Jinxremoving #11 / $2 / 44M / http://www.jinxremoving.org / http://www.loopdistro.com /
Jinxremoving is a comic zine, and Arpad (the author) is able to establish a very iconic, cat-human type of character as the focal point of this issue. I must admit, I am largely confused by this issue. While there is a note at the beginning of the magazine that says “The characters in this comic book are avatars that anyone can, on some level, relate toâ€, there are parts of this comic that make no sense. Let’s discuss what does make sense, though: in the piece “I’m hung up on a record store girl I don’t know,†Arpad discusses how ey is infatuated with a worker at a record shop that ey doesn’t even know. In this piece, there is confusion, thought about the possible ramifications of asking eir out, and just an all-around nervousness felt by the cat-human character. A second piece, “Dear John and Jane Q. Public, you Make Me Sick..of You!,†discusses Arpad’s intestinal distress, only to find out that the pain largely goes away when ey is on eir bike. It is after this piece that the comic moves into a more confusing realm, with two of the same characters. I am guessing that the two characters are intended to be Arpad’s mind and heart, and are not intended to be other characters due to the fact that other characters are given a distinct design (and I believe that the characters have the same tattoo). The issue is interspersed with “scratch†pages (where there is no dialogue and little to no connection to the rest of the comic, but the pieces that Arpad does that focus on a specific narrative are top-notch. This issue is from Spring 2006, and it looks (by a visit to eir web site) that Arpad has moved on from this comic. Still, this was another buy from Slacker, and I felt compelled to give it a review.
Rating: 6.5/10
