Week of 7/20/2026
This week, existential crisis on The Shapes, the usual news updates, and a review of the new Dark Horse miniseries Skate Ali on Sammy the Critic!
The Shapes
Days A’ Commin Days A’ Missed
Also, happy birthday to me (my birthday was on Wednesday)!
News
Pinky & Clara Tour
I skipped an update last week, so I wasn’t able to tell y’all this, but I had to cancel the Philly Punk Rock Flea Market due to prohibitively expensive return flight tickets back to the East Coast (damn you FIFA though I’m happy for Spain). Fortunately, I still have plenty of other events lined up this summer season, including Lawance, Kansas!
For today, you can find me at the NJ Punk Rock Flea Market at the NJ Expo Center in Edison all day from 10AM-7PM. If that’s too far of a commute for you all my fellow New Yorkers here, there’s Minthorne St. Market next Saturday in Staten Island from noon to 4.
As for when The Shapes officially returns from hiatus, I’ll probably push it to near the end of September. Stay tuned for more updates
Oklahoma Shops
While I was stuck in Dallas for another week, I visited Oklahoma City and Tulsa and, of course, hit up more bookstores to leave The Shapes comic books at.
The Floating Bookshop
OKC has some of the most beautiful bookshops in the damn US of A, but The Floating Bookshop in the artsy Automobile Alley really takes the cake if you’re looking for cool zines and alternative comix.
3 NW 9th St, Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Meadow Market Books
Located at the up-and-coming Cherry St corridor, Meadow Market Books is a new bookstore that’s been serving the local literary and art community since it opened its doors late last year.
1514 E 15th St, Tulsa, OK 74120
Sammy the Critic
Skate Ali #1
“In Los Angeles, nobody skates for fun.”
Neither do they walk, allegedly, but some still choose to resist the status quo. Such is the case of teenage girl Ali, who defies the futuristic LA’s anti-skating laws as she sports the streets solo. Who can blame her? Her pop’s a layabout and her mom’s absent from her life, so she’s gotta find some way to keep herself sane even if it means ironically doing the insane.
As such rebellious pursuits do, Ali skates down a rabbit hole there’s no backtracking from when she finds herself in skateboarding gang Skull Clan territory. Ok, there was a chance to backtrack, but why bother when you got mad skills you want to show off to the cool kids?
With vibrant artwork by Spanish cartoonist Natacha Bustos and offbeat writing by Sam Humphries, Skate Ali has a liberated-youth-vs.-repressive-authority energy running through its veins. It’s a long, oft-used dynamic in YA fiction to varying degrees of success that’s always relatable to its target audience. I think this entry to the trope shows a lot of promise. It might be too early to tell what direction the plot wants to venture towards, but it’s clear what tone it aims to capture. This isn’t one of these tales of teen angst trying to convince you of how deep it is or interested in melodrama. The down-to-earth protagonist traits are there to keep it relatable to YA readers, but it’s really a fun sci-fi skateboarding comic book that wants to take you along for the ride, and I enjoy it for that.
You can buy Skate Ali #1 and #2 (which came out this week) at your local comic shop.