Thunder Island #1
I created a zine for a show I did for a show in Manila curated by my friend Mariano Ching called Saturday Fun Machine. Here’s a couple of recent reviews of the show.
From Poopsheet:
Justin Giampaoli
THUNDER ISLAND by Tim Brown
This ‘zine style book quickly grabs your attention with an attractive wrap around cover design and overall sense of packaging that I just loved. Having consumed as much pop culture as I have in the form of comics, books, magazines, movies, music, and fine art over the years, it’s rare for me to find something I’ve never seen before. Brown’s introductory text summarizing his early years is an example of an original and clever trick that I appreciated. Thunder Island is a little slow to get going, but enjoyable once it does. Brown begins discussing the background of the namesake of his school, notes about his first grade teacher and a slightly humorous anecdote, a fight with his mortal enemy Ernie (which is a good lesson in never appeasing an aggressor – that’s “standing up to a bully” in kid speak), and has very funny and on point observations about the difference between boys and girls bathrooms as an explanation for social behavior. The boy’s bathroom, with its “institutional style,” means it would be a “foaming pants situation before I ever took a dump in there.” He proceeds with my favorite part of the book, in discussing the “ladies of the second grade,” including Carmen Dresch, who grows up to be a promiscuous sorority type, aka: “sor-whore.” There’s mention of other memorable teachers like “fuck Jeanie fucking Harrison,” which made me chuckle at the pure genuine emotion on display. He ends with the exotic flair of Joy Jordan and a very interesting observation that informed early on the archetype of what he looks for in women today. Brown is able to perfectly capture the electricity of that youthful “crazy tingling sensation” that seems to course through your entire body when you kiss, as well as the fleeting allure of chasing that feeling throughout life. Brown’s figures are serviceable enough, but the real conversation starter here is the style of the text, since it comprises at least 80% of the book by my estimation. The handwritten text is sometimes difficult to read, on rare occasions it degenerates into chicken scratch and the characters are near impossible to parse. It’s not riddled by any means, but there are occasional misspellings and sentence fragments to be found as well. By the end though, I was having such a good time with this writer’s authorial voice that I was willing to overlook the small errors and focus on the larger accomplishment. Tim Brown is certainly a creator to watch. Grade B+.
and from Optical Sloth:
The problem with all the whiny autobio comics about love and missed opportunities in the lives of artists is that it usually focuses on the same period, roughly from high school to some point in their 20’s. Tim decided to get an early start on all that with this comic and detail the early loves of his life from the first through third grade. Actually, it’s a little iffy to even call this a comic, as the sampled image below is as much of an illustration as you’re going to get on any given page. Many of them have no illustrations at all. So does that make this a zine, technically? Ah, definitions like that give me a headache. He sent this to me for potential review, I run a site about small press comic books, so this is a comic. It’s easy when I can change the rules when it suits me. One other technical note: as this is primarily text, it would have been nice if he had proofread a bit more, as words are inserted or crossed off fairly regularly. At least he kept the spelling errors to a minimum. There’s also some confusion right off the bat when he says on the third page that he had no interest in girls, then spends the rest of the comic talking about how he had crushes from an early age and how most of his memories from that period involve girls and not his guy friends. Anyway, there are some funny moments of discovery about himself, some surprisingly detailed memories of various people and events of that time, and a hilarious way to deal with bullies that want to confront you in the bathroom. The only trouble with this is that, as it was written by an adult, there are times when it feels like child Tim has the confidence of adult Tim. It’s a minor thing though, as his detailed memories of most of the things about this time of his life (there are some gaps, as is natural) makes this a fairly compelling read. No price listed, but going with the “fancy cover” rule I’ll say it’s $4.