The Bean is a charming new fantasy series by Travis Hanson. When I talked to him, he told me his primary influences were Bone and the Rankin Bass Hobbit. We chatted about how we both liked John Huston and Brother Theodore in the film. I didn't manage to ask if he called his comic The Bean after Orson Bean, who voiced Bilbo in that movie.
The Bean has great art, particularly in its backgrounds, which were reminiscent of the Rankin Bass movie or even Arthur Rackham with strong lines and twisty, beautiful woodland and hills. You can find it here.
Doctor Atlantis is a steampunk, sea-faring adventure comic by Ian Ally-Seals and Carl Mefferd. I got issue two from 2013. It's a fun book with the tone of a swashbuckler serial. The main character has taken control of a giant submersible in defiance of the British navy. There are sea monsters and sea battles. You can find it here.
Strike-Man is a short comic by two Spanish guys I met at one of the mixers I went to, Paco Santos, Jr. and Jose Martin. Strike-Man is a baseball player superhero who shoots baseballs out of his hands to fight zombies and a variety of other menaces. I read just a sample but it was of decent quality with an appealing sincerity about it. You can find it here.
I also read an anthology of short works by various creators from 2019 called Accidental Aliens, produced by a San Diego based art studio of the same name. The contents are all strange and horror fiction. My favourite was a short called Bones Bugs & Harmin Me by Drah Hard and Stormko. This one's a meta-work, along the lines of House of Leaves. It appears to be a battered old issue of a slasher comic that's been vandalised by a child, with notes scribbled in the gutters and moustaches and rude symbols drawn on the characters in some panels. As you might expect, there's a strange crossover between the two narrative layers. It's effectively creepy. You can find Accidental Aliens here.
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