MOME Fall 2005 (Vol. 2)

With more than ten issues of Mome having been published as of this writing, it's easy enough to look back and realize that the second volume in the series is almost certainly the weakest link in the chain. The group of young cartoonists featured in the first issue is mostly intact, and new names are few. Gabrielle Bell, Jeffrey Brown, Sophie Crumb, and David Heatley contribute the sort of boring, lazy, unimaginative pieces they're known for, and even Andrice Arp's offering is nothing special.

The few pieces in this issue that aren't a total loss are Martin Cendreda's "The Magic Marker" and a couple of bizarre and illuminating one-pagers from Tim Hensley, from whom great things are in evidence in later volumes of Mome. Other items herein show more are contributed by Johnathan Bennett, Paul Hornschemeier John Pham, and Kurt Wolfgang, and none of those creators saw fit to rise above the dull and ordinary, marking a definite low-point for what has otherwise (in more recent issues) proven to be a premier journal of the graphic arts. show less