Giant-Size Thrills #0

Another Free Comic Book Day flip book from Red Giant by way of the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Giant-Size Thrills
Issue: 0
Publisher: Red Giant Entertainment
Date: May, 2014
Writer: Benny R. Powell, Mort Castle, Kevin Juaire
Artist: Ricardo Jaime, Vincenzo Cucca
Colorist: Marlon Ilagan, Mariacristina Federico
Letterer: Zach Metheny
Editor: Brian Augustyn, David Lawrence

Flip book. First up is Darchon, an urban fantasy story focusing on a man who can see monsters that are invisible to most people. He sees himself as a friend of Darchon, a wizard/detective character from a pulp adventure comic magazine. How much of this magical world is real and how much is delusion is left somewhat unclear.

Flip the book over to find Shadow Children, telling the story of a boy and a girl growing up in a magical dimension, and eventually making their way back to our world.

Neither of these stories managed to hook my interest much. Both were going for a dark fantasy vibe, with Darchon in a straight-up world filled with unseen demons, and Shadow Children putting a dark spin on a fairyland type of setting.

The stories had some appealing visuals, especially Shadow Children, which also appeared to have some complex and well thought out worldbuilding behind it. But none of the characters in either story were all that engaging, and neither story hooked me with its plot.

Rating: 4.5/10

Everest / Love Fights #1 FCBD 2004

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics and Free Comic Book Day 2004.

Title: Everest / Love Fights #1 FCBD 2004
Publisher: Oni Press
Date: July, 2004
Writer: Andi Watson, Greg Rucka
Artist: Andi Watson, Scott Morse
Editor: Jamie S. Rich, James Lucas Jones

Flip book from Free Comic Book Day 2004.

First up is a pencils-only preview of the Greg Rucka/Scott Morse graphic novel, Everest: Facing the Goddess. This is a short piece that introduces a team of mountain climbers as they attempt a never-before-done ascent in the Himalayas in preparation for the biggest challenge of them all: Mount Everest. The artwork hints at how good the fully painted final product is going to be, and there are enough hints of potential clashes between the characters to foreshadow the danger of the upcoming expedition.

Flip the book over for something completely different: Love Fights by Andi Watson is a comedy showcasing the lives of ordinary people in a world of real superheroes. This had a light sitcom vibe to it that was charming and amusing even when not laugh-out-lound funny. The romantic problems of the main character felt a bit cliche, but the small details of life in a world with superheroes and villains were intriguing.

Two decent previews for books I'd consider giving a second look to.

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

Kizoic Presents Strawberry Shortcake/123 Sesame Street

One of our freebies from Jetpack Comics' Free Comic Book Day Festival in Rochester NH in May 2013.

Title: Kizoic Presents Strawberry Shortcake/123 Sesame Street
Date: 2013
Piblisher: Kizoic
Writer: Jason M. Burns, Russell Lissau, Meredith Lissau, Tim Beedle
Artist: Amy Mebberson, Edgar Manjarrez, Tanya Roberts, Peter Wonsowski
Colorist: Dustin Evans, Amy Mebberson, Antonio Peniche, Fernando Peniche
Letterer: Deron Bennett
Cover: Peter Wonsowski
Editor: Matt Anderson, Weldon Adams

Flip book. This is Kizoic's Free Comic Book Day offering for 2013.

The Strawberry Shortcake side of this book has three stories. First up, Strawberry's friends have to handle the lunch hour rush at the cafe when Strawberry comes down with a bad case of the blueberry flu.

The second story has the girls following a map to dig up some pirate treasure.

In the third story, Blueberry is searching frantically for Plum Pudding, who accidentally took the book that Blueberry was in the middle of reading.

These stories were heavy on the cuteness factor and fairly light on plot. The humor is fairly predictable, but I thought the first story did the best job of playing up the friendship theme of the Strawberry Shortcake characters.

Flip the book over, and it's Elmo meeting up with Super Grover, who gives him a lesson in how a hero can act heroic without flashy superpowers.

This was well written with a nice mix of humor and thoughtfulness. With only one story taking up the whole space allotted to Sesame Street, this story got some breathing room and was able to make good use of larger panels.

Centerpiece of the book is a nice two-sided poster.

Rating: 7/10.

Burt Ward: Boy Wonder / Wrath of the Titans

Title: Burt Ward: Boy Wonder / Wrath of the Titans
Date: 2012
Publisher: Blue Water Comics
Writer: Darren Garnick, Burt Ward, CW Cooke
Penciler: Ramon Salas
Colorist: Ramon Salas
Letterer: Warren Montgomery

Free Comic Book Day flip book.

On one side we've got Burt Ward: Boy Wonder, from the folks that brought us The Mis-Adventures of Adam West (see my review here). Actor Burt Ward (Robin from the 1960s Batman show; just in case you don't recognize the name) actually co-writes this one, and the beginning focuses heavily on his real-life animal rescue work.

A convenient interdimensional portal transports Ward to an alternate-dimension planet Pluto, where he is also conveniently reverse-aged to back when he was playing Robin.

It was goofy, which was part of the point, and it was all played with genuine affection, both for Ward himself, and for the old-time science fiction and superhero action that it all hearkened back to. Once things shifted to the alternate dimension, the art style also shifted into a gray-toned mode that didn't seem to serve much purpose beyond the obvious reminder that we were no longer in Kansas.

Overall, though, this story did a nice job of delivering the fun.

Flip the book over and it's Wrath of the Titans, following the adventures of Perseus in ancient Greece.

This used an unusual format of prose with unlettered panels on the facing page. It was an interesting innovation, but it didn't work for me. The problem here was that instead of just having a single illustration for a page of action like a traditional illustrated childrens book would have, there were a bunch of panels and it wasn't always clear which panels matched up with which lines of prose. I found myself constantly looking back and forth trying to keep track, and it was a distraction, rather than an enhancement to the story.

The story itself was more teaser than anything else, although Perseus has a good "leap of faith" scene in there. I liked the artwork itself, just not so much the format and layout.

Rating: 6.5/10