It’s never a bad time to have a look at the latest from Columbus, Ohio’s Brian Canini, and given that he’s got a veritable raft of new minis available, that “never a bad time” is, specifically, now. Each of the following is available for $1.99 from Canini’s Drunken Cat Comics self-publishing imprint at http://drunkencatcomics.storenvy.com/

Plastic People #9 continues Canini’s long-form narrative about the first murder in decades to occur in a plastic surgery-obsessed future Los Angeles. This time out our pair of detectives’ search for clues, motives, or both takes them to the First Church Of The Surgeons, a part-cult/part-nudist camp extolling the virtues of surgically-achieved “perfection” with a kind of religious zeal because — well, it’s a religion. Agreeably illustrated in Canini’s skillfully minimalist style, a few curious choices in terms of grammar and syntax aren’t enough to dampen my enthusiasm for what is one of the best installments in a series that’s had many good ones, indeed.

Plastic People #10 brings us right to the scene of the crime, quite literally, but there’s a bigger problem, perhaps, than the murder itself — namely, there’s been a second murder, and since the victim this time out is one of Tinseltown’s “beautiful people,” the media is all over it. So “all over it,” in fact, that they’ve gone and spilled the beans about the first killing. Things are about to get either ugly, crazy, impossible to navigate — or all three. Probably even better than the previous issue, this comic is quickly establishing itself as one of the more ambitious in the entire small press/self-publishing scene.

Applewood Canyon #1 kicks off a new series Canini’s launched with an eye firmly on the emptiness of suburban life in Trump’s America, and while there’s a distinct Purge-esque feel to the proceedings, given this issue is almost all omniscient narration designed to lay out the scene and introduce some probably-principal players in the cast, we’re very much in “wait and see” territory here. Canini’s added ink washes to his visual “arsenal” here, so the comic has a richer, more “in-depth” look to it, but it’s simply too small a “sample size” in terms of story to get a real firm handle on what’s going on yet. It all seems intriguing enough, though, even if the object of satire/scorn here is pretty obvious.

Applewood Canyon #2 continues our descent into a suburban hellscape, this time throwing the focus on one character in particular who seems even sicker and more depraved than your average “gated community” dweller. Again, the Purge parallels leap right out at you , but this issue was good and creepy — not to mention nicely-drawn — so that’s good enough to hook me for more. My own views on suburbia are about the same as I presume Canini’s to be, so maybe I’m just pre-disposed to like this sort of thing, but I definitely get the feeling that he’s playing a “long game” with this concept, and I’m pretty eager to find out where he takes the whole thing. It’s not going to be pleasant — hell, it’s already anything but — yet there seems to be a wicked and sardonic sense of humor underpinning all the grimness here, as well. Count me in for the foreseeable future, even though I still have only the most cursory idea if where this series might be headed.

And with that, we put the wraps on this Wrap-Up. As always, we close with a reminder that this column is “brought to you” each and every week by my Patreon page, where for as little as a buck a month you can gets thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics. I’d be very pleased to have your support, and you get terrific value for your money, so please take a moment to check it out and consider joining. Here’s your link :https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse