Glömp
Issue #4
Published by Boing Being
For more info, contact tomustur@uiah.fi.
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From the multi-media empire of Finland's Boing Being record label comes
Glömp #4, the fourth in a four year old anthology series of Finnish
comix artists. Printed in black and white with a beautifully surreal
four-color cover, the book presents fifteen disparate artists who share a
common interest in the darker side of the human condition. Few of the
artists share stylistic traits, a diversity of form that benefits the
collection as a whole. The artists in Glömp #4 stand on surprisingly
equal terms with their peers in the United States or Japan, perhaps the
countries with the most recognized "underground" comics scenes. (And for
American readers, the collection has been helpfully subtitled in small type
across the bottom of each page, with numbers corresponding to the
appropriate panels.)
The whimsical, stylized "Voe Reportteri" by Mikko Väyrynen opens the
book, with a child (who looks like an alien and smokes a bubble-blowing
cigarette) ending the two-page story on the back of a fire-breathing
Godzilla in the middle of a Donkey Kong game. The strip, with its
amusingly clean artwork, might be a little hard to follow, but it's also one
of the most light-hearted pieces here, and should be appreciated as such.
Other works, as short as one page or as long as seven, range from the
humorous (Jesus calling God on his cell phone to inquire about ducks) to the
vividly misanthropic ("Fear and Loathing in 6 C(o)unt Street"). The most
immediately attention-getting story might be the (apparently ongoing)
adventures of a two-headed rock star, Walburgi and Wanda; with a style and
subject that draws something from Jaime Hernandez's contributions to
post-punk female comics characters, Vilja Takalo's three brief contributions
offer a funny, energetic glimpse of an offbeat world.
Cover artist Merja Järvelin offers three subtly mythic, sparsely
illustrated snippets that go far on minimalism and poetic atmosphere. (It's
not clear whether some of the work here is excerpted from longer pieces, but
a few of them do give the impression of telling only part of a story.) The
sliver of a memory, a child at the fair, in Tommi Musturi's "Everything in
Flames!" is enhanced by the gray, smudged, claustrophobic look of his art.
And no underground comic would be complete without some blood and guts, supplied
here by pieces like the intense good-versus-evil tale "The Ancient One" by
Marko Kalliokoski and Raine Liimakka's devil-birthing tale "The Beginning".
It's easy to imagine most, if not all, of Glömp #4's artists
sustaining attention across a full-length book of their own. Together, they
comprise a diverse, entertaining book that's more compelling than the
same-old Sunday comics.
-- Ryan Tranquilla
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