Comic, James Spencer, jamespencer.ca, $3
Wonk is a sketchbook masquerading as a… pamphlet? Curb your expectations accordingly and you’ll probably dig this collection of drawings on some level, to the credit of creator James Spencer. The cover features a creature with a really porous snout, which sets the tone for all the ghouls and goblins to follow. A lot of very interesting noses overall are on display. There are also human skulls and bird skulls and human faces and bird faces. Again, it’s a real mish-mash and leafing through these wordless pages feels like stealing the notebook of a faltering high school student and drawing the inference that s/he spent most of his/her classroom time doodling (with a heavy R. Crumb influence.) The gatefold of smoking, angry apes is pretty cool — especially since their facial expressions are essentially saying, “Come at me, bro” to a pair of prehistoric-looking, bird-type creatures. The rest of the drawings are fairly decent too. Even if he loses interest in Wonk, James could always find a second act doing album art and t-shirts for Dinosaur Jr. (Cam Gordon)