Comics Bulletin logo
Search
  • Columns
    Random
    • The Flying Fist Fight Club

      Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
      August 2, 2005
      Busted Knuckles
    Recent
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 2

      Daniel Gehen
      December 4, 2020
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 1

      Daniel Gehen
      October 30, 2020
    • Comictober 2020: DRACULA MOTHERF**KER

      Daniel Gehen
      October 27, 2020
    • What Looks Good
    • Comics Bulletin Soapbox
    • The Full Run
    • Leading Question
    • Top 10
    • The Long-Form
    • Jumping On
    • Comics in Color
    • Slouches Towards Comics
  • Big Two
    Random
    • Leading Questions: Superheroes Ain't Violent, Superheroes Can't Fight

      Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
      February 4, 2016
      Big Two, Columns, Leading Question, Marvel Comics
    Recent
    • 4.5

      DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      January 22, 2021
    • Retro Review: Detective Comics #826 Remains a Holiday Classic

      Daniel Gehen
      December 3, 2020
    • Stan Lee

      nguyen ly
      November 7, 2020
    • DC Comics
    • Big Two Reviews
    • Marvel Comics
  • Indie
    Random
    • Interview: Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly Take an Optimistic 'Joyride' into Space

      Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
      September 2, 2016
      Boom! Studios, Indie, Interviews
    Recent
    • Review: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist

      Daniel Gehen
      December 14, 2020
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 2

      Daniel Gehen
      December 4, 2020
    • 4.5

      TMNT: The Last Ronin #1 Lives Up to the Hype (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      October 29, 2020
    • Reviews
    • Archie Comics
    • Boom! Studios
    • Dark Horse
    • IDW
    • Image
    • Oni Press
    • Valiant
  • Reviews
    Random
    • 4.0

      Review: 'Art Schooled' Makes Jason and Keith Want to Go Back to College, Almost

      Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
      November 3, 2014
      Reviews, Team-Up Review
    Recent
    • 4.5

      DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      January 22, 2021
    • Review: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist

      Daniel Gehen
      December 14, 2020
    • Retro Review: Detective Comics #826 Remains a Holiday Classic

      Daniel Gehen
      December 3, 2020
    • Singles Going Steady
    • Slugfest
    • Manga
      • Reviews
    • Small Press
      • Reviews
      • ICYMI
      • Tiny Pages Made of Ashes
  • Interviews
    Random
    • Jim McCann: On the Arrow

      Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
      June 5, 2010
      Interviews
    Recent
    • Interview: Jon Davis-Hunt Talks SHADOWMAN

      Daniel Gehen
      June 8, 2020
    • Interview: Becky Cloonan talks DARK AGNES and Her Personal Influences

      Mike Nickells
      March 4, 2020
    • Simon Roy

      Interview: Simon Roy on His Inspirations and Collaborations on PROTECTOR

      Mike Nickells
      January 29, 2020
    • Audio Interview
    • Video Interview
  • Classic Comics
    Random
    • The New Mike Sekowsky: Appreciating His Radical Years, Part Two: The Metal Shines

      Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
      May 23, 2014
      Classic Comics Cavalcade, Columns
    Recent
    • Countdown to the King: Marvel’s Godzilla

      Daniel Gehen
      May 29, 2019
    • Honoring A Legend: Fantagraphics To Resurrect Tomi Ungerer Classics

      Daniel Gehen
      February 15, 2019
    • Reliving the Craziest Decade in Comics History: An interview with Jason Sacks

      Mark Stack
      January 2, 2019
    • Classic Comics Cavalcade
    • Classic Interviews
  • News
    Random
    • Kickstarter Spotlight: Abbadon

      Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
      December 16, 2014
      Kickstarter Spotlight
    Recent
    • 2020 Ringo Awards Winners Announced

      Daniel Gehen
      October 26, 2020
    • BAD IDEA Announces 2021 Publishing Slate

      Daniel Gehen
      September 29, 2020
    • A Full Replay of NCSFest 2020 is now Available

      Daniel Gehen
      September 15, 2020
    • Press Release
    • Kickstarter Spotlight
  • Books
    Random
    • Review: 'The Best We Could Do' is a Moving Memoir and Corrective to Trump-era Xenophobia

      Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
      February 13, 2017
      Books, Reviews
    Recent
    • Collecting Profile: Disney Frozen

      CB Staff
      November 22, 2019
    • Collecting Profile: NFL Superpro

      CB Staff
      August 31, 2019
    • “THE BEST OF WITZEND” is a Wonderful Celebration of Artistic Freedom

      Daniel Gehen
      September 15, 2018
    • Review: ‘Machete Squad’ is a Disappointing Afghan Memoir

      Jason Sacks
      July 31, 2018
    • Review: ‘Out of Nothing’ is the Antidote to Our Sick Times

      Jason Sacks
      July 23, 2018
    • Review: ‘Bizarre Romance’ Shows Rough Edges in the Early Days of a New Marriage

      Jason Sacks
      July 10, 2018
What's New
  • Collecting Profile: If I win Powerball, I will buy Amazing Fantasy 15
  • DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)
  • Collecting Profile: Batwoman
  • Collecting Profile: Daredevil
  • Collecting Profile: Floronic Man
  • Review of Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984
  • RSS Feed
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Contact Us
  • Write for us!
  • Visit Video Game Break!
Home
Small Press

Tiny Pages Made of Ashes 3/17/17: Heads In The 2dcloud

Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
March 17, 2017
Small Press, Tiny Pages Made of Ashes
Tiny Pages Made of Ashes is Comics Bulletin’s Small Press Review Column

PERFECT HAIR

 

By Tommi Parrish
Published by 2dcloud
Available HERE

 

Late last December, Kim Jooha asked Australian cartoonist Tommi Parrish what their new book from Minneapolis-based publisher 2dcloud, Perfect Hair, was about. Parrish answered, “Surviving.” What might come off as being a flippant response to a complex question became, after reading Perfect Hair, a momentous answer.

 

Perfect Hair is a seemingly disjointed narrative about the stories surrounding the divided lives of two friends, Nicola and Cleary, as they struggle to make both connections and sense of the world around them. Navigating the complex dichotomies of desire and identity, of participation and observance, of the stories they tell themselves and the stories they tell others, becomes, at its heart, a narrative of surviving. What is at stake is losing the self to expectations and meaninglessness. Being passed by. Just taking up space.

 

Parrish accomplishes this through her distinctive cartooning style. Bodies are huge, bulky and hulking. Heads are tiny and round with faces rendered abstractly, their features oftentimes expressionless or non-existent. Backgrounds fluctuate from tightly detailed to swaths of colors. Some pages are gently washed in soft watercolors, others contain panels of expressive pencil lines, and yet others become intermingled inked bodies undulating in negative space. This flow of styles adds to the rhythm of the narrative, providing poignant beats to the dissonance through which these characters are maneuvering.

 

Throughout Perfect Hair lingers ghosts, that vague feeling that something outside is looking in, adding to the voyeuristic sensibility inherent in a book of this type. Through the abstraction of the cartooning and the disjointed nature of the narrative, the reader is purposefully made to feel apart from what is happening, even as Parrish draws you in. Even moments of interior monologue allow for little access, even less connection. Yet somehow the book is still immersive, deeply engaging, recognizable in a deep-seated manner. Nicola and Cleary as characters are funhouse mirror reflections of the basic need to be part of something larger that the reader cannot help but see themselves magnified in, all flaws amplified, every imperfection cast in a bright light.

 

In Perfect Hair you see what you hate most about yourself, and it reminds you how strong you are as you make your way through. The last panel of this book, moody and dark as it is, reinforces the fact that you’re not alone.

 

It may only be the middle of March, but Perfect Hair is already in the running for this reviewer’s “Best Of 2017” list and Tommi Parrish has cemented their place in my pantheon of Artists to Watch. Buy it. Read it. See for yourself.

 

— Daniel Elkin @DanielElkin

 

SOUND OF SNOW FALLING

 

By Maggie Umber
Published by 2dcloud
Available as part of 2dcloud’s Spring Collection Kickstarter

 

Recently I’ve been learning mindfulness meditation. In my mindfulness training I’ve learned to transport my mind from my everyday stressors to a place that fills me with bliss. My perfect place is called Baker Lake. On my recent hike around Baker Lake, I was able to achieve a near-perfect solitude. There was literally no person within five miles of me in any direction, so I felt a deep sense of serenity as being a lone interloper in the midst of majestic, unspoiled, natural beauty. I felt embraced in the divine peace of a perfectly calm natural scene, blissfully silent except for fish thrashing in the river and eagles screeching above my head.

 

In a real way, my day at the lake was a vision of the sublime, a moment in which all my quotidian detritus slipped away into its insignificance and I could bask in the steadfast infinity of nature’s complex gifts.

 

Which brings me to Maggie Umber’s gorgeous new graphic novel Sound of Snow Falling, released by 2dcloud.

 

Umber delivers a graphic novel similar to my perfect day: a visit to nature to observe the simple, untrammeled splendor of forest life. Its protagonists are a family of owls, but these are not the kinds of cartoonish owls one might find in a kids’ comic. Instead, the owls, porcupines, raccoons, deer and other animals in this book are illustrated realistically, as they live their daily lives as painted by Umber.

 

Umber does a wonderful job of bringing her scenes to life. In one gorgeous sixteen-panel sequence that crosses two pages, we witness one of the owls slowly and deliberately build a nest, sometimes drawn in the middle of the panel and sometimes away from view but always in action. The effect is similar to the finest nature shows — Planet Earth, say, but with a graceful storytelling sense that reflects a smart sense of comic book art and design.

 

In another set of panels, an open two-page sequence with a gorgeous sense of movement, Umber shows a mating ritual between the two owls. In a moment that mirrors human behavior without anthropomorphizing the birds, one owl offers the other a mouse as a tiny, wriggling token of love. Similarly, Umber delivers another two-page spread that juxtaposes the gestation of an owl egg against a parallel image of the phases of the moon. In both sequences, she conveys complicated ideas and timelines with designs the user intuitively understands.

 

Umber presents her vision of the natural sublime with a wonderful painterly eye for color and detail. Daytime scenes are a riot of color while nighttime scenes are silhouetted in a deep and empathetic blue. The birds are rendered as much by their implied shapes as by their actual appearances, and the effect is both invigorating and reassuring.

 

Which brings me back to my perfect place, my ideal alpine lake in the woods. I meditate on that lake because it reminds me of the glorious imperfect perfection of nature just a couple of hours drive from my house. Sound of Snow Falling is a gorgeous reminder of that same perfection. In this delightful book, Umber has captured a small reflection of the natural divine.

 

— Jason Sacks @jasonsacks

2dcloudMaggie UmberTommi Parrish

Share On:
Tweet
Leading Questions: Preacher Found Its Choir
Warren Simons and Valiant Comics: ‘Just Tell Great Stories’

About The Author

<a href="http://comicsbulletin.com/byline/daniel-elkin/" rel="tag">Daniel Elkin</a>, <a href="http://comicsbulletin.com/byline/jason-sacks/" rel="tag">Jason Sacks</a>
Daniel Elkin, Jason Sacks
Small-Press Editor

Daniel Elkin is Comics Bulletin's Small Press Editor. He can be found on Twitter: @DanielElkin

Related Posts

  • Tiny Pages Made of Ashes 5/19/17: MIRROR MIRROR II

    Austin Lanari
    May 19, 2017
  • Tiny Pages Made of Ashes 8/26/16: Poetry Comics as Comics Poetry

    Daniel Elkin, Ray Sonne
    August 26, 2016

Support Us!

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Friends of the Site

  • SOLRAD
  • Your Chicken Enemy
  • Psycho Drive-In
  • Women Write About Comics
  • The Beat
  • Loser City
RSSTwitterFacebookgoogleplusinstagramtumblr

Comics Bulletin is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for website owners to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, audible.com, and any other website that may be affiliated with Amazon Service LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, Comics Bulletin earns from qualifying purchases.

All content on this site (c) 2018 The Respective Copyright Holders