You’re not ready for Man vs. Rock. You’re not, you’re just not. This is by far the strangest comic I’ve read in a while, but because it’s strange it manages to be quite hilarious. What’s it about you ask? Read the title… it’s about humankind versus rocks. Yeah, rocks. Those rocks. Not The Rock.
The story beings with a sexy scene between a busty cavewoman and a caveman; while they’re going at it a bigger caveman comes along and removes the other caveman, but he picks up a rock and bashes his head in and goes back to work and continuing the human race while the big dude bleeds out. All the while the narration is telling us about rocks and how dangerous they are. They’re lying in wait and so we use and abuse them in the meantime.
The story then begins going through time to important historical events, some involving rocks, others adding rocks and the results are quite humorous. After the history lesson we meet a crazy ass professor that teaches the dangers of rocks to his class and informs them that he’s rigged C4 around the world waiting for the day they make their move… which is soon!
It’s really hard not to laugh at this story. I’m sure some will turn their noses up to it, but watching an Army dude waterboard a rock and asking him Osama’s location was just too funny. Really the entire store is just a big laugh and made me feel bad for not reading it sooner (sorry guys!).
What surprised me was that there are three creators working on this book. The writing and art are so in sync that I honestly thought it was one voice. Writers Victor DeTroy and Kevin Bieber manage to keep the narrative moving and tackle some difficult dialogue. When your story is always pumping out jokes there’s the difficult task of including the important info and not have it come across as filler or out of place. I think they managed to blend the humor with the narrative very well.
The art steals the show. Jared Lamp does a killer job with the art and keeps it all black & white. There are a lot of details and with that the inking is kept light so that the details aren’t lost. There is also a larger amount of character designs and Lamp manages to be original with each one. While the story has its beefcake and cheesecake there are other varieties of builds for characters and that’s where Lamp’s artistic talent shines. With the story being a comedy Lamp has the job of supporting the humor and making it come across visually and he does just that. You’ll laugh at the art as much as you’ll laugh at the narration.
You should definitely check it out as the team is gearing up for the second issue. Is it mature? Yes, but it’s like a rated-R comedy and you watch those right?
Score: 4/5
Writer: Victor DeTroy & Kevin Bieber Artist: Jared Lamp Price: $2.99 Website