Poopsheet had a massive sale recently, with tons of mini’s for a buk each. I love mini comics. It is an interesting format for someone to experiment and try something new with. I took advantage of the sale to get a stack of comix that will probably embarrass some interesting talented folks that have gone off to do some really great work. One of those comix was Stream of (Un)Consciousness by Brett Warnock. For those that don’t know, Brett is half of Top Shelf Comix. Brett has always said that he got into publishing comics, because he figured he would be a better publisher than cartoonist.
This release from 1994 is a little 16 page surreal goody that lives up to the title. The story is a wordless journey of death and rebirth. I am interested by the playful unusualness in comparison to the work published by Top Shelf. His art is very much flowing from the pen, and you can tell that it is very much stream of consciousness. There are some interesting charms of loneliness and a kind of loss of identity that Brett plays with. I really appreciate the spontaneity of the work and wonder what happened to that aesthetic. Alot of the work published by Top Shelf, has a very clear story structure, and I like seeing this deviation. The art has a nice underground feeling to it, and I would be curious to see more stuff to get an understanding of how it has varied, when he had attempted to do a more structured format. If you do see it for the original dollar price tag on it, do your self a favor and check it out.
