Comic Reviews (5-23-12)

Going the start off with RAGEMOOR #3 which is a completely twisted nightmare of a book.  There's absolutely no hope for any of these characters.  The two leads Herbert and his servant Bodrick are absolutely screwed.  They live in a living castle and the only reason they're still alive is the castle allows it.  They can't escape.  They can't beat the castle.  I'm not sure if Herbert is hapless or just completely beaten by the place he's in.  This is beyond "The fall of the House of Usher".  This is "The House Fell a Long Time Ago and is not Happy at ALL about the Entire Affair".  Combine that with the weird creatures wandering about and its just incredibly creepy.  Jan Strnad and Richard Corben have both done a masterful job in creating this impenetrable air of dread and discomfort.  This issue center a lot around Herbert and Anoria.  He wants her.  She wants the poacher fellow who's been around.  The castle wants an heir out of Herbert and sees Anoria as the best bet, especially since she's trapped there too.  Needless to say, the castle isn't too happy with that poacher fellow.  This book isn't for everyone, but for folks like me who studied Gothic literature its fun to spot all the little bit in there that are straight out of the genre.  Its a great work, in a really horrid way.


We move on to NO PLACE LIKE HOME #4.  You haven't seen the reviews for issues 2 and 3 because the shop hasn't gotten them in.  Some sort of shipping problem.  So I've gone from issue 1 to issue 4.  This makes issue 4 the most unintentually hilarious thing I've read in a long, long time.  I get through issue one and we meet the three sisters who are all coming back to their hometown.  There's some sort of terrible secret there.  The sisters seem interesting enough, so I'm going to stay with the title to see where things go.  Fast forward to issue four and what do we get right on the first page: a flying monkey.  That's right its a flying monkey.  Now, you people all know the rule: everything is better with monkeys, so this book is now the greatest thing ever.  What's more, its a homicidal flying monkey.  Its like Bufkin from FABLES declared "F--- THIS S---, heads are gonna motherf---ing ROLL!"  It seems tornadoes ask as portals and sometimes flying monkeys get through to our world, and they're complete pricks.  The sheriff apparently ganked one when he was a kid, which is no doubt why they made him the sheriff.  So all the good old boys are all "Dear God, no!  Not another flying monkey!"  The sister that's still running about is all "OMG!  Why didn't you ever tell us about the flying monkey?!"  Most likely because if they had you'd never ever come back to visit.  And the flying monkey?  He's all "RAWR!!  GIVE ME YOUNG WOMEN AND OLD PEOPLE HEADS!"  Well, actually it just goes "SKEEEE!" a whole bunch but the language of the flying monkey is is very utilitarian.  Kinda like Tim Allen when he grunts.  Means a whole bunch of stuff.  The best scene in the whole comic, and yes this is a spoiler, either suck it up, or skip ahead, is when the old hippy with the Pink Floyd shirt opens the door to his house and finds the flying monkey dragging his ol' lady down to the basement.  He's just standing there, and she's yelling at him to do something.  The old hippy tells the monkey to stop that, but the monkey don't listen, most likely because the old hippy is an old hippy and nobody listens to them anyhow.  He finally shuffles over to the basement door, mustering up the last of his old hippy courage and the monkey bursts back out and delivers a big flying monkey pimp slap, and drops the old dude.  I then took out a pen, and breaking my long standing rule about writing writing in my comics added the word balloon over the flying monkey saying "SKREE!" which translated from the flying monkey language is roughly: "B----, YOU BETTER RECOGNIZE!"  So, yeah, I love this book for all the wrong reasons.