I wanted to write a report about my experience at the recent Project Comic Con in St. Louis, and while I did have a good time, it was a pretty small show, and there’s not a heck of a lot to say about it. One thing I did get the opportunity to do was snoop through some of the boxes of comics in the dealers room. Several dealers had rows of long boxes filled with random comics that they were selling for one dollar each. When I look though these kinds of boxes I’m looking for “the unusual.” It can be hard to find a diamond in the rough among throngs of Superman and Avengers issues, so I just pull out anything that is the opposite of those kinds of comics and see where that gets me. The most interesting stuff tends to be from the black n’ white “glut” of the ’80s, and that is exactly what I ended taking home with me from this show. So instead of boring you with the same convention report I tend to give over and over again, I thought it might be fun to review three crazy books I picked out from the long boxes. Enjoy!
Barney The Invisible Turtle #1
By Rick Rodolfo. Published by Amazing Comics, 1987.
Summary:
Ted Gavin is a down on his luck detective until he meets a no-nonsense turtle named Barney. They hit it off immediately and become partners. The catch? Well, Barney just happens to be invisible to everyone but his partner Ted. This book consists of three separate stories of the duo wherein they are tasked to solve a mystery and save the day, and the mysteries get progressively stranger in each successive story. It is all told with a relatively traditional and slightly rough around the edges comic book art style. While it’s probably first and foremost a humor book, it doesn’t exude “jokiness.” There is a quaint earnestness about it all, which makes it that much more bizarre and kooky.
Extra Tidbit:
There are a number of ’80s references sprinkled throughout the book, including a scene in the crowd of a football game where two of the seats appear to be occupied by Michael Jackson and Brooke Shields (holding hands).
Grade: B+
This is exactly the kind of book I was hoping to find. I had never heard of it before, but when I came upon it I knew I had to have it. What an extremely strange, amusing, and entertaining read.
Mildly Microwaved Pre-Pubescent Kung-Fu Gophers #1
Written by George Macas, Pencilled by Jim Molina, Inked by Jill Thompson, with a cover by Phil Foglio. Published by Just Imagine Graphix, 1986.
Summary:
I’ve read my fair share of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle knock-offs (Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos, etc), but this one was new to me. After cracking it open, it didn’t take long to realize how a book like this had escaped my attention all these years. To put it simply, this book sucks, in pretty much every way imaginable. The most amazing part about it is that it took a whole team of people (including a letterer I neglected to credit at the top of the review) to churn this out, and a couple of those people have actually carved out quite respectable careers for themselves in the business since then.
As for the actual content of the book, it really isn’t even worth talking about. The artwork is incredibly sparse and often unintelligible. Come to think of it, I could say the exact same thing about the story. The characters, action, and dialogue that fill each page seem to do primarily just that: fill up the page. Their only purpose is to take up space on a comic book page, and once one page is filled, they move on to the next. Once they get to around 30 pages, they’ve completed a comic book, and we are all the worse for reading it.
Extra Tidbit:
Only after flipping though it for a second time did I notice that my copy of the book had been signed on the inside by the penciller, Jim Molina (in blue ball point pen, no less).
Grade: D-
Sometimes it can be fun to like something that is bad (Jar Jar Binks, Sanjaya Malakar, etc), but that is not the case here. They got someone to draw a fun looking cover for the book, but that’s about it.
Wild Animals #1
Edited by Scott Shaw. Published by Pacific Comics, 1982.
Summary:
This is a full color “funny animal” anthology featuring a handful of talented cartoonists including Scott Shaw, Larry Gonick, and Sergio Aragones. I was surprised upon opening it to find that it was in color, but I guess at the time Pacific Comics (publisher of this here book) was publishing comics in a similar manner to both Marvel and DC, as there are ads in the back of this book for some Pacific Comics projects by Jack Kirby. So it seems Wild Animals must have served as their “funny animal” book
Extra Tidbit:
One of the “funny animal” comics within this comic book is a funny animal comic about funny animal comic books!
Grade: B-
Without question, this book is filled with some very talented cartoonists. Scott Shaw in particular can draw his butt off! Having said that, it lacked a certain something. I like a certain spark in my comics that I just did not get in this book. Looking closely at the individual strips, I noticed that most of them are dated from the late ’70s, while the publication date of this book was December 1982. So I guess it might be safe to say that this is a book of “leftovers,” and perhaps that is the reason it lacked the spark I was looking for– because it wasn’t their A-grade work.
