It's early in the day (for me) on Monday, and I'm still get my work legs. What better in such a situation than gazing at awesome new Malinky Robot art from Sonny Liew? Check it out on his blog.

Sonny is the Eisner-nominated artist on Wonderland, as well.

Continuing the parade of reviews are a bunch of Malinky Robot: Biycle by Sonny Liew, who is also the artist on the forthcoming (next week!) Wonderland.

The first is by Chad Boudreau at Comic Readers, who rates it a 4.5 out of 5 and enjoys the depction of childhood friendships.

There's another by Graig Kent at Chud.com (scroll down a bit), who also rates it at 4.5 out of 5. Kent is dazzled by Liew's understated, intricate art: "His artwork in every form is absolutely gorgeous, awe-inspiring. Comparing him to other artists is difficult. Assumed inspirations could be plenty, but he’s forged his own aesthetic that, especially in his pencil-only work, leaves you too stunned to even think of anything else but what you’re looking at."

(An interesting thing about MR: Bicycle being marked two--it's my hope that people are moved to find the first installment, Malinky Robot: Stinky Fish Blues, which Sonny self-published with a Xeric grant. Several people have asked me about it, and I've been able to point them in the right direction.)

The Comic Queen breaks ranks and gives MR: Bicycle an A-... the letter grade equivalent of a 4.5 out five. She is most impressed with the humor Liew with which infuses the touching story.

Jog the Blog has a review, too, and the reviewer explores the nature of Atari's, Olivers's and Misha's frienship and outlooks: "The bonding agent connecting these three detours is wistful childhood imaginings, tinged with darkness. Note that all three of these stories involve loss and defeat; the realities of the world cannot be ignored by these children, despite all frolic and storytelling. But the trick is they don’t seem to recognize things as ‘dark’ - they recognize them as part of the natural state of being, and they keep on playing."

The Malaysian newspaper The Star has an article about homeland-boy-made-good, but it points to... darker voices. Seems a reviewer at The Comics Journal thinks the meanings in MR: Bicycle are too simple and the lush art is just there supporting nothing worthwhile. Hmmm. There is a simplicity in Bicycle, but I've always perceived it as a beautiful simplicity that is, in a way, only the surface--beneath it are more complex themes about loss and the inability to truly know anyone else completely. If those are "obvious, dime-store morals," as the TCJ reviewer put it, I guess I--and most everyone who has read MR: Bicycle--is pretty cheap and shallow.

Neat fact: Sonny has a BA with Honors in Philosophy from Cambridge, bee-yatches!

The quietly whimsical Malinky Robot: Bicycle by Sonny Liew will be coming out in December, but you can read a little interview with Sonny now at Newsarama. (Just a little correction in case you want to check out Sonny's earlier work -- Sonny's first Malinky Robot comic is "Stinky Fish Blues" not "Stinky Blue Fish.") Sonny's also illustrated our forthcoming Wonderland book, which is written by Tommy Kovac.

Hey! Speaking of Tommy Kovac, Comic World News has a review of his miniseries Autumn, up through the latest issue, #4. And just in time for the best night of the year, too! Michael May writes, "The aesthetics and the setting, with the Black Wood and the secret village and all the masks and superstitions, are as delicious and welcoming as Halloween night."

Yep, even if Tommy is responsible for magically giving Serena a cold from 400 miles away so I won't see her tonight at the Bauhaus show, he still is pretty darn cool. Especially since he keeps gross Cheeto-covered boys out of the library.

Bicycle Blues in a New Malinky Robot from SLG

It's a good day for Atari and Oliver, two residents of the working-class city of San'ya.. Thanks to a bit of luck and a large denominational bill they find, they've seen a giant robot movie and they've gotten a visit from their friend Misha in their junkyard clubhouse. The boys relish the day, and in this first story of Xerix Award-winning artist Sonny Liew's Malinky Robot: Bicycle, the art reflects their mood in its mellow and quiet coloring.

"Bicycle is about friendship definitely, an attempt to capture the rhythms of the day spent with friends, just hanging out," says Liew. "A lot of it is just that, capturing certain moments, ordinary events that somehow have some kind of inner glow."

But Misha is moving away to the suburbs in Sanrio, and moments like this are going to be rarer for the trio. So after Misha has moved, Atari and Oliver plan a trip to Sanrio, riding off on "borrowed" bicycles and finding freedom in the woods outside the San'ya, which Liew based on a laboring district in northeastern Tokyo. The look of the book changes to the signature penciled style Liew employed in his self-published hit Malinky Robot: Stinky Fish Blues. Once Atari and Oliver meet up with Misha, the three boys discuss their friend Mr. Bon Bon and learn that they all know something a little different about him.

They share their knowledge about Mr. Bon Bon in a series of stories that Liew calls "a kinda sorta Rashomon thing," referring to the Akira Kurosawa film, which shows the same story through the point of view of four different characters. In Bicycle each boy's story about Mr. Bon Bon is illustrated in a different style. "The style used in each story is meant to reflect the sensibilities of each storyteller," Liew explains. In Misha's story, for example, Liew employs a loose, alternative comics style, while Oliver's story takes on the format of a newspaper comics page and Atari's depicts Mr. Bon Bon as a gritty action-comics hero.

The boys learn that there is something tragic in Mr. Bon Bon's past and begin to piece together the circumstances that led to it. But there is a truth to what has happened that exists only to Mr. Bon Bon and that they cannot discover. In the end, says Liew, Bicycle shows "the unknowability of others, how we know a person only in small ways."

"Sonny has a real sensitivity for the subtleties of human interaction and emotion," said SLG's editor-in-chief Jennifer de Guzman, "but there is also lightheartedness and fun in his stories. He captures how life can constantly swing between happy and sad and everything in between."

Malinky Robot: Bicycle, is a 48-page digest-sized comic, with sixteen pages of color, scheduled for release in December 2005. Creator Sonny Liew was the recipient of a Xeric grant in 2003 for Malinky Robot: Stinky Fish Blues and was artist on the Vertigo hit mini-series My Faith in Frankie. Fans of his art will not want to miss SLG's Disney comic Wonderland, written by Tommy Kovac and drawn by Liew. It is slated for release in Spring 2006.

Check out a preview of Malinky Robot: Bicycle at www.slgpublishing.com.