Sunburn
Sunburn #4
![Sunburn 4: downtown [insert your city name here]](images/sunburn4.gif)
Sunburn #4 © Chris Mansky
| Sunburn Editor: Karl Thomsen #4 contributors: Greg Oakes, Tom Goray, Chris Manskey & John Walter, Neil Herdman, Ted Longbottom, Jean-Guy Brin. #4.5 contributors: Ron K White, Robert Halstead, Nick Burns, Darren Merinuk, Robert Pasternack #5 contributors: Neil Herdman, Karl Thomsen, Darren Merinuk, Ron K White, Pat Chubey, Wil Glass, Paul Gubernac & Jamie Rose, Adam Brooks, Robert Pasternak, Peggie Lipton & Julie Barnes, Ryan Harper, Malik, Greg Oakes, Ignostius, Robert Halstead #5.5 contributor: Ted Longbottom #8 contributors: Stephen Whitworth, Brad Yung, mooncat, Greg McCann, Chris Chuckry, Darren Merinuk, Joe Gravel, Robert Halstead, Peggie Lipton & Julie Barnes, Ryan Harper, Tom Goray Zine Scene (#8.5?) contributors: Karl Thomsen, Luke Krenke, Greg Oates, Robert Halstread & Patrick Chubey, Mooncat & Darryl Cunningham, Rexis Liwang #9 contributors: Stephen Whitworth, Brad Yung, mooncat, Greg McCann, Chris Chuckry, Darren Merinuk, Joe Gravel, Robert Halstead, Peggie Lipton & Julie Barnes, Ryan Harper, Tom Goray Zine Scene ( in #9.5): Karl Thomsen #9.5 contributor: Rexis Liwanag Sunburn #16 Ed: Karl Thomsen; Contributors:Matjaz Bertoncelj, Michael Gushne, Luke Kriienke, , Zlatko Krstevski, Mike Petri Lietzen, Sasha Mihajlowick, Claudio Perentela, Hans Rickeit, [Jim Siergey & Tom Roberts], Robin Thompson, Brad Yun Sunburn 16.5 Matjaz Beroncelj, Glen Smith, Greg McCann, Cat Sullivan, Brad Yung, Robert Halstead, Andy Goldfarb, Karl Thomsen |
| Links: Web page for Sunburn Mail:Sunburn |
From time to time, deep in the allegedly soundproofed vaults of Gratuitous Bunny HQ, a bloodcurdling scream issues forth, ricocheting from the dank, dripping walls; and the shambling form of Ghura, the slope-headed, half-formed handyman is heard to murmur: "Arr... Young Mr Wuiley uz bin reviewing.... ANTHOLOGIES again..."
Anthologies! I don't get 'em! How do they arise? A collection of strips ranging from great to crummy -- why? Either the editor thinks they're great, in which case the verb 'to edit' is redundant, or he knows some of them are stinky and puts them in anyway just to make up the pages... I wouldn't mind so much if they were consistent, t least that'd be a case of sticking to one's taste, even if I don't agree with it. Whatever.
Sunburn #4 is a big old parochial grab bag, full of Canadian/Manitoba/Winipeg in-jokes, which kids all over the world chuckle at! Look! They have overreaching amateurs in Canada too! If you have a weak team, at least keep the top talent (Greg Oakes) until last - but no, they grab us with a fine Oakes cover and put his Crumb-esque Alien strip on page one. After that, it's down, down downhill. Tom Goary tells us a stirring anecdote from WW2 (he can nearly draw); Chris Mansky serves up some dried-up leftover clichés from the Forties/Fifties with his last-man-in-the-world story, (Buster and Kornbluth are DEAD, man! This stuff has blue hair on it!) which should REALLY have ended on page 19 to have any impact, but no, let's have another 9 pages of brute goulash just to finish the audience off bigtime (he can draw, but shouldn't draw his own script); Neil Hardman's Hess's Existential House of Coffee whacks you over the head with a metaphoric baseball bat labelled in block lettering Political Point; Ted Longbottom tells us an old Indian legend -- and he also can nearly draw. Now, although Ted admits he's been 'physically enabled' since 1990, Al Davidson has been similarly 'enabled' since he first popped out into the hard world, and he draws sublimely, so -- keep practising, Ted. Finally, Jean-Guy Brin's one-pager Louis Hangs out in Regina is a well-executed, but incomprehensible outside Regina, I guess... and then, the comic was finished, and I could breathe again. But, just when I thought I was safe, I discovered stapled inside:
Sunburn #4.5
...the micro-spawn of Daddy Sunburn, hiding within. Okay. Stiffen the sinews, let's have a look:
The Bill Badly Drawn Show! FX: SOCK! as Ron White hits us with the third worst cliché of Lame Zinedom, but hey, it's for a point -- Bill and guest Jim debate the merits of being well/badly drawn. Ron can draw really, he's just having us on instead of hiding behind self-deprecation like other users of 'Badly Drawn..' cat/story/strip/etc.
Panhandlers: I like the look, Bob Halstead; clean, simple Garfieldy. A cool pool alongside the mud-crusted trail through the rest of this issue; shame it's mostly Winnipag jokes which die of homesickness as they pass Saskatoon on the way over here...
Goof/I An DJ: Ron White again. Hmmmm. I'm getting fond of Ron -- Hey kids! Give him bigger billing next time!
Then there's ... ugh, let's just skip the next bits and remember Ron, eh?
Not a bad little package, considering it's free with #4 -- in fact in my opinion they should have swapped over and made #4 the insert, so you could pick it out and sling it... (me-ow)
PS. The twins in that Hienz Salad Cream advert are rather fetching, aren't they?
Terry Wiley
Sunburn #5
Sunburn #5 © Darren Merinuk
More meyhem from Manitoba! It's a slightly different mix to #4 this time, but the same names keep surfacing:
Robert Pasternack (SoulSasm, Naked City) -- I bet he and Ed Pinsent would get on! His prose is dense, ponderous, incomprehensible; his art iconic and dreamlike; I do not grok.
Darren Merinuk (Tripmaker, A Boy & His Death Ray) -- a gonzo trash artists, his world is full of warty blob monsters driving convertibles as buxom 50's babes watch agog. Is Bugs & Drugs still going? Daren's stuff would be well suited there.
Greg Oakes is back for just one strip, in which he's idling in first gear -- but a better indication of his skill is shown in little incidental illos for the letters page -- vavavoom!
And Ron White is all over the place -- so many strips, so many styles, all goodly, ya ya. As for all the rest… I can't be bothered to mention all the rest…
Given the evidence of this and the last issue, all I can say is HEY! Darren, Greg, Ron! What are you doing hanging out with those no-hopers? Leave now! Ditch the dead weight! Run, fly, be free!!!
(sigh… Anthologies, whyyyyy…)
Terry Wiley
Sunburn #8&9
Sunburn #8 © Brad Young
Boy, this is an eager beaver, card covers, insert mini comics, a guide to the Canadian small press scene, slick production, it's obvious a lot of time, care & attention has gone into this and... and... it's awful!
A miscellaneous mish-mash of strips, bereft of any central theme, that frequently crosses the line between art & therapy. What, you wonder, would you rather these guys be doing? And it surely keeps them off the street and out of the day care centres. Most aim at and achieve a monumental pointlessness deftly bypassing any entertainment value at all beyond an incredulity that anyone could be bothered to spend any time doing this stuff.
There are wearying E.C. spoofs by Darren Merinuk, what look like rejected newspaper strips by Roberts Halstead that push the envelope of meaningless to it's limit, drawn in an achingly twee sub-Fred Hembeckian style (one for the trainspotters there), plus God-awful sci-fi pin-ups (Sample title: Surreal Statue in an Ocean World) of the kind that have clogged up amateur zines for years. Some of the strips are unclassifiable, strange products of very strange minds.
If anyone can tell me what Ally Cats by Jeremy Allen (whose first language is probably Venusian) is supposed to be about, I will be eternally grateful as it is keeping me awake at night. Most barmy off all, even beyond the bizarre political allegory drawn in a 40's Golden Age style that is Hockey Night, are the strips by Cat Sullivan, whose rejected Viz tryouts have somehow washed up in Winnipeg. Surely there is was a place in the old war-horse for the likes of The Little Crocashund (half crocodile, half daschund) or Lumber Jack... The Man with the Bionic Lumbar Region? No?...OK then.
Saving graces are the strips by Brad Yung, who looks worth checking out further (PO Box 30007, Parkgate PO, N Vancoover, BC V7H 2Y8, Canada) who alone amongst this company seemed to have booth feet in the world. His dry, dead-pan style adds integrity to his short, ascerbic commentaries on contemporary culture. Tops in the art stakes is Rexis Li Wanag (honest, I'm not making this up) who's Veronchanis is very pretty in what is becoming an identifiable sub-genre; the mock-manga strip, only let down inevitably here by a piss poor script.
Mark Robinson
above: Sunburn #9 © Jeremy Allen.
Sunburn #16
Sunburn #16 © Zlatko Krstevski
So Karl Thomsen and co. are sailing merrily, just about to dip below the horizon, the sun all Disney-esque in the sky. You're happily turning over the pages, pretty good, you think. All's well. And then suddenly, Karl Thomsen's seaplane arrives. The crew reluctantly board the plane following El Capitan's eager butt (what is it with this guy, has he got Cabin Fever? Scurvy? Been drinking the seawater?). And off they fly. Ship abandoned. Shame, I was enjoying that.
Yup, so I read Sunburn, read the inner loose pages, the Comic within a comic, which I didn't really see the point of, but never mind. I go back to the wordy intro that I originally skipped in favour of the (Hey Hipsters-) Comics, and I discover that for some unnamed reason, this is to be the penultimate Sunburn.
It seems reedy and half-assed to abandon such a good anthology without explaining why. Complainers on the letters page aptly ask to be handed the editorial reigns or plead to keep it going a bit longer, until a landmark issue at least is reached…
But Captain Birdseye, sorry Karl Thomsen can't be arsed to respond to those salient points (too busy drinking saline probably).
Oh well, lets forget about him and look at the comics. It's of a high standard overall. My only problem is that the featured stories seem a little too derivative. Brad Yung is a little too much like Adrian Tomine, Hans Reikheit's 'Retrieval' is a little too Art Spiegalman-like. You get the feeling that you've been here before, but it's nonetheless good. The artists here are technically able, finding their own style shouldn't be too hard for them.
So there you have it. Karl Thomsen, I hope your leg falls off and Parrot bound, you're forced to talk funny for a few years. Mumble, mumble, etc…
Mardou
| Sunburn #4 40 28x21.5 pages, colour stock cover, containing Sunburn #4.5 12 22x18 pages Sunburn #5 36 28x21.5 pages, colour stock card cover, containing Sunburn #5.5 12 22x18 pages Sunburn #8 40 28x21.5 pages, colour stock card cover + Insert; Zine Scene 18 21.5x18cm Sunburn #9 40 28x21.5 pages, colour stock card cover containing Sunburn #9.5: 20x21.5x18 cm pages, + Insert; Zine Scene: 8x 21.5x18cm pages Sunburn #16 32 28x21.5 pages, colour stock card cover Insert review zine review & Sunburn 16.5 16 21.5x18cm pages. |
Received at ZUM! HQ: general info #16 Q4 01 |
Sunburn #4 $3 #5 $3 #8 $5 #9 $6 #16 $3 |
Karl Thomsen, Sunburn, PO Box 2061, Winnipeg, Canada, R3C 3R4. |