An "Old" Web Comic - Mobile Edition

Digital Comics
An "Old" Web Comic
By Leroy Douresseaux
May 1, 2006 - 05:58

Top Shelf Productions’ website, topshelfcomix.com, is not only the web hub of the company’s publishing business, but the site also serves as a home for web comics. Go to http://www.topshelfcomix.com/comix.php , and you’ll find web comics from Glenn Dakin, Jay Lynch, Martin Cendreda, and Dean Haspiel among many.

Mr. Charlie #81 notices a “talent deserving of wider recognition. Matt Kindt, has received both Harvey and Eisner Award nominations, and also has an ongoing web strip at the Top Shelf site. He is best-known for Pistolwhip (named one of Time Magazine’s “Top 10 Books of 2001”) and 2 Sisters (a 300 plus page graphic novel). 2 Sisters provides the springboard for Kindt’s web comic, Super Spy Weekly.

Super Spy Weekly not only exists as a web comic, but also a part of series of handmade art pieces/comic book/pamphlets that Matt mails out to people who visit his website, supersecretspy.com , and specifically request them. In fact, that’s how I first encountered Super Spy Weekly. I received a half-comic (made a little too big to be a mini-comic) that collected four Super Spy Weekly stories. Created out of various kinds of copy printer paper in beige or green colors, the comic also contained one of Kindt’s business cards glued to the title page and a few handmade color trading cards glued and inserted into the narrative at a point where they would embellish the story.

Set in the 1940’s, Super Spy Weekly has an old-timey feeling, mixing pulp spy tales, espionage fiction, Film-Noir, and World War II era culture. It also tastes like the classic WW II drama, Casablanca. In fact, the first tale is a spy-romance-drama of unrequited love and sacrifice. Although the art is clearly stylized to look like noir, the dialogue is rather natural, and the story has the intimacy of a TV drama, as the narrative travels through small panels tightly spaced together.

The two middle tales are reminiscent of MAD Magazine’s Spy vs. Spy. One, entitled “The Super Spy,” is a hilarious vignette about an overeager spy whose gadgets cause a mini-disaster. In the next story, actually called, “Spy Versus Spy,” two agents with different philosophies about their work having a clumsy encounter. The final tale, partially set in the universe of a pulp heroine who is not too unlike The Shadow, rings true with its echoes of audiences sitting around the living room listening to radio dramas.

Kindt’s art is certifiably Golden Age – reminding me of Bill Everett (The Sub-Mariner). It’s almost ornate, but seemingly minimalist. It certainly has Everett’s dynamism. I’d believe that Kindt’s work is authentic comic book art for the infancy of American comic publishing, if I didn’t know better. It’s good when an artist can fool you into believing that his nostalgia is the real thing.

You can get more of Kindt’s work at pistolwhipcomics.com, supersecretspy.com, and sequentmedia.com/prophecyanthology

Another recent find of Top Shelf Productions is Max Estes, who blew up last year with his debut Hello, Again. Earlier this year, I reviewed his charming, funny animal, all-ages, slapstick comedy, Coffee and Donuts, from an advance copy: http://comicbookbin.com/coffeeanddonuts.html . Well, the regular edition (5¼ x 7½, $10) is finally available. I heartily recommend this for anyone looking for a comic to give a child. As usual, all of Top Shelf’s comics are available for purchase at their website, topshelfcomix.com.

Visit http://www.negromancer.com for my movie reviews.