Study Group Comic Books

Zack Soto is one of my favorite comic book Twitter pals, with his fondness for 1980s superhero role-playing games and pink-and-teal-drenched illustration. If you’ve seen any of his “Studygroup12” anthologies, you’d know that he has a keen editorial eye for visual flair, and a sharp sense of humor. We’re all still waiting for future issues of “Secret Voice.”

But until then, we have this new project, “Study Group Magazine,” which is part comics, part feature articles and interviews. The first issue is more than impressive.

Printed at Ignatz-size, on thick paper this two-color production (with 2011 being the year in which yellow-and-purple replace pink-and-teal, art comics fans please take note), this first issue features young art comics superstars like Aidan Koch, Chris Cilla, and Michael DeForge, along with spot illustrations by Daria Tessler and Soto himself. The DeForge comic is the outstanding contribution — the guys an indie/alt/art comics superstar for a reason — but the whole package is excellent, with a nice Eleanor Davis interview and a massive text piece culled from a Craig Thompson interview which really gets to the heart of Thompson’s aesthetic in “Habibi.”

In a different world, we might see newsstands in which “Study Group Magazine” stood next to “Clint Magazine” on the racks. Like “The Paris Review” next to “FHM.”

—Tim Callahan, CBR  (from our first review!)