The Kooky Adventures of the Superfisters
Doctor DeBunko is awash in fools. The creation of local artist Chris Wisnia, Dr. DeBunko's comics follow a familiar pattern: a group of hysterical idiots, foaming at the mouth over some unexplained phenomena, are patiently condescended to by a skeptical pipe-smoking intellectual with slick 1950s hair and a passing resemblance to Vincent Price. A farmer wails over the eviscerated corpse of a cow, "it's the paranormal mystery crime of the century! Is this the work of aliens out to steal cow DNA?" And the doctor replies, "I see you've got a number of poisonous plants growing on this property. Are there many scavenging animals nearby?" Oh, what a spoilsport.
Even as Dr. DeBunko exhorts us to subscribe to Skeptic Magazine, we can't help but feel that there are some missed opportunities here to ponder some real mysteries -- namely, how otherwise intelligent human beings can be swept up in foolish beliefs. We've all known supposedly smart folks who get taken up by some crazy cult, or asinine medical quackery, or vegitarianism. Those folks, the ones smart enough to realize "whoops, perhaps I'd better think twice about this space alien business" who could really benefit from an introduction to skepticism. These handcrafted ziney things are a little hard to come by, but as always, you can pick them up at Isotope Comics in Hayes Valley.
And then there's "The Goon Noir," an adaptation by a host of different artists of Eric Powell's Goon stories. We loved the burly toughguy and his scrappy sidekick back when Eric was calling the shots; and now that the characters have been loaned out to the likes of Patton Oswalt, Mike Ploog, Bill Morrison, et al, we love it still. Mostly. These stories are a bit shorter than your average goon tale, blink and you'll miss them. Bam, zoom -- Frankie and Goon disrupt zombie ringfights! Crash, thwack -- a little girl smacks a zombie in the face with a cat! It left us breathless, dazed in a cloud of 1930's-style banter and decapitations, and a little disoriented. Is that a good thing? We're not sure.
As long as we're all revisity this week, let's also revisit Netwave by Stuart Immonen and Warren Ellis. "Nextwave is not about Character Arcs and Learning and Morals and Hugs," writes Warren Ellis. Oh dear. We rather like all those things. But we also like stuff blowing up, and ridiculous technomonsters like Homocide Crabs and Atomic Puppies and henchmen made out of very intelligent kelp (which is still not very intelligent in the grand scheme of things). Manic bad guys who say "oogliooglioogli" when they vomit and who scream, "blow up chunks of America for FREEDOM!" -- yes, that's the kind of crazy crap we can get behind.
And you know, it's not all crazy crap. The characters may not be allowed to have arcs, per se, but they're still developing into pretty nifty characters. It's like in the second season of the TV show when the writers and the actors figure out, oh THIS is what this character is like. That is to say, there's chemistry. F'r instance, fter some sparky banter with a smug bra-wearing robot, we suddenly found ourselves getting, y'know, all emotionally invested and stuff. Neat.