Saturday, September 5, 2015

Big Plans: The Collected Mini-Comics and More

Big Plans is a collection of mostly autobiographical mini-comics by Aron Nels Steinke. He is better known for his funny animal comics, like the Eisner Award winning graphic novel The Zoo Box and his webcomic Mr. Wolf, but he states in Big Plans that these are the comics he really cares about and wishes people clamored for. I have to say that they are very charming, often hilarious and always idiosyncratic. The stories range from the comic, observational account of a trip to the Academy Awards ceremony where our hero stalks celebrities as they go into rest rooms:
Others are more serious, such as an account of how Steinke and a friend obsess over a specific passenger at an airport gate and boarding process, as they think he is a terrorist who will kill them all. It is a paranoid, stressful, and compelling scene, which is brutally honest in its depiction of base human sensations. The entire episode is only amplified by the well-crafted storytelling that builds suspense and curiosity.
I would not say that this is the most earth-shaking collection of comics I have ever read, but I found the contents very entertaining and uniquely voiced. Reviews I have found for this book have been scarce but very positive. Rob Clough commented that these comics are "the first time Steinke fulfilled his promise as an artist." Sarah Morean stated that these comics would be "an excellent addition to any zine library of distinctive quality." Rod Lott wrote that he "read the entirety of BIG PLANS in about 90 minutes, and it left me both satisfied and wanting more"

This collection of Big Plans was published by Bridge City Comics.

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