Minor Leagues is Simon Moreton’s latest comic after SMOO, his zine of life stories and vignettes that ended last year. This new series is set in Bristol, England. We start with a funeral, float to a summer spent in parks, learn of Dizzy the cat’s escape, and end up pondering a heron Moreton saw one night on a drunken walk. Sometimes I can’t handle elliptical stories where I don’t know who’s coming and going or what’s at stake. Yet, this narrative looseness works for Minor Leagues because the comics end up telling the story in a dreamy continuation rather than in neatly chopped segments. His loose style works with the understated drawings, which I love. In one of my favorite panels, Moreton is seated behind a couple in a pew at a funeral. Though his characters rarely have clear faces, he’s wearing glasses, and the glasses frame covering his left eye is slightly larger than that of the right. It’s a subtlety that conveys the curious wide-eyed look people get right before crying. I read SMOO because I love John Porcellino’s King Cat. The illustration styles are similarly abstracted, and the pacing is similarly slow. The major difference is that Porcellino’s comics seem to have a sharp start and close, like haikus or something, and Moreton’s pieces flow and wander, which really does recreate the feeling of a year remembered. Some drink Pabst, some drink Old Style, some drink both. Minor Leagues is that tall boy of a zine that I need when American artists alone can’t meet my craving for pint of life comics. Recommended reading! –Jim Joyce (smoo-comics.com)