The Mysterious, Scientific, and Theatrical Adventures of the Superfisters

Gleefully recommended to us by Isotope, "Conan and the Songs of the Dead," by Joe Landsdale and Timothy Truman, is exactly what it looks like, and what we eagerly hoped it would be: the sort of zero-budget b-movie 80s cheese that you might find on an independent UHF station while flipping through channels in an Des Moines hotel room at 2 in the morning. A gruff warrior with ridiculous musculature slices up zombies and beds luscious women while in search of magical artifacts. And sweetening the pulpy plot is tasty intense dialogue like "speak SENSE, girl -- or whatever you are," and "damn the dead. They are always trouble." The awesomeness quotient is so high, only dogs can hear it.

And then there's "Frank Ironwine," by Warren Ellis and Carla Speed McNeil. Warren certainly does seem to like writing about gritty, flawed characters who have nothing left to lose and are willing to place everything on the line, which is exactly what the titular hero of the series does. A raging drunk and a brilliant forensic detective, Frank Ironwine spends half of his time employing his incredible deductive powers to solve crime, and the other half drinking himself literally into a dumpster. Wheeeee. He's accompanied by a naive, by-the-books rookie who's got a lot to learn, but who stands her ground and dishes out the guff just as unflinchingly as the hero. It is mandatory that these two characters be placed together, due to the terms established at the Stockholm Convention for the Use of Stock Characters.

So, what sets "Frank Ironwine" apart from a billion other stories about hard-boiled, renegade, brilliantly effective detectives and their plucky sidekicks? Er ... um ... hmm. Well, the hand-lettered dialogue is a nice touch. And the plot of issue one, which involves a crazed murderous transexual, employs the sort of sensational gay-baiting that would bring a rosy glow to the cheeks of the producers of Crusing. The art's rough and zine-ish, the dialogue down-to earth and believable. But beyond those few unique touches, "Frank Ironwine" feels more like a template for a genre than like an actual book.

A suave gorilla leads an army of frustrated heroes against another army of even swaver lotharios! Or something like that. It's tough to follow the story of "Sky Ape: King of Girls," because it's really more about the gags than the plot. The story bounces between Sky Ape -- a charismatic, flying, crime-fighting, cigar-smoking gorilla -- and a villain of sorts who's determined to turn awkward men into suave cads.

"Sky Ape" is short on explanations and connections; like an episode of Monty Python, characters and plot points simply step in and out to suit the jokes. And the jokes are mostly good: there's some incompetent sexual harassment ("Hey, pretty lady ... want to slap hams?"), a robot superhero turns out to be a small boy in a silver-painted refrigerator box, and Canada decides that instead of raising an army it would prefer to go to Tim Horton's for coffee. But maybe the jokes go on just a hair longer than they oughta, like a bit about retired heros that feels like it'll never quit, and a catty remark about Alanis Morissette. Seriously, Alanis? We're still making jokes about Alanis? What year is this? But Sky Ape's jokes hit the mark most of the time, and we're always up for a senseless, loosely-plotted romp, especially when the ADD's really got us in its grip. It's about the ride, not the destination, right? Or something.

Enjoying our comics reviews? Yes? You are? Gee, thanks. Then you'll REALLY enjoy our comics podcasts, in which we get drunk, argue dangerously about the week's titles, and then re-enact a few pages from each book, complete with inappropriate sound effects and vocal filters. You'll love it. It's super.