Bongo Comics Free-For-All 2008

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics via Free Comic Book Day 2008.

Title: Bongo Comics Free-For-All
Date: 2008
Publisher: Bongo Comics
Writer: Ian Boothby, John Bates, Chuck Dixon
Penciler: John Delaney, James Lloyd, Nina Matsumoto
Inker: Andrew Pepoy, Mike Rote
Colorist: Chris Ungar, Art Villanueva
Letterer: Karen Bates
Editor: Bill Morrison
Cover: Matt Groening, Bill Morrison, Mike Rote

Ashcan-format full-color freeby for FCBD 2008, containing three stories.

The first one features Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson in their superhero identities as Stretch Dude, Clobber Girl, and Bouncing Battle Baby. It's a good quick-paced story that is pretty standard superhero fare, but it's loaded with good jokes and excellent comedic timing, so that the not-that-original plot never overstays its welcome.

The second story features Bart going on a "stink strike" by refusing to take a bath. Not surprisingly, he ends up discovering that there is someone in the household who is more than capable at beating him at his own game.

The third story is the strangest of the bunch. It's a manga interpretation of The Simpsons, really a parody of manga tropes, and much like the baseball game that it features, it's hit-or-miss. Some of the jokes are brilliant, while others felt mean-spirited or crossed the line into playing to stereotypes.

I did love Nina Matsumoto's manga interpretations of the Simpsons characters.

A mixed bag overall. It didn't have me ready to go out and buy more Simpsons comics, but it did provide some decent humor.

Rating: 5.5/10

Sam: Fate Revolution #6 Preview

From the random stack of unread comics. This is the last of three issues of this series that I had a chance to review.

Title: Sam: Fate Revolution
Issue: 6 (Preview)
Publisher: Foongatz Studios
Date: 2008
Writer: Bill Gallagher, Alex Drinan, Ron Smith
Artist: Bill Gallagher, Ron Smith

Ashcan-format preview freebie for issue #6 of Sam: Fate Revolution. The covers are formatted like a flip-book, even though the story only proceeds in one direction. Both covers are shown above.

Sam joins special forces team infiltrating the flagship of Rancor's fleet. In addition to their primary objectives, Sam wants to rescue his friend Bronto, who is being held prisoner on the ship.

Sam's scenes were reminiscent of Star Wars as his team sneaks aboard the command ship of the evil forces. Meanwhile, Bronto, who is literally a captive audience, is on the receiving end of a large infodump from a fellow prisoner. This gives us an origin story for the villain, Rancor.

The lengthy exposition is not well-suited to the purpose of a free preview, and this book suffers from its lack of action.

A good cliffhanger does end the book with some tension, but in general there is not enough going on here to keep exciting.

Rating: 5/10

Sam: Fate Revolution: Souvenir Edition

From the random stack of unread comics.

Title: Sam: Fate Revolution: Souvenir Edition
Publisher: Foongatz Studios
Date: 2007
Creator: Bill Gallagher, Alex Drinan, Ron Smith

In a universe under threat of destruction by a cosmic-powered conqueror, a hero named Sam somehow acquires mysterious powers that might be the key to saving everything.

This is an ashcan-format preview book setting up the world and story for this space-based SF superheroic epic. Color cover, b/w interior. The book definitely has a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe to it, and the character designs presented here are loads of fun visually, especially Bronto, a humanoid sauropod engineer.

The descriptions of the characters felt a bit generic, as did the plot, and hopefully it will move into more original territory with the first full issue.

In the meantime, the visuals were enough to keep up my interest.

Rating: 6/10

Little Archie: The House That Wouldn't Move

 From the random stack of unread comics.

Title: Little Archie: The House That Wouldn't Move
Date: 2007
Publisher: Archie Comics
Writer: Dexter Taylor, Bob Bolling
Artist: Dexter Taylor, Bob Bolling
Editor: Victor Gorelick, Nelson Ribeiro, Richard Goldwater

This is an ashcan-format freebie from Archie Comics containing two Little Archie stories (technically the second is labeled as a Little Betty & Veronica story, but both stories actually feature Little Archie and Little Betty).

First up is the title story, "The House That Wouldn't Move", which involves Little Archie helping the resident ghost of the local haunted house resist the efforts of a work crew sent to demolish the place to clear the way for a new highway.

The second story features some dog vs. cat antics when Little Archie's dog, Spotty, chases Little Betty's cat, Caramel, up a tree.

Both stories are kid-friendly, with pretty simple and straightforward plots. There are some funny moments, and the artwork looks good throughout.

Rating: 6/10

Uncle Scrooge Halloween Ashcan 2007

From the random stack of unread comics.

Title: Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge (Uncle Scrooge Halloween Ashcan 2007)
Date: 2007
Publisher: Gemstone Publishing
Writer:Carl Barks
Artist: Carl Barks
Colorist: Colleen Winkler, Susan Daigle-Leach
Editor: Leonard (John) Clark, Sue Kolberg

Technically the title of this is simply Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge, with nothing to distinguish it from any other book featuring that character. I'm calling it "Uncle Scrooge Halloween Ashcan 2007" for clarification. This is a full-color ashcan-format Halloween-themed freebie that reprints a pair of classic Carl Barks Disney comics.

First up is "Hound of the Whiskervilles", a parody of the classic Sherlock Holmes mystery featuring Scrooge, Donald Duck, and the three nephew ducks. Scrooge is trying to get accepted in high society, so he travels to Scotland, hoping a bit of genealogy is just the trick to establish his upper-class bloodline for the aristocratic types back home. With Donald and crew in tow, he encounters the legendary hound that haunted the moors in the days of his ancestors.

There are a couple of fun plot twists in this story, and it was generally pretty entertaining.

The second story features Gyro Gearloose, who decides create his own new life form from the basic chemicals of life after being inspired by a showing of the film "Krankenstein". He creates an egg and speculates on what might hatch from it after placing it in the care of an eager chicken.

This story war more of an extended gag strip, with a lot of setup for a single punchline at the end, which was okay, but not especially satisfying. I did like Gyro's imagined creatures, though.

Rating: 6.5/10

Strange Girl: Free Ashcan Edition

From the pile of random unread comics. I'm guessing I got this because it was free.

Title: Strange Girl: Free Ashcan Edition
Date: August, 2006
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Rick Remender
Artist: Nick Stakal, Eric Nguyen, Jerome Opena, Harper Jaten

Standard comic format here. "Free Ashcan Edition" just indicates a small page count (10 total; five of story and five sketchbook pages), and the fact that it's a giveaway.

The story portion is a first-person recap of the action from issues 1-9 of the Strange Girl series, as told by the title character Bethany Black. Essentially, a Christian-flavored apocalypse has occurred, with much of the population raptured away by God, while Earth is given over to the demons, who get right down to the business of enslaving, torturing, and killing those "left behind".

Bethany, discovering she has a talent for demon magic, survives by making herself useful to one of the demon lords before eventually escaping and striking out on her own.

Unfortunately, all of that is told in a wordy recap that really doesn't do the job of selling the product that it needs to. Show, don't tell, please! Bethany's voice is uninteresting, and she never quite manages to convince me that I should care about her or her world. I guess I need more of a hook than just "Hell on Earth".

The artwork looks good, but the small panels don't help matters. The emergence of the demons from cracks in the earth during the apocalypse really needed to be epic-sized. Space limitations really hurt matters here.

In fact, the best thing in this book was the sketchbook section, in which artist Nick Stakal was allowed a bit of breathing room while showing off concept art for his run, which starts with the 10th issue of the series.

That's not enough to convince me to jump on board with this story, though.

Rating: 4.5/10

The Dark Hunters: Exclusive Collector's Booklet

Here's one I've had sitting around in the to-be-read pile for a while. This was a promotional item I believe I picked up at the 2008 New York Comicon.

Title: The Dark Hunters: Exclusive Collector's Booklet
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Date: 2008
Writer: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Artist: Claudia Campos

This is a manga series that ties in with Sherrilyn Kenyon urban fantasy fiction. Actually, this particular book is a preview ashcan for that series.

Starting with a legend from ancient Greece of a powerful ruler and warrior who was betrayed and left to wander the Earth as an immortal creature of the shadows, the story quickly jumps to modern times and a woman who is trying her best to stay out of the way of her supernatural-connected family.

Unfortunately, supernatural entanglements have a way of being, well, entangling.

Nice dialogue, including a cute Anne Rice joke thrown in there. The action just gets going when the book goes to cliffhanger, but that's fine for a preview quickie like this. The witch-family seems amusing, and there are plenty of hints at the depth of the story to come.

Rating: 7/10

Megazeen Presents

Here's a preview ashcan that's been sitting in the backlog for a while.

Title: Megazeen Presents
Publisher: Megazeen
Date: 2004
Writer: Jesus Marquez, Tom Hall, Joe Endres, Kneon Transitt
Art: Jesus Marquez, Ink Boy, Joe Endres, Kneon Transitt

Ashcan flip book previewing two titles, Colossians and Live by the Sword. Just art previews, no dialogue.

Live by the Sword is fantasy with some SF elements. The preview consists of a battle between a band of sword-wielding heroes and a force of androids, apparently under the control of an elven despot named Liger. There is a lot of mayhem and slicing of android bodies with swords. The art features some nice detail work, especially on the characters' armor, and I liked the look of the androids.

Flip the book and you get another art-only preview, this time of Colossians, which is a science fiction story about a crew of roguish space pirates. It looked like a Guardians of the Galaxy style story with all sorts of different alien species represented. This was a bit more goofy in style, with less attention given to background art.

A couple of group pinup pieces occupy the center pages.

The print quality on this was a bit of an issue, especially considering the purpose of the book is to showcase the artwork. Part of that is a function of the size of the book, which was small, but kept inexpensive even with color covers. But a lot of the artwork was printed very light, which detracted from the overall effect.

There is definitely potential here, but a better preview format might have helped bring more of that potential to the forefront.

Rating: 5.5/10

Dead West Test #1

Dug out of the backlog and read/reviewed at the Wellfleet Flea Market.

Title: Dead West Test
Issue: #1
Publisher: Gigantic Graphic Novels
Date: 2004
Writer: Rick Spears
Artist: Rob G.

Minicomic ashcan previewing the full graphic novel.

A girl and her dog are menaced by thugs in an Old West border town. A gunfighter intervenes, but that is just the start of the girl's troubles.

Gritty western action. The art style works nicely, and the action is realistic. This minicomic only contains one scene of the story, but I was impressed with the amount of character development the two main characters get in such a small space.

Rating: 7.5/10

Strawberry Shortcake / Scouts Halloween Mini-Comic #1

I will be at Arisia this weekend in Boston MA. Come see my comics at the Dandelion Studios table in the dealers' room. I will also be reading my fiction Saturday at 10 AM and I will be on the minicomics panel Saturday at 10 PM. Yes, Saturday will be a long day.

Here's a kids' comic I picked up as a Halloween freebie from New England Comics in Quincy MA.

Title: Strawberry Shortcake / Scouts Halloween Mini-Comic
Issue: #1
Date: 2012
Publisher:  Kizoic
Writer: Heather Nuhfer, Mark Finn
Artist: Amy Mebberson, Antonio Campo
Colorist: Amy Mebberson, Dustin Evans
Letterer: AW's Adrian Martinez

Ashcan-format flip book.

Strawberry Shortcake is getting her sweets shop ready for the Valentines season, which is one of their busiest times of the year. In an effort to get some extra help, she tries recruiting a berrykin, and ends up securing the services of Littlest Berrykin, who is full of her own ideas about how to concoct treats. And some of those ideas involve chili peppers.

There is a fine line between adorable and unbearable sometimes, and this story managed to stay about a millimeter on the adorable side.

Flip the book over and you get Scouts, which is basically a comedy about a Boy Scouts style group. It's time for the pet appreciation badge, and every bad pet cliche shows up all at once. This was fairly lowbrow (but still kid-appropriate) humor, which was enough to get a mild chuckle out of me when reading it, but which is also pretty forgettable once it's done.

Rating: 5.5/10

Snarked! #0

Title: Snarked!
Issue: #0
Date: 2011
Publisher: Kaboom!
Writer: Roger Langridge
Artist: Roger Langridge
Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg, Matthew Wilson
Editor: Bryce Carlson

This full-color ashcan-format book was released in 2011, but I picked it up as part of my 2012 Free Comic Book Day haul.

Inspired by Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter", the narrative style of this comic resembles the classic Scrooge McDuck tales of Carl Barks.

In this story, the Walrus is hungry for a good meal and he's willing to give anything to get it. Anything except for honest work, of course. Accompanied by the rather oblivious Carpenter, the pair swindles their way into the palace of the absent king, passing themselves off as snark hunters, only to be undone by their own greed.

This had some amusing moments, and I enjoyed the way that the Lewis Carroll references were woven into the story.

Rating: 7/10

Death Jr. Halloween Special

Title: Death Jr. Halloween Special
Date: 2006
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Joe Morrisey
Penciler: Guy Davis
Inker: Guy Davis
Colorist: Charlie Kirchoff
Cover: Backbone Entertainment
Editor: Nicole Tanner, Chris Charla, Mike Mika

Death Jr. and his friends go trick-or-treating. They're not afraid of ghosts or goblins, but high school students can be a frightening thing to encounter on Halloween night. Along the way, the group stops at the home of Mother Nature and her daughter, Furi.

The idea here is interesting: The Grim Reaper is just a guy with a job to do, and his son is just another kid. Good dialogue, but something of a heavy-handed joke at the end. As promotional ashcans go, this is a decent effort, but nothing to get too excited about.

Rating: 6/10

The Blood Rider Preview

Title: The Blood Rider Preview
Date: 2008
Publisher: Free Lunch Comics & Thunder Hammer Publishing
Writer: Mark Tarrant
Artist: Matt Ryan

Ashcan format preview book that introduces Ezekiel Carson, a vampire gunslinger in the Old West.

I liked the "Weird West" feel of this introductory story. Carson arrives in a small town to found most of the populace hanging and the rest among the ranks of the walking dead. He proceeds to dispense some frontier justice.

Nice artwork, particularly on the faces. This ashcan also includes a two-page preview of Ezekiel Carson's adventures in prose form.

I like the mix of vampire lore with Old West action. This was a good preview that got me interested in reading more about the Blood Rider's adventures.

Rating: 7/10

Hot Stuff: The Little Devil Halloween Special

Title: Hot Stuff: The Little Devil Halloween Special
Date: 2009
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
CHot Stuff the Little Devil by: Harvey Comics

This 2010 ashcan introduces another addition to Dark Horse's line of classic Harvey comics. Hot stuff is generallya pretty smooth operator, but even the Little Devil can get thrown off his game like he does when a baby redbird mistakes him for its mother and imprints on him. Hot Stuff then goes on to save the bird from a succession of dangers.

The other main story here involves a very silly trip to the moon and even sillier aliens. There are also a couple of single-page gag strips.

I'm not entirely sure I get what the Hot Stuff characters is all around, but the stories had a logical flow to them and everything seemed to at least be interesting.

Rating: 6/10
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Casper The Friendly Ghost And Little Lulu Halloween Special 2009

Title: Casper The Friendly Ghost And Little Lulu Halloween Special 2009
Date: 2009
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Little Lulu By: John Stanley, Irving Tripp
Little Lulu Created By: Marge Buell
Casper The Friendly Ghost By: Harvey Comics

Sorry guys, you immediately lose points with me for failing to credit the writers and artists on the Casper stories and for barely managing a well-hidden reference to the names of the creative team on Little Lulu. I'm sorry, but I just find that inexcusable, even in an ashcan-format freebie, even when reprinting old material, even if that old material may not have been properly credited. Do your homework. Then give credit where it's due! That's just simple decency, Dark Horse!

There are four stories here, all reprints of classic material. The dates when they originally appeared are not provided. The two one-page gag strips are both amusing, if simple jokes.

The longer stories were both pretty good, especially the Casper one, which had Casper trying to blend in with the crowd so that he could make friends on Halloween. Halloween gives him certain advantages when it comes to trying to interact with people, but sometimes it just isn't enough. But there's one little girl who isn't afraid, even when Casper's true nature gets revealed in the midst of a Halloween party. The ending was surprising and sweet.

The Little Lulu story involved Lulu trying to keep Alvin awake with a story about Hazel the witch and her daughter Itch. Itch is out to create some mischief by levitating a little girl's bed, but the resourceful and scrappy girl (who is Lulu, of course) isn't about to be intimidated by a bit of witchcraft.

In spite of my annoyance with the crediting thing, Dark Horse did choose a couple of good stories with interesting twists to reprint here.

Rating: 6.5/10

This is the first in a short series of reviews of books I picked up today on a visit to Million Year Picnic in Cambridge MA. Million Year Picnic is a great indy-friendly comic book store that carries a ton of small press comics and minicomics. This was the only book in the series by a major publisher, as it was a kids' freebie that the store gave to my son (he enjoyed having the Casper story read to him, but lost interest in the Little Lulu stuff, in case you're wondering). Million Year Picnic was kind enough to purchase some copies of my comics today, so if you're in Cambridge, please consider stopping by and checking out their whole selection of small press comic books.

Evolution Comics Ashcan #2

Title: Evolution Comics Ashcan
Issue: #2
Date: 1999
Publisher: Evolution Comics
Writer: Margie Spears, Alexei Kondratiev
Penciler: Vince Mielcarek, Don Hudson
Inker: Chris Ivy, Don Hudson
Character Design: Jim Fletcher
Letterer: Arthur Lewandowski
Editor: Ken Gale

This is a photocopied ashcan with samples from two of Evolution Comics' ongoing stories, both from the pages of their Dangerous Times anthology title.

First up is Beleagean Days, a space opera about a group of GILEA (Genetically Improved Law Enforcement Agents! No, really!) officers trapped on an alien starship heading out into space. In this installment, the team members are dealing with the death of a member of their team. There is some a decent amount of insight given here into what is clearly a complex and well thought out world and cast.

The second story is more straightforward, mostly because fewer characters are involved. This is Vidorix the Druid, the tale of an ancient Celtic warrior-priest who travels through time to a medieval Irish monastery. The artwork had a nice realistic feel to it, and the scenario was interesting and introduced well. The story is well researched, a virtue of having the writing talents of celtic language expert Alexei Kondratiev.

The introduction to this book also contains a tribute to comic writer/editor E. Nelson Bridwell, whose writing was the inspiration for the founding of Evolution Comics.

Rating: 6/10

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Limited Edition Preview

Title: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Limited Edition Preview
Date: 1993
Publisher: Malibu Comics
Writer: Mike W. Barr
Artist: Gordon Purcell
Editor: Tom Mason

Preview ashcan distributed in Hero magazine for the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comic series from Malibu Comics. Not much actual comics in this preview. There are fairly generic interviews with the writer and artist, followed by a preview page in script, sketch, and finished form. There's also a nice center pinup of the cast and the space station, and a sketch of one of the original characters from the comic series. The interviews felt like sports interviews, where the players are just picking from their lists of cliches. These sorts of things are necessary, but in this case they didn't add much. I would have liked to see a bit more in the way of finished pages so that there was more sense of what to expect story-wise from the full-length book.

Gordon Purcell's artwork looks good, and the digital coloring gives it a photo-like quality that works well for a TV adaptation.

Rating: 4.5/10

The Smurfs Halloween

Title: The Smurfs Halloween
Issue:
Date: 2010
Publisher: Papercutz

Okay, this one starts off with a pet peeve: Everything is uncredited. I realize that this is just a promotional ashcan based on a licensed property, but does it really hurt that much to find someplace in the book to give credit to the author and the artist?

Okay, now that that is done. For the remainder of my review, I will be writing in the Smurf dialect.

Papercutz has smurfed the rights to the classic cartoon characters, the Smurfs. This ashcan edition smurfs two stories, both based around a halloween theme. In the first smurf, a the smurfs are smurfing magical apples when they are confronted by a smurfy witch who attempts to smurf a spell at them to smurf them all into pumpkins. The witch fails to smurf the smurfs into pumpkins, but a collision with a pumpkin wagon inspires the smurfs to smurf some tricks on their fellow smurfs. They proceed to smurf a game of trick-or-treat, which serves the double smurf of introducing the cast of smurfs in the village. Eventually, they return to smurf tricks on the witch, who ends up blaming all of their mischief on Gargamel. Gargamel then smurfs to summon the powerful and smurfy Jack-'o-Lantern, but all he does is smurf against Gargamel and the witch. Are you smurfing all of this? If so, that's smurfy, because it didn't smurf much sense to me.

The second story features the smurfs on their way to smurf a haunted tower. There they smurf a very small and not very smurfy ghost, who is so afraid of everything that he fears he'll never be able to smurf anyone. In the end, he finds the courage to smurf up to (you smurfed it!) Gargamel and lives (well, actually ghosts don't really live, they smurf). smurfily ever after. Oh, and there's a puppy.

The second story was smurfier than the first one, but as a whole I was not all that smurfed with this effort.

Smurfing: 4/10

Archie 1: The Dawn Of Time

Title: Archie 1: The Dawn Of Time
Date: 2010
Publisher: Archie Comics
Art: Doug Crane
Production: Stephen Oswald, Carlos Antunes, Jon Gray
Editor: Victor Gorelick

Ashcan format promo book. No credit given for the writing for some reason. Archie 1 is the caveman version of the Archie series, featuring a set of "ancestors" who just happen to look and act exactly like their Riverdale counterparts. Well, they look exactly like the Archie gang except that they're all dressed in the latest caveman fashion. And here you were thinking that Betty and Veronica in 1 Million Years BC style leopard-skin bikinis was something you'd have to delve into fanfic to find. Two stories here. The first is a pretty straightforward Tarzan parody, with the girls meeting up with a rather "primitive" (by which we mean the male chauvinist type of caveman) king of the jungle complete with monkey sidekick. Betty and Veronica put their rivalry aside to present a fairly united front against the jungle buffoon. The second story is an amusing bit of nonsense about the invention of language. Apparently, yelling "Vamoose!" is effective in warding off dinosaurs. There were some laughs to be had here, but this seems a bit more limited compared to seeing the same characters in the standard Riverdale setting.

Rating: 5.5/10