Kill Shakespeare #3

Hamlet has been rescued from Iago by Falstaff, while Richard III makes a political bargain with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Falstaff tells Hamlet that the wizard Shakespeare is actually a good guy, and they’re both visited briefly by another of Shakespeare’s allies, the fearsome but diminutive faerie called Puck. The travelers visit an inn to rest but are ambushed by Richard’s men. Their disguises as some of the inn’s whores is quickly seen through, but they still manage to make their escape. Macbeth, however, finds himself on the wrong end of a betrayal.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was kinda not expecting to like this one as much as I did, but the appearance of more and more of Shakespeare’s characters is helping to keep this entertaining. The art is very nice — loved the eerie appearance of Robin Goodfellow, and Falstaff is perfectly rendered. I also liked the way Richard’s men wore noticeably different uniforms than Macbeth’s soldiers — you’d expect both to wear stereotypical medieval armor, but they don’t. And I thought the increasingly rude, crude, and lewd nature of the story actually worked pretty well — remember, Shakespeare’s plays were often pretty raunchy…

Hellboy: The Storm #1

Well, Hellboy’s the rightful heir to the British throne, and Britain’s noble dead will soon be rising from their graves to serve him. And by coincidence, Hellboy and his friend Alice are investigating a strange church burglary — someone stole the bodies of three ancient knights. But the priest confides after the local police have left that what he actually saw were the knights leaving the church on their own. Hellboy tells Alice that he’s given up drinking after spending the last few years pretty hopelessly sauced. After a very weird incident with a guy ominously ringing a bell (seriously, doesn’t sound like much, but it’s way creepy), they’re both attacked by a monster pledging to be just the first of an army that will wipe humanity off the face of the earth.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Loves me some good creepy Hellboy comics. Writing by Mike Mignola, art by Duncan Fegredo, and awesomeness all over the place.

Chimichanga #3

The monstrous Chimichanga has been captured by the police, and Lula the bearded girl has been kidnapped by Dinderly Pharmaceuticals, who need her chin-whiskers to make their new flatulence drug. Wrinkle, the old man who owns Wrinkle’s Traveling Circus, can’t find any legal help, and most of the circus performers hate both Lula and Chimichanga, so they won’t help. Only Heratio the Boy-Faced Fish is willing to help raid the city pound to rescue Chimichanga. But even if Chimichanga can find Lula, do they have any hope against the corporate might of a heartless pharmaceutical megacorporation?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yes, it’s goofy and gross the way you’d expect from an Eric Powell comic, but it’s also got more than its share of sweetness in it, too. (Appreciate the sacrifice, kids — Powell will now order me hunted down and killed for noticing that…)

Today’s Cool Links:

• The Sandman/DCU crossovers
• You know Rodrigo y Gabriela, don’t you? Better get to know ’em, ’cause they’re awesome.
• Holocaust survivor dances at death camp sites. Take that, Nazis!

iZombie #2

Gwen Dylan is a brain-eating zombie — but that’s just because she has to eat a fresh brain once a month or she’ll turn into a mindless shambler. She’s gotten her monthly cerebellum snack, but now her head is filled with the deceased’s memories, and she’s trying to figure out who killed him. While she’s painting pictures of the dead guy’s memories, she and Ellie, the ghost from the ’60s, realize that there may be some connection to the spooky house and bandage-wrapped mummy they met aaaaall the way back in last October’s House of Mystery Halloween Annual.

Meanwhile, Spot’s geeky friends think he has a gay lover he meets once a month — coinciding with the full moon when he has to hide to maintain his secret life as a wereterrier. The monster hunters are, well, hunting monsters. And the vampire hotties who run the paintball course are faced with declining business and the possibility that there’s another vampire in town killing people and making the cops nervous.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I am really enjoying the little details of the weirdly mundane (or mundanely weird) existences of Gwen and her friends. The dialogue is fine — characterization is good, too. Michael Allred’s art is so much fun on this one. And ya gotta give props to Laura Allred’s colors on this one — Ellie seems to glow ethereally, and Gwen’s skin coloration is just barely off — enough to make her look like she might be a dead body. It really does a lot to help sell the series.

Chimichanga #2

Well, if we can’t have Eric Powell doing “The Goon,” we can at least have him doing this. Lula the little bearded girl has her work cut out for her trying to keep the gigantic monstrous Chimichanga from eating everyone at the circus. But things seem to be paying off once she’s got him under control, ’cause the crowds pour in to see Chimichanga and his stunts. Unfortunately, the other circus performers are all jealous of all the attention he’s getting. And even worse, Dagmar the Witch has sold her anti-flatulence formula — made partly with Lula’s chin-whiskers — to a giant pharmaceutical company. And it turns out that her serum is only a temporary cure — the gas comes back worse than ever! Seeing a potential gold mine — a non-cure that will make everyone buy it and use it over and over and over — the company puts it into production. But to meet their sales figures, they’re going to need more of Lula’s beard…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing much I can say about this other than — it’s very, very weird and very, very funny.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Everyone here in the mood for a French art film about a zombie clown? I sure hope so…
• So what’s the amazing Brit TV sci-fi secret of Miss Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus”?
• Everybody stand up right now and get ready to dance!
• I’ve never been much of a fan of the Mortal Kombat games, but this is… Wow.

Chew #7

Tony Chu, an FDA agent who can absorb the memories from anything he eats, has traveled to a tiny Pacific island called Yamapalu on the trail of something that tastes like chicken but seems to be a fruit. He immediately runs afoul of Lin Sae Woo, a curvy butt-kicking secret agent for the Department of Agriculture, who thinks he’s trying to take over a case she’s tracking on the island. After a violent confrontation on an elevator, they decide to work together, but there’s another player on the island who may be too tough for either of them to take down.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Funny and violent and rude and awesome. I’m disappointed that Tony’s cyborg partner Colby has already been pushed into the sidelines, but the rest of this is pretty good.

Chimichanga #1

Now here’s one that’s plenty-plenty weird, but it’s by “Goon” creator Eric Powell, so I figured it’s worth a look. The star of the book is an adorable little girl with a dashing and well-groomed beard. She lives at Wrinkle’s Traveling Circus, along with the other freaks, like Heratio the Boy-Faced Fish, Ezmerelda and her Amazing Two-Eyed Goat, and Randy, the Man with the Strength of a Slightly Larger Man. One day, she heads out to buy a delicious chimichanga, runs into a gassy witch named Dagmar, and trades a lock of her beard for a wagon and a big shiny rock. When the rock hatches into a big, hungry, pop-eyed monster, the little girl may have stumbled onto the perfect way to save the circus.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s funny and goofy and bizarre, but these two panels were all it took to win me over:

“Aw, raspberries!” Holy Spumoni, that’s just too cute.