Pretty much fuck-all worthy of note hit comic shops this week, but that’s okay, yours truly received a nice selection of stuff in the mail from parts far and wide, certainly more than enough to keep me out of trouble, but for my Round-Up this week I thought I’d concentrate on some stuff that came my way courtesy of Kelly Froh and Max Clotfelter. I’m going to resist the urge to slap the label of “First Couple of Seattle Underground Comics” on these two, since similarly unimaginative (and, to them at least, I’m sure, cringe-worthy) titles have no doubt been bestowed upon them in the past, and instead I’ll just go the more modest route of saying that there’s a hell of a lot of cartooning talent in their household and I was most grateful for the wares they sent me a few days back. Let’s have a look —

Senior Time (pictured at the top of this column) is a Froh’s quirky-and-contemplative examination of the life she’s made for herself and her place within both it and the world at large that I’m guessing will ring especially true to any and all self-employed readers out there. Riso-printed in red and purple on pink paper, this was published by Cold Cube Press and takes the form of an illustrated prose “story” outlining the damn delicate tight-wire act Froh quietly and diligently performs balancing her duties as a cartoonist, a comics festival organizer, and an art instructor at various senior citizens’ homes. Disarmingly straightforward questions from her ostensible “students” come off as simple enough on the surface, but invariably give way to complex and provocative answers and refreshingly unsentimental self-examination, accompanied by emotionally resonant drawings that prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there’s nothing so evocative as the everyday and seemingly mundane. Throw in a bit of mid-life angst for good measure and this book proved to be exactly what I needed to be reading at exactly this point in my life. I’m willing to bet that you’ll find yourself moved by its unflinching honesty, as well, and that you’ll give it the same mental round of applause after reading that I did.

Clotfelter, for his part, is more firmly in the “old-school underground comix” camp, and has an imagination every bit as unfettered as S. Clay Wilson, Jim Blanchard, or any other master purveyors of “ugly art” you’d care to mention — and for a fine “example in microcosm” of his work, you’re not gonna do much better than his Alligator Milk mini. Unholy monstrosities compete for page time with one of his “FEMA Camp Funnies” strips, which extrapolate the paranoid conspiratorial ravings of Alex Jones and his ilk to their (il)logical conclusions by showing life in a future government internment camp. It’s ugly, it’s grotesque, it’s sick, it’s wrong — and yeah, it’s hilarious, but you already saw that coming. Some fantastically hideous center-spread art rounds out the package here, and goddamn if this isn’t just about the best thing you can buy for yourself with a dollar. Yes, that’s right, a dollar.

Don’t be fooled into thinking our guy Max is some sort of one-trick pony, though : he’s long been one of the finest autobio cartoonists around, and in The Elements Of Rough Volume One (I don’t believe there’s been, to date, a follow-up, second volume) he answers the burning question that I’m sure he’s sick to death of hearing — “why are all your comics so, well, rough?” It all goes back to his childhood — of course! — and to the colorful and, at times, unhealthy cast of characters his father collected around himself the same way that, say, an unwashed person might attract flies. Every lost, forlorn, and fucked-up soul in town had a friend in Old Man Clotfelter, and their influence and example has provided a steady stream of storytelling inspiration for his son ever since. Illustrated in detail as agonizingly exact as the memories related in the story, this one’ll burn its way into your brain and fight tooth and nail to occupy the space it’s claimed. It’ll win that fight, too, in case you were wondering.

Last but not least comes Stewbrew #5, the latest in the couple’s semi-regular collaborative series, this time out that detailing the road trip they took this past summer from Wisconsin, where Kelly’s originally from, to their home in Seattle. Her parents have given them their old car, they just have to come take it off their hands and drive it back west. What could go wrong?

Actually, nothing much does “go wrong,” per se, but it’s a fascinating account of traveling along America’s byways that’s keenly observational in the extreme, as well as incredibly funny. I commend Clotfelter and Froh for their determination not to miss any cheesy-ass tourist traps and other slices of low-rent Americana along the way, and to take in not just the sights, but the flavor, of “fly-over country.” It would be all too easy to adopt a dismissive attitude toward shit like the Corn Palace, Bible Land, and Wall Drug, but on the other side of the coin, it’s also a common enough thing to see the unimaginative and/or lazy sentimentalist romanticize the supposed “real America,” as well. Kelly and Max eschew both extremes, showing the simple goodness that really does exist out there in the heartland, while not glossing over the causal racism and prejudice that’s still, unfortunately, alive and well in “Trump country,” as well. Throw in a sampling of receipts, maps, and other ephemera collected along the way, and what you’ve got is the most engaging “road comic” in quite some time, superbly written and drawn by both partners.

So — where to get all this great stuff, you rightly ask? From John Porcellino, of course! Spit and a Half has every Froh/Clotlfleter mini-masterpiece covered in this column, and many more. I have yet to find a comic by either one of these creators (or both of them together) that I haven’t absolutely loved, so make tracks now for http://www.spitandahalf.com/

Next week we’ll head back to the comic shops racks for a look at the second issue of Eric Reynolds’ Now anthology, which I’ve been eagerly anticipating, and who knows? Maybe I’ll find a few other things worth buying — and talking about — as well. See you in seven!