Publisher: Iron Circus Comics

Dumbing of Age - excellent book about a home schooled Christian woman starting university and meeting people from different backgrounds.  It's smart and funny. It's not mean about Christian homeschooling - it doesn't insult anyone for being who they are.  It's got a great cast who interact really well.  This made me smile a lot, when not much else did.  It started off as a webcomic, which you can read here. Start at the bottom of the page.  Includes LGBT characters and characters of colour.
Writing and art: David Willis
Publisher: Self published

Rock Star Scientists - in this world, scientists are treated like rockstars.  They get the fans, the glory and the clothes. There are 2 stories in this comic, which is split into two section called Side A and Side B.  Side A is an introduction to this world and Side B is a rather short story. Nonetheless it's worth the money.
Writing and letters: Kenny Jeffery
Art: Jordan Cutler
Pencils and inks: George Zapata
Colours: Armit Ghadge
Publisher: Angry Fruit Salad

After Twilight - this has nothing to do with sparkling vampires.  It's 2022 and Texas is in a civil war with the rest of the States to become independent.  Government and laws are based on biblical faith.  The protagonist is a librarian who finds herself involved in the struggle between the underground resistance and the theocractic leaders
Writing: Richard Alvarez, Gary L Watson, Sandra Yates
Art: Douglas Brown
Colours: Chandran and Meagan Tanner
Publisher: Nu-Classic Publishing

Legend of Oz - it's the story of Oz done as a Western.  Dorothy is a gun toting cowgirl and Toto is her horse.  The colours are rather brassy and the faces are a bit plasticky, but the story is good enough.  There is some violence so this won't be good for kids.
Writing: Tom Hutchinson
Pencils: Alisson Borges
Colours: Kate Finnegan
Publisher: Big Dog Ink

Comixology submit: comics for kids and teens

Comixology's submit sale had quite a lot of comics aimed at and suitable for children and teenagers.  Here's the best of the ones I read:

For younger kids:
The Antler Boy and Other Stories - this is a fun kids' book with a whole host of imaginary and not so imaginary creatures.  It's great fun.
Writing and art: Jake Parker
Publisher: Self published

Squid and Owl - this is less of a comic and more of an illustrated picture book.  It's a bit weird, there's only a few lines of text on each page, and the art is quite ethereal and dream like.  It's like a stream of consciousness in picture form.  I hesitate to say it's aimed at children because adults will appreciate the beauty in the illustrations too, but it's set out a bit like a child's picture book.
Art and writing: John Holbo
Publisher: Rhinobird books

For teenagers:
The Deep: Here Be Dragons - the Nektons are a multiethnic family of aquanauts journeying through the seas in hunt of strange creatures.  The Nektons are son Ant; daughter Fontaine; mum Kaiko; and dad Will.  Ant is brilliant.  This is worth the price for the absolutely gorgeous art of deep sea monsters.  The first few pages are full of drama and danger.
Writer: Tom Taylor
Art: James Brouwer
Publisher: Gestalt Comics

Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter - Chloe has a job to hunt and destroy monsters but she doesn't really care for it.  She hasn't got super strength or a heightened sense of danger - she's just like you and me, but maybe slightly more cynical.  This isn't like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  It is good fun and I can seen teenagers getting a lot of mileage out of it.
Writing and art: Marc Ellerby
Publisher: Great Beast Comics

Jackie Rose - This is set in an alternative 1940s and tells the story of Jackie Rose, teen adventurer.  In this volume she gets kidnapped by air pirates.  It's suitable for teenagers and has an air of a young Indiana Jones about it.
Writing and art: Josh Ulrich
Publisher: Self published

The Only Living Boy - Erik Farrell has no memory and is in a world filled with humanoid creatures and monsters.  He doesn't know how he got there but he wants to survive.  Forced into battle, he proves his worth through the use of his wits alone.  This is 53 pages and it's great.  It's a lot more serious than the others in this post.
Writer: David Gallagher
Art: Steve Ellis
Publisher: Bottled Lightning

Comixology submit - superheroes

There had to be a post about superheroes - I mean, this is comics we're talking about.

Henchmen - Gary is an office worker who sees an ad for henchmen in his local newspaper.  As he's lost his job he applies, gets the job, and starts work dressed as a bowling pin.  He gets to keep his glasses on.  This is an interesting take on the superhero genre.  The art and characterisation are compelling, and at 69pence for 48 pages you can't really go wrong.
Writer: Jamison Raymond
Art: Ryan Howe
Colours: RSquared
Publisher: Robot Paper

Tomorrow Jones - Tomorrow is the daughter of a family of superheroes.  She's expected to do things the traditional way - have a secret identity and wear silly spandex - but she's not having any of that.  She wants to do things her own way.  How is this going to work out?  Suitable for teens and adults.
Writing and letters: Brian T Daniel
Art: Johan Manandin
Publisher: Self published

Seconds

Story: Bryan Lee O'Malley
Art: Bryan Lee O'Malley & Jason Fischer 
Publisher: Ballantine Books

What’s it about?
Seconds is the highly anticipated first new comic from Scott Pilgrim creator, Bryan Lee O'Malley. Following a pretty impressive success (for such a small indie title), which even resulted in a much bigger motion picture feature, O'Malley went back to his roots. By releasing a new self-contained graphic novel!

Seconds tales the story of this woman, Katie Clay, who is a young talented chef and the proud owner of a local restaurant, called Seconds. Lately, Katie has been struggling with both her personal and professional life. Things have been quite stressful for our heroine, she is in the transition of opening her own new restaurant, leave the old place behind and try to finally move out of that restaurant's second floor and get a proper apartment to live in. And she's been guessing her step of the way. Is that new place a good or bad decision, should she settle for that building or a better locations, and has she been making good decisions all her life and how did she lose the good thing she had going on with her ex-boyfriend?

But one day she finally get the chance to redo it all!

She finds this mysterious white-haired magical girl she calls Lis. She's the resident house spirit at Seconds.

A young waitress named Hazel was severely burnt by Katie's fault. Lis offers Katie the one-time only use of a magic notebook which grants her the ability fix past mistakes. The rules? She has to write down the mistake she wishes to "correct". Ingest a magic mushroom. Go to sleep. And the next day when she will wake up, things will have changed anew.

But soon Katie finds a loophole. She decides to grab a few more of those mushrooms and starts abusing this newfound power. Trying to fix everything, her past relationship, the future new restaurant. Everything! Until it's perfect!

And it only makes things worse and worse the more she tries changing things...

Seconds is a fun entertaining little fable featuring some gorgeous pages with help of Bryan Lee O'Malley's new team of assistants.

Comixology submit - biography

More comics found in the Comixology's submit section.  Here are a couple of autobiographical treats.

Boobage - this is a sweet and heartfelt short autobiographical tale about puberty and growing up with small breasts.  Done in a rather nice red, white and black colour palette.
Writing and art: Monica Gallagher
Publisher: Lipstick Kiss Press

Kinds of Blue - this is an anthology comic describing what depression looks like.  It's 84 pages and each story has a different style to it.  If you want to know more about depression, or people's experiences with it, this book is a good start.
Writers and artists: Various
Publisher: Hive Mindedness Media

Comixology submit: adventure time

Another post prompted by March's Comixology submit sale.  Here are two books full of swashbuckling adventure.

Legend of Bold Riley - Bold Riley is a Indian lesbian swashbuckling adventurer.  She travels around the land performing great deeds of derring-do and bedding all the pretty maidens she meets.  It's similar in set up to traditional sword and sorcery adventure stories, except that Bold Riley is far more interesting than your traditional male hero, and not just because she's female.

Writer: Leia Weathington
Art: Marco Aidala, Vanessa Gillings, Kelly McClellan, Konstantin Pogorelov and Jason Thompson
Letters: Charles "Zan" Christensen
Publisher: Northwest Press

Rogues - it's a fantasy world and the two Rogues are Bram (a beefy fella) and the Weasel (a buxom lady).  The artwork is rather cheesecakey - Weasel has a full bust and a skimpy wardrobe whereas Bram gets a jacket and trousers.  But the book is aware of this and presents a fun and comedic story about how the humble chicken foils thieves everywhere.
Writer: El Torres
Art: Ruben Rojas and Juan Jose Ryp
Colours: Fran Gamboa
Publisher: Amigo Comics

Comixology submit: drama

In the third of our posts prompted by March's Comixology submit sale we focus on books that can be loosely described as dramatic.  The books are all quite different though, so perhaps I need a better description?

Onwards...

Nathan Sorry - this is excellent.  It's such an inspired idea I'm wondering why I haven't seen more stories like this.  Nathan should have been in the World Trade Centre on 9/11 but missed his flight.  The world thinks he's dead so he uses an accidentally stolen laptop and $20 million to find a new life, but begins to lose his grip on his identity.
Art and writing: Rich Barrett
Publisher: Self published

Bob And His Beer - this is about different people's experience of bereavement, how we can deal with losing those with love, and how we can all be connected.  Very good.  Might be tough to read if you are recently bereaved, but if you can stick with it you'll find it's quite comforting.
Writer: Sarah Stringfield
Art and letters: Cary Stringfield
Publisher: Captain Clark Comics

Snow - Dana is a shy, meek woman who works at a bookshop.  One day she arrives in work to find out the store is closing down, which leads to her slowly finding her confidence and having an impact on her neighbours' lives.  This book is utterly delightful.  It's 164 pages, but you'll race through it in no time.  The black and white art is incredibly expressive. It's set in just one (real!) street in Chicago.
Art and writing: Benjamin Rivers
Publisher: Benjamin Rivers Inc

The Chairs' Hiatus - lovely comic about an indie music duo's break up, new lives, and reunion.  It's less about music and gigging as it is about people and the complexities of relationships.  Contains LGBT characters.
Art and writing: Matthew Bogart
Publisher: Self published