Review: Boo - The World's Cutest Dog #1

I feel like I have to review this... because I don’t think any of the other bastards would have touched it with a ten-foot pole, and I enjoy reviewing things from time to time that I wouldn’t usually pick up. So, for your enjoyment, here’s my review of Dynamite Entertainment’s Boo - The World’s Cutest Dog #1. God help you all. The issue has three short stories, the first of which is "Boo and the Birthday Bash", written by Kirsten Deacon and Audrey Elizabeth with art by Tony Fleecs. This is probably the worst of the three tales. It's about a little girl who gets Boo the dog for her birthday and gets completely fucking upstaged by him at her birthday party because he's wearing a hoodie and sunglasses. It's all resolved when the dog wheels out a birthday cake and everyone sings happy birthday to her. Apart from the dog. This's not the kind of dog that sings or does anything like that. It has no talent.

Didn't like the art in this one, the dog is bang on but the rest of it looks quite basic. I'm trying not to be too harsh here.

Boo2016-01-Cov-B-GarbowskaThe second story is "One Boo Over The Cuckoo's Nest" a tale of hungry dogs and a sick owner who can't be arsed getting up and feeding them because they have a cold or something. This one is written and drawn by Fernando Ruiz. There's three dogs in this story; Boo, Bluebeary and I'm pretty sure the third isn't named, so without prior knowledge of what these dogs are called, I will call it... Hairy One.

So, Boo, Bluebeary, and Hairy One spend their time trying to get to their food which is up on the counter somewhere and they fail miserably until their lazy/neglectful owner decides to get her arse out of bed and feed them, by which time they've completely fucked the kitchen but the owner somehow doesn't care about that and just buggers off back to bed.

The art is better here, but the story is as brain numbing as the first...

The third and final story is "Boovie Star" by writer Joelle Sellner and artist Rob Robbins. This one probably has the best (or most likeable, should I say) art of the three stories. This one is about Boo auditioning for a movie part. It's got more story to it than the first two tales but I still couldn't get into it. It was missing a key element for me and that was the owner forcing it to audition for the movie in the first place.

Overall, I didn't enjoy the book but I didn't come into it expecting to. It was curiosity more than anything that made me pick this book for review. I didn't know who Boo was before reviewing this, but from the look of things, I think kids (not sure how many of you out there are reading reviews on Comic Bastards) and fans of Boo will like it a lot but regular comic book readers probably won’t... maybe. I don't know. I'm still finding it strange that this dog even has a comic book and I'm wondering what's going to come next...

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Boo - The World’s Cutest Dog #1

Writers: Various Artists: Various Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Price: $3.99 Format: Mini-Series; Print/Digital [/su_box]

Review: Grimm Tales of Terror vol. 2 #11

SHOCKING! TERRIFYING! BLOODY HELL! This week, I’ve decided to review Zenescope Entertainment’s Grim Tales of Terror Volume 2 #11. This title caught my eye for two reasons. For one, I like horror titles; I like seeing what’s on the market and how other people make horror comics. The second reason was that a friend of mine had drawn stories for this title previously and from the quality of his work, I thought this book would be ace… I might have picked the wrong issue to review here, ha-ha.

This issue’s story has a well-trodden trope; you should guess that from the story’s title, “Vanishing Hitchhiker.” Ghost of a hitchhiker haunting a road, looking for the person who killed them. Done. I’ve seen this story done across various forms of media a few times, so it would’ve had to have done something really special to impress me. I think this is the first comic I’ve seen in a long time that has someone who came up with the story and someone who’s written it credited to two different people… Joe Brusha came up with the story, and Marco Lopez has written the issue (I think this is the first time I’ve encountered anyone on this title’s work.)

Grimm Tales of Terror v2 #11It’s a pretty bog-standard tale, and I’m sure it could have been done in far fewer pages. Some of the dialogue is pretty stilted and Marco… he… really like using those ellipses. The main character is like a less charismatic Captain Kirk, who happens to be a home security salesman and also, a really cheap bastard.

The artist for this issue did alright I guess. Though Roger Bonet’s art at times is a bit hit and miss, there are some nice panels in here; it’s just a shame that there’s some duffers in there too because it drags down the rest of the art in the book. The color work is lovely throughout from Sonia Moruno, though, even on the panels that aren’t drawn particularly well. So well done, Sonia!

There’s not much else I can really say about the story in this issue. It wasn’t really scary or horrific in any way. There was some gore and some swearing. Overall, a pretty disappointing introduction to the series for me. The variants are probably the highlight for me. I have a guy who buys a lot of Zenescope titles from my shop who I’m pretty sure doesn’t even read them, ha-ha. He just buys all the covers. So keep doing the variants, Zenescope. I have a customer who loves them…

If you collect the series, I’d like to know what you thought about the issue in the comments section. And if you do collect the title, tell me about previous issues for that matter. Maybe I just picked a bad issue, eh?

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Grim Tales of Terror v2 #11 Writer: Marco Lopez Artist: Roger Bonet Colorist: Sonia Moruno Publisher: Zenescope Entertainment Price: $3.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital[/su_box]

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Review: Spawn Kills Everyone #1

Yes, you’ve read the title correctly; this is a review of Spawn Kills Everyone, a new one-shot comic out this week from Spawn creator Todd McFarlane and Image Comics. I really wanted to read this book, so I put my name down for it and waited for the review copy. Alas, Image Comics did not send us a review copy. So I did what any self-respecting comic shop owner who also reviews comics would do in my situation and read the bloody thing as soon as my shop's order came in! I'm so glad I did. Let me open up this review by saying… This book is FUCKING AWESOME. I don’t even think you need to be a Spawn fan to appreciate how good it is. If you like comics (I’m assuming you do), I think you’ll like this book.

Now, as far as the story goes, this one-shot follows a miniature version of Spawn (he's kinda like Bat-Mite, but not lame) tearing his way through a lot of your favorite characters. I should, however, point out that these are normal people in cosplay (way to beat the lawyers, Mr. McFarlane). He’s doing it all in an effort to make a big announcement at a comic convention in San Diego and he’ll stop at nothing to make it. If that means he has to cut down a few innocent convention goers, so be it. It was great fun to read and I'm sure it was great fun to make.

SpawnKillsEveryone_COV_BSpawn creator Todd McFarlane writes this issue (he also makes a cameo) and he takes every opportunity to highlight how much more important comic book movies and TV shows are than actual comics through the character, because let's face it, they are.

(That’s sarcasm, kids! I’m glad I caught you there before you scrolled all the way past the review and into the comments section to give me a ruddy good tongue-lashing.)

Everything that bugs me about the comic book industry is front and center in this one-shot. McFarlane is on-point with his satire and I’m glad someone in his position of authority is poking fun at it… Personally, I feel it shouldn’t bug any of us that movies and TV shows about comic characters are making comics more popular. Especially as a retailer, I love it. Though, I also love it when people say to me, “well shit, I didn’t know they made a comic book of that movie!” Sarcasm again. I’m sure you’ve heard someone say that too… Anyway, back to the review.

I thought the book was really funny throughout. The lil' guy's crackin' wise the whole time and although I wasn't sold on the art initially, I really didn't care by (about) page three because I was so into the concept and story already. Basically the art you see on the cover is the art you get throughout the book. I thought the cover might've been McFarlane having a poke at Skottie Young’s variants for Marvel... The Liana Hee variant most definitely is, ha-ha. Honestly, the art was a great fit and I ended up liking it more the further I got into the book. There are some great scenes drawn by artist J.J. Kirby and a lot of bloody violence which is fun to see in his style. This book will stick in my mind the next time I see a "someone kills everyone" style book… You gotta beat the man to be the man, and lil’ Spawn is the man!

Verdict: It was pretty damn hard to write this review because I liked it so much. I didn’t want to ruin it for you before you got the chance to read it. I loved it! When you're in your local comic shop this week, do yourself a favor and pick it up. I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it, too. I just hope Todd decides to make some more of these one-shots because I know I would like to see more.

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Spawn Kills Everyone #1 Writer: Todd McFarlane Artist: J.J. Kirby Colorist: FCO Plascencia Publisher: Image Comics Price: $2.99 Format: One-Shot; Print/Digital [/su_box]

Review: Suicide Squad #1

DC Comics’ new Suicide Squad series kicks off this week with an incredibly strong creative team behind it and we’re going to ignore the abundantly dark cloud of the recent movie looming over its head. This is comics, people, and we all know the comic is always better. Or that's what I usually tell people. The issue opens with the team being assembled by Amanda Waller and the team are informed that they are going to besent on a mission to retrieve something and they might not be coming back from it… Pretty standard stuff for this bunch of characters and by this point in the issue, I’m already weighing up which one of these guys won’t be missed if they kill ‘em off to try to shock me/the audience… As you can expect, things quickly go to shit for the team before they even get to where they’re going, and it’s fun to read.

Suicide Squad #1The art in this issue from Jim Lee, Scott Williams, and Alex Sinclair is great, there's no doubt about that. I’m really liking the character designs, too. I like my Killer Croc when he’s lookin’ more monstrous than human, so this design sits really well with me… Everyone on the art team shines on the page, I especially like Alex Sinclair’s color work in this issue. Good job, man.

On the writing side of things, Rob Williams is a great choice for this title. He does his thing in this book. There’s a good balance of funny moments and serious moments chucked in by Williams. One scene in particular sticks out involving Killer Croc, which I won’t spoil for you here. All in all, it’s a good start to a series but I do have a couple of things which have me conflicted about scoring this issue now. I’m happy to see Jim Lee doing art on an ongoing series again but... This first part is too damn short!

When I started reading, I was pretty sad to find the main part of the story ends after only thirteen pages. I understand Jim Lee’s a busy guy running DC, but I was hoping for a full issue of Lee art. That’s my main gripe, but I understand. I just hope the page count doesn’t drop from there. Fingers crossed.

Although I'll never claim I'm a huge fan of The Suicide Squad, I am a big fan of the creative team picked for this series. There just isn't enough of Jim’s art it for me (I might have mentioned that already.) With the first part of the main story finishing on the thirteenth page, I think the pacing of the story has suffered a bit and it's kinda hindered my ability to make a fair judgement on the writing side of things. I'd say Rob Williams does the best with what he has in the thirteen pages but I would've liked to have seen what this first issue would have been like if it was twenty pages long. It feels and reads like the first part should’ve been longer.

After the first part of the story finishes, the remaining seven pages of story are made up by a backup story written by Williams and drawn by Jason Fabok, which focuses on Deadshot. You get some lovely artwork there courtesy of Fabok, really dynamic scenes and it’s a fun little story with a cameo by [SOMEONE YOU LIKE]. So by the time I finished it, I’d gotten over the fact the main story ran shorter than I expected.

Verdict: Though disappoint at first, I’m still going to say buy it. Read it and make up your own mind. Though I see it as a bit of a false start considering the level of talent involved, I'm hoping there's a bit more story in the second issue that’ll takes it up a gear because I really want to follow this book and tell you how great it is later on down the line. Rob Williams does great work. I loved Martian Manhunter. I love his 2000 AD work and I love creator-owned series Unfollow. I know he can tell stories, I just don't think he's had a fair chance to get going yet with this title. It’s definitely a comic I’ll be keeping a close eye on.

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Suicide Squad #1 Writer: Rob Williams Artist: Jim Lee, Scott Williams Colorist: Alex Sinclair Publisher: DC Comics Price: $2.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital

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