SUBJECT : Reviews of minis by Dan Lester, Peter Beare, Jenika Ioffreda and Roger Langridge.

I've gathered a backlog of samplers and mini-comics from the Brighton Expo. the UK Web and Mini Comix Thing and from Caption. In lieu of missing these reviews and lacking website reviews I may try and combine the two. Heres a few :

"Monkeys Might Puke" by Dan Lester is a comic with its own eponymously named website and a series with the first three issues in print. If the sampler I've just read is anything to go by it could present some banal mindless hilarity and chuckles of the surreal. "Fidel Castro and his dancing monkey" is A7 or A8 vee small, 20p, eight pages fits in pocket - quite funny and i mostly don't know whats going on with it ! Recommended. Dan Lester@www. monkeysmightpuke.com

(These syntactically engineered weblinks really screw up the adspider's craniums !)

Another A8 8-pager picked up is untitled : two cat-like creatures reading a book and discussing alternative opinions, perspectives and feelings within illustrated speech bubbles. After wowing Caption Arts goers with his biblical tablet and Chaucerian "The Chavette's Tale" there'll sure be a few folk checking out his webcomic home - www.dangnabbit.com

Peter Beare - remember that name and associate it with great comix.

Over at www.neptunefactory. com Jenika Ioffreda presents "Cynderella", an alternate take condensed into a 16 page A6 booklet which allows the black and white and greys the exhibition of looking extremely detailed. Its also filled with illustrations of sex qhich I felt I had to hide from my background-roaming mother !
Jenika's work is a lot bolder than expected and she makes a good craft of lighting through grey placement and depth levels. Classy, erotic and very funny, and a really memorable comic book.
Look for this and Jenika's other works including "Vampire Free Style" at your next comics festival or online for more details write to info@ neptunefactory.com

Roger Langridge's "Henry Plibs Got Two" is slightly bigger than A6, and the eight pages devoted to an amusing rhyming tale of a man with multi-members. Great fun, I've not seen much of Langridge's work - does well like Woodrow Phoenix in that tastefully stylish Nickelodeon cartoon rounds were the language in narrative just doesnt seem to be in keeping and is all the better for it. More goodies I imagine at www.hotelfred .com