Freak Scene Zine

High School Hooker Vigilante

College Buds

FREAK SCENE | Art Show

Above is some promotional artwork I provided for the upcoming show FREAK SCENE, which is happening in LA on July 6th at Synchronicity. It's presented by Drippy Bone Books and organized by Keenan Marshall Keller (his book GALACTIC BREAKDOWN is bonkers). Everyone in LA should check it out. The line-up is as stacked as they come.

DRAWINGS INSPIRED BY AMERICAN PSYCHO | Reviewed At Spandexless

Alec Berry breaks down the DRAWINGS INSPIRED BY THE FILM AMERICAN PSYCHO Broadsheet Edition Floating World Comics published over at Spandexless. Check it out here. Here are some kind words from the review:

Ben Marra, with the possible exception of Michael Deforge, is the best artist in alt-comics at the moment.

DeForge and I hung out in Toronto this past weekend at TCAF. We're bros. Here is some more insight into the publication from the review:

The thinness of newsprint allows images to be superimposed. Visuals on the back of a page become visible on the front of a page, and vice versa. This layering effect adds background detail to the image being viewed, pocking wholes in the illustrations’ perceived perfection as lines mesh, figures distort and characters begin to move. This technique is best used on the cover page where Bateman stands smirking at the reader, wearing a fitted suite with perfectly kept hair, while holding a bloody knife in front of an apartment complex. The cleanness that Bateman exudes is shattered as the image on the back of the page begins to bleed onto the cover, adding splashes of blood across Bateman’s face and the apartment complex he’s exiting, creating the image of a messy and disoriented killer. Adding these details directly to the primary image would disrupt the “cleanness” of the page  and remove Bateman’s perceived control over the book, but by using the paper’s thinness to creates ghost images, Marra’s able to create a layered effect that gives the reader a glimpse into Bateman’s psyche and his loss of control.

NIGHT BUSINESS | ISSUE 4 | Reviewed At The Comics Journal

Sean T. Collins reviews NIGHT BUSINESS, ISSUE 4,  over at The Comics Journal. Check it out here. Here's a sample of what to expect:

It’s all deeply ugly and silly and reprehensible and preposterous. It’s also undeniably beautiful, featuring Marra’s best use of blacks to date — I’m having a hard time tearing myself away from looking at the shadows on Johnny’s cheeks and chest or Chase’s back and collarbones long enough to write this post — and paced with precisely the same manipulative expertise as the genre trash it’s pastiching.

LINCOLN WASHINGTON: FREE MAN! | Reviewed At The Comics Journal

Matt Seneca reviews the first issue of LINCOLN WASHINGTON: FREE MAN! over at The Comics Journal. Check out out here. And here's a sample:

It seems unlikely that anyone would have guessed the missing element Benjamin Marra needed to deliver his first bona fide masterpiece was a dose of realism, but then again he does have a way of confounding expectations. After all, it was always a long shot that the most consistently excellent alternative cartoonist of the post-Kramers Ergot generation would be a purveyor of straight-ahead action serials whose style springs from Paul Gulacy and Todd McFarlane.