More Tales of Death and Dismemberment
Welcome to the last review of Stuff We Found At SPX 2006. During one of the VERY few 3-minute breaks that Shortpants took to walk around SPX, we stumbled upon the table of one Jamie Tanner, who frankly, we probably should have known about before. :)
We picked up this little gem from him:
The book we picked up has six short stories in it; one's about zombie reality television, one's about a homicidal foul-mouthed robot. One's about Egon Schiele, which was just obscure and dark enough for our taste.
Tanner's work has an old-timey feel to it, to the lettering, the art style, the dialogue, and content. (Shortpants loves old-timey stuff. We should tell you someday how long it took us to get a DVD player.) He does some pretty beautifully obsessive linework, too.
This one's from the first story, a dark-side-of-relationships type of story called "Always in Love":
It's a gorgeous and poignant tale about love and loss; mostly the loss of oneself when it comes to amorous fascination. Shortpants really liked the metaphor of a zombie falling apart and losing pieces of himself whenever he falls in love. And the lovely detailed Old Europe backgrounds didn't hurt, either.
Shortpants liked the shit-talkin' robot too. In this piece, innocuously called "The Assignment", Tanner displays a fondness for non-linear storytelling and plot-based absurdity. You'll find this in a lot of his other stories as well, a random jumpiness that keeps one just barely off-balance, a refreshing unpredicability that keeps the reader awake and wondering just what the hell he's going to find next.
(ps: BTW, Shortpants also feels a little pathetic in recalling our meeting with Tanner; we purchased his book, chatted, pointed out our table, and fifteen minutes later he came by to browse our selection. Only we were so sleep- and coffee-deprived that we didn't recognize him at first. FIFTEEN MINUTES after meeting him. Lordy.)
We picked up this little gem from him:
The book we picked up has six short stories in it; one's about zombie reality television, one's about a homicidal foul-mouthed robot. One's about Egon Schiele, which was just obscure and dark enough for our taste.
Tanner's work has an old-timey feel to it, to the lettering, the art style, the dialogue, and content. (Shortpants loves old-timey stuff. We should tell you someday how long it took us to get a DVD player.) He does some pretty beautifully obsessive linework, too.
This one's from the first story, a dark-side-of-relationships type of story called "Always in Love":
It's a gorgeous and poignant tale about love and loss; mostly the loss of oneself when it comes to amorous fascination. Shortpants really liked the metaphor of a zombie falling apart and losing pieces of himself whenever he falls in love. And the lovely detailed Old Europe backgrounds didn't hurt, either.
Shortpants liked the shit-talkin' robot too. In this piece, innocuously called "The Assignment", Tanner displays a fondness for non-linear storytelling and plot-based absurdity. You'll find this in a lot of his other stories as well, a random jumpiness that keeps one just barely off-balance, a refreshing unpredicability that keeps the reader awake and wondering just what the hell he's going to find next.
(ps: BTW, Shortpants also feels a little pathetic in recalling our meeting with Tanner; we purchased his book, chatted, pointed out our table, and fifteen minutes later he came by to browse our selection. Only we were so sleep- and coffee-deprived that we didn't recognize him at first. FIFTEEN MINUTES after meeting him. Lordy.)
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