“I’M JUST POTTS ABOUT ALEX”
Me, Talking to Myself About Myself, as Usual
by Alex Potts
24 page Colour zine, £2.50 plus postage from alexpottsis.blogspot.com or avpotts@googlemail.com
Anyone out there who ever bothered to read my review of The Comix Reader on CBO, will know I’m a fan of the work of Comic artist/Cartoonist/Animator Alex Potts. Alex Potts draws the best pages in The Comix Reader. He’s also the Best Dressed Man in Zinedom, and he has the Best Quiff in Zines. Already, I’ve heaped far too much praise on Mr Potts’ well-suited shoulders. What’s even more annoying is that he’s now gone and produced a quite brilliantly lovely new zine, equally brilliantly entitled, “Me Talking To Myself About Myself, as Usual”.
The title alone probably sums up the dilemma of an awful lot of zines and their content ; that so many of them are autobiographical or self-indulgent musings on nothing elevated to a status of ridiculous self-importance ( And I should know !! ). I mean, what are you going to draw and write about ? There’s always the fallback of “if you don’t know what to write about, write about what you know”. But should a reader really care about the Artist’s shopping dilemmas, or what she/he had for tea ? Or who they’re not sleeping with, and why they’re always so miserable ? Usually, such minutatae seems self-absorbed, pointless and tedious.
Thankfully Alex Potts has charm, humour, modesty, understatement and an amusing underlying anger in places, that make his comics eminently readable and enjoyable. There are so many elements of this little 24 page package that make it utterly engaging, but I think it’s the sense of spontaneity and immediacy of each of it’s pages that really makes it work. As stated on the inside back cover, the strips within were drawn by Alex in his sketchbooks in Autumn/Winter 2011/12, and it’s this sense of directness of execution that shows through in the pages.
It helps that he’s a really wonderfully talented cartooninst, and every part of them is a visual delight, from the lovely lower-case wiggly hand-lettering and panel borders (including little crossed-out words that hint at the pages being drawn straight down ), to the zippy, squiggly pen line and splashy, washy full colour inks/watercolours. Each page exudes an intimate, personable charm, wittily observed and executed with a cartoonist’s economy of line and detail. There’s also the neat trick of referring to himself in the third person in the titles of each page, so he becomes a character in his strips, distanced and detatched from the self as author. I dunno if it’s deliberate or not, but it adds to our enjoyment of following “Our Alex” on his, erm, “adventures”.
The sheer pointlessness of life’s day to day mundanity is made bearable ( and readable) by the understated humour throughout, and little glimpses of character, personality and emotion exposed, or overexposed in the likes of “If I had any Respect for Myself I would make sure That This Never Happens Again”
(“Aaaaarrrghhhh !” indeed Alex-I totally agree !) while the drawing in places contain little panels of sublime beauty, like the light from the Chip Shop in the brilliant “The Fifth Day”, and the expanse of Epping Forest which opens the whole page up in “Six Days off Work Feels More like being Unemployed”. Then there’s the questionable delight to be found in the delightfully titled, ” The Public Toilets of Walthamstow” to contend with.
I can’t recommend this zine highly enough, every single page is worth your pennies people, and you have ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE not to buy this, especially as it’s an absolute bargain at only £2.50 !!! What are you waiting for ? It’s a beautiful little gem of a zine. To use Mr Potts’ new catchphrase, “That’s Right !” ( I don’t really see it catching on Alex ! Though hopefully, this zine will !)
Paul Ashley Brown
P.s. Despite the example page being in monotone, the whole thing is in colour-honest !!!!
Me, Talking to Myself About Myself, as Usual
by Alex Potts
24 page Colour zine, £2.50 plus postage from alexpottsis.blogspot.com or avpotts@googlemail.com
Anyone out there who ever bothered to read my review of The Comix Reader on CBO, will know I’m a fan of the work of Comic artist/Cartoonist/Animator Alex Potts. Alex Potts draws the best pages in The Comix Reader. He’s also the Best Dressed Man in Zinedom, and he has the Best Quiff in Zines. Already, I’ve heaped far too much praise on Mr Potts’ well-suited shoulders. What’s even more annoying is that he’s now gone and produced a quite brilliantly lovely new zine, equally brilliantly entitled, “Me Talking To Myself About Myself, as Usual”.
The title alone probably sums up the dilemma of an awful lot of zines and their content ; that so many of them are autobiographical or self-indulgent musings on nothing elevated to a status of ridiculous self-importance ( And I should know !! ). I mean, what are you going to draw and write about ? There’s always the fallback of “if you don’t know what to write about, write about what you know”. But should a reader really care about the Artist’s shopping dilemmas, or what she/he had for tea ? Or who they’re not sleeping with, and why they’re always so miserable ? Usually, such minutatae seems self-absorbed, pointless and tedious.
Thankfully Alex Potts has charm, humour, modesty, understatement and an amusing underlying anger in places, that make his comics eminently readable and enjoyable. There are so many elements of this little 24 page package that make it utterly engaging, but I think it’s the sense of spontaneity and immediacy of each of it’s pages that really makes it work. As stated on the inside back cover, the strips within were drawn by Alex in his sketchbooks in Autumn/Winter 2011/12, and it’s this sense of directness of execution that shows through in the pages.
It helps that he’s a really wonderfully talented cartooninst, and every part of them is a visual delight, from the lovely lower-case wiggly hand-lettering and panel borders (including little crossed-out words that hint at the pages being drawn straight down ), to the zippy, squiggly pen line and splashy, washy full colour inks/watercolours. Each page exudes an intimate, personable charm, wittily observed and executed with a cartoonist’s economy of line and detail. There’s also the neat trick of referring to himself in the third person in the titles of each page, so he becomes a character in his strips, distanced and detatched from the self as author. I dunno if it’s deliberate or not, but it adds to our enjoyment of following “Our Alex” on his, erm, “adventures”.
The sheer pointlessness of life’s day to day mundanity is made bearable ( and readable) by the understated humour throughout, and little glimpses of character, personality and emotion exposed, or overexposed in the likes of “If I had any Respect for Myself I would make sure That This Never Happens Again”
(“Aaaaarrrghhhh !” indeed Alex-I totally agree !) while the drawing in places contain little panels of sublime beauty, like the light from the Chip Shop in the brilliant “The Fifth Day”, and the expanse of Epping Forest which opens the whole page up in “Six Days off Work Feels More like being Unemployed”. Then there’s the questionable delight to be found in the delightfully titled, ” The Public Toilets of Walthamstow” to contend with.
I can’t recommend this zine highly enough, every single page is worth your pennies people, and you have ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE not to buy this, especially as it’s an absolute bargain at only £2.50 !!! What are you waiting for ? It’s a beautiful little gem of a zine. To use Mr Potts’ new catchphrase, “That’s Right !” ( I don’t really see it catching on Alex ! Though hopefully, this zine will !)
Paul Ashley Brown
P.s. Despite the example page being in monotone, the whole thing is in colour-honest !!!!
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