Revisiting childhood in comic-zine form has never been so sweet as it reads in the pages of Matt and Jeanie Bryan’s Moses & Bean. As the titular characters take turns starring in each issue, readers are treated to a charming and honest look at growing up in rural Missouri. Bean ventures through summer camp, older siblings, and a menagerie of strange animal friends, while Moses struggles with bullies at grade-school, scary teachers, and the dreams and disappointments of being in a teenage metal band. Like any great ‘slice of life’ comic, Moses & Bean is both sad and hilarious. It creates beautifully rendered vignettes into those odd memories that always resurface when we think back into our adolescence. Jeanie Bryan writes with an alluring candor, and Matt Bryan’s artwork gets more intricate and expressive with each issue.
But beyond great stories and artwork, Moses & Bean has a certain magical quality about it. The stories contain just enough text and details that you have that feeling of floating through a pleasant memory. The whole picture may not be clear, but all of the key elements and emotions are there to sift through and enjoy. My only real gripe with Moses & Bean is that there isn’t enough of it. But I do hope to one day sit down with a thick graphic novel with hundreds of pages of Moses & Bean adventures.
I suppose I can cut Matt and Jeanie a little slack with the multiple side projects they’re working on, leading the Urchin Sketch Collective of St. Louis comic artists, running the online Urchin Sketch blog, and publishing the Mixed Feelings comic anthologies once a year. This creative couple is well on their way to local notoriety and beyond. Check out all their great work at:
http://mosesandbean.blogspot.com/
and
