Blab! Vol. 14

Blab! #14

by Monte Beauchamp (Editor)

Inside Blab! #6 's super-hip cover by Richard Sala, you'll find a showcase for cutting-edge cartoonists. Skip Williamson introduces us to his drunken cartoon libertine "Necropolis Keester." Doug Allen's lovable character Steven makes another Blab! appearance in "Steven--in the Showdown." Frank Stack and Joe Coleman have illustrated character "portrait" prose pieces. Party-girl Mary Fleener has a two-page strip on the inside-front and inside-back covers called "As American as Mom, Apple Pie and Martinis." In his skewed style Richard Sala presents his comics story "Where Is Christine Brooder?," featuring a washed-up detective, a mysterious "pillow killer," and a reference to Gogol's Bird Museum. And finally, balancing out the humor of Gary Lieb's "Pets That Drink" and Justin Green's "Great Moments in Alcoholism," is a sobering look at real-life alcoholic cartoonists (a profile by Monte Beauchamp, John Petrie, and Dan Clowes).

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels

120 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

Reviews

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blab moves more into an artbook with this later issue. It's very nice to look at and I think its an improvement over the usual anthology of alt-comix creators.

Some cool contents:

Spain - the Birth of Porn
Peter Kuper - Dead Sea Stroll
Tom Huck - Vintage Junk '04
This is really cool full page illustrations
Monte Beaucamp - Early Matchbook cover art
zoomed in photos of really cool matchbook art

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look at that beautiful Camille Rose Garcia cover. This is how my love affair with her art started (there's 4-6 pages of her art inside). For neophytes, BLAB! is a series of large-format books showcasing comic and "low-brow" artists, mainly West Coast. It's always a grab-bag, and if you're searching for the next big thing in hip happening art, BLAB! is as good a place to look as any.

[Danielle Rosenstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read my first copy of this one night in Tower Records. (Does anybody else recall that chain of store??) Expect to be artistically inspired/hugely disturbed/laugh uproariously/become very depressed all together at once at some point. Basically it will make your brain think you're drunk. That can be said really about most of these anthologies. Holding many of the best sensational talents in the fine art/illustration business, you will regret not being neurotic enough to pull stuff like this off in your life.