Week of 4/14/2025

The Shapes presents Tammy the Tabby's Easter Funnies! I have some more shop updates and event announcements, and on Sammy the Critic, I dive into ero-guro domain with Rattling City #1.

The Shapes

Tammy the Tabby’s Easter Funnies

News

Store Updates

While I was in Philly on Sunday hanging around Queens Village, I stopped by Partners & Son to drop copies of The Shapes #5 and restock #1, so if you’re near that area, check ‘em out!

I also left copies of #1 and #5 at Brickbat Books over on 709 S 4th St.

Event Announcements

I’m happy to say I’m not done with events for the spring because I have two back-to-back ones lined up for the first weekend in May!

Free Comic Book Day Indie Comics Fest

To celebrate Free Comic Book Day on May 3rd, the Long Island City-based Everyone Comics is hosting an indie comics fest with local creators. I’ll be tabling with JJ Ortega from noon to six.

Annual Spring Craft & Vendor Fair

The following day, on May 4th, I’m vending at the 2025 Spring Craft & Vendor Fair from 10 AM-4 PM all the way in Port Jefferson, Long Island (don’t feel bad for me, I chose this knowing the fate that awaits me). If any of you are gutsy enough to make the trek to Suffolk County or happen to live near there, then come on over! I might really need the support depending on the patronage.

Sammy the Critic

Rattling City #1 Review (NSFW)

British-Greek turned Tokyo-based artist Demitri Vassiladis debuts with a 24-page ero-guro manga that could be most colorfully described as a visual forary into the phantasmorgic abyss.

Opening with a couple having graphically detailed sex, the boyfriend ejaculates prematurely to the girlfriend’s discontent as she proceeds to play with herself in the shower. While there is a slightly arousing element present to those who are pornographically inclined enough, Vassiladis employs his gritty, to-the-bones linework to articulate the sex’s rough, one-sided nature. From the beginning, we can see the boyfriend doesn’t care much about boundaries, insisting that they make love despite her work fatigue. It comes as little surprise, therefore, when we see him sneak out to chase after other women at a seedy bar, where he pays a sex worker for her services. This scene is the catalyst of our, the voyeur’s, arousal for the taboo, which turns out to be a red-herring foreplay. The subsequent sequences alternate between them walking to her place and lurid visuals of decomposing/disintegrating bodies. Her palms are described as “dry and frozen… It was like holding ice wrapped in skin”, a haunting foreshadowing to the bilateral karma experienced by the main character for his actions and us for our decadent gratification of what we expect to happen.

You can buy the book on the publisher Hollow Press’s website, available in both English and Italian.