Sergio Aragonés Funnies #2

September 4, 2011

Title: A Somewhat Familiar Story and other (less familiar) stories

Writer: Sergio Aragonés
Art: Sergio Aragonés
Colorist: Tom Luth
Letterer: Karen Bates
Cover Artist: Sergio Aragonés
Editor: Bill Morrison
Publisher: Bongo Comics

It’s another month, and three more short stories by comedic master Sergio Aragonés! First up, we get “A Somewhat Familiar Story.” In this wordless tale, a ship finds an island inhabited by strange natives who offer up a beautiful young woman to an enormous gorilla held behind a huge wooden gate. The story takes an unexpected twist at the end, though, making this King Kong knock-off a true Aragonés original.

Next is “My First Peso,” the tale of how Aragonés first got paid for his artwork. It’s a charming tale, the kind of thing that a lot of kids probably tell. I really like how Aragonés is working in some autobiography into this series, and especially how he’s able to make these stories funny, while still getting into some emotional content (such as when young Sergio has to admit to his mother he “found” a new toy).

The final story, though, “Kira and the Beauty Contest.” In this sci-fi yarn we meet Kira, a hideous young girl whose ugliness makes her an outcast throughout the galaxy… until she discovers the planet Earth. On this distant world, all the inhabitants look just like her, and Kira leaps at the chance to visit. But Aragonés again has a twist for us. I just loved this very unexpected story. It’s the sort of thing you would have seen in The Twilight Zone if it were a comedy.

The book is also packed with black-and-white one-page gags and two activity pages. Aragonés even draws one of the ads in the book, a Yoplait Go-Gurt piece on the last page. It was unexpected, and gave us a bonus comic strip that was just as funny as anything else in the issue. This book was just all kinds of fun.

Rating: 8/10

Futurama Comics #45

October 2, 2009

Futurama Comics #45 (Bongo Comics)
By Patric M. Verrone & James Lloyd

Futurama Comics is one of those books that can be great one month and mediocre the next. After a couple of off issues, “Anthology of Interest II” is one of the best in quite some time. Professor Farnsworth has pulled out his “What If?” Machine yet again, and we’re treated to some really funny wish fulfillment fantasies from the Planet Express staff: Bender as president of Earth, Leela in love with Fry, and everybody turning into lobster-creatures like Zoidberg are all gems, although Hermes’ vision of a world in perfect order provides an excellent running gag. Verrone and Lloyd step up and provide a highly entertaining shot of Futurama.
Rating: 8/10

Futurama Comics #43

May 29, 2009

Futurama Comics #43 (Bongo Comics)
By Ian Boothby & John Delaney

After a couple of weak issues, Futurama Comics really bounces back this month with one of the better issues of the series.Some banking issues sends Fry looking for a second job. After a few highly amusing flops (complete with highly amusing cameo guests) he settles on a job as an in-dream salesman. His sales wind up showing him a hidden desire of Leela’s, and Fry being the sweet guy that he is, tries to bring it to fruition. This really feels like a plot that could have been done on the TV show. The characterization is solid, and the gags hit pretty quickly. Lots of sight gags, lots of verbal jokes, and they all work well together. I was getting nervous about this series, to be frank, but with this issue it appears to be bouncing back.
Rating: 8/10

Futurama Comics #36

Futurama Comics #36 (Bongo Comics)
By Ian Boothby & Mike Kazaleh

This is a particularly sharp issue of Futurama Comics. Fry, Leela and Bender take a trip to the all-robot planet of New England (as opposed to New New England, with its oceans of clam chowder) and wind up in the midst of a murder mystery. Back on Earth, Amy, Zoidberg and Hermes — frustrated that they get left out of the A-team’s adventures — set out to the sewers to have an adventure of their own. The B-team’s plot is basically an extended gag strip with a hysterical, and totally unexpected punchline. The A-team’s story is sharp, but not as sharp. Ian Boothby uses the story as an excuse to inundate us with jokes about British pop culture, which are fun, but don’t make for quite as cohesive a story. Still, this is one of the better issues of the comic, and it feels more like a real episode of the show than many of them do.
Rating: 7/10

Somebody’s First Comic Book: Futurama Comics #54

Wondering what Somebody’s First Comic Book is all about? The explanation is on this page!

TITLE: How Much is That Mutant In the Window?

CREDITS:
Writer: Eric Rogers
Penciller: James Lloyd
Inker: Andrew Pepoy
Colors: Alan Hellard
Letters: Karen Bates
Editor: Bill Morrison
Publisher: Bongo Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Wasn’t Futurama that science fiction version of the Simpsons from, like, ten years ago?

IMPRESSIONS: I guess it’s something like that, anyway. We start off with a dude named Fry, a robot named Bender, a one-eyed chick called Leela and a little monster-thing called Nibbler, visiting a planet where people are playing with all of their weird alien pets. Leela, who apparently is the one in this group with the brain, is kidnapped, and the others have their spaceship towed back to Earth, where they find themselves completely unable to take care of Nibbler. As it turns out, though, Nibbler is evidently super-intelligent, something that he says he’s revealed to Fry and Bender before, but he always erases the knowledge from their memory. As it turns out, Leela has been put in a pet shop for giant aliens, and Nibbler leads them on a rescue mission.

The story is pretty funny, but I definitely got the impression that I was being left out of the joke. There were a ton of comments and references that I think probably will make sense to people who watched the TV show or read the comic book before, but they went right past me. We don’t get to know the characters that well either. They come off much more as stereotypes, intended as a method to deliver jokes instead of telling a really in-depth story.

There’s also a back-up story…

TITLE: Rank Call!

CREDITS:
Writer: Eric Rogers
Penciller: Mike Kazaleh
Inker: Phyllis Novin
Colors: Nathan Hamill
Letters: Karen Bates
Editor: Bill Morrison

IMPRESSIONS: In “Rank Call” we meet an imbecilic space captain named Brannigan and his milquetoast assistant Kif. Kif saves the day during an invasion, gets promoted to captain, and is given a crew that’s equally wimpy. It’s funny enough, but like the main story, it doesn’t really give me a feeling for who these characters are or why I should care about them.

GRADE: C

Futurama Comics #42

April 11, 2009
Futurama Comics #42 (Bongo Comics)
By Patric C.W. Verrone & James Lloyd

There’s been a rash of theft and vandalism around Planet Express, and for once, Bender isn’t responsible. The theft of Fry’s late dog, Seymour, leads the crew to a planet of Canines who have come to worship the petrified pup as their god… and God is telling them to invade the planet Earth. This is an okay issue. The story is pretty good, the sort of thing you could easily imagine being done on the TV show. Verrone‘s script is extremely pun-heavy, which starts out funny, but kind of wears thin by the end. I’m a big fan of really bad puns, don’t misunderstand, but there’s such a thing as moderation. Lloyd‘s art is strong, on-model, and full of nice little visual gags, especially the two-page spread that shows the humans being dominated by the Canines. An improvement over last issue, but I’ve seen better.
Rating: 7/10

Spongebob Comics #1

March 13, 2011

Title: Waking Up is Hard to Do and other stories

Writers: Graham Annable, Chris Duffy, James Kochalka, Bob Flynn, David Lewman, Robert Leighton, Corey Barbra
Pencils: Gregg Schigiel, Andy Rementer, Hilary Barta, Bob Flynn, Jacob Chabot, Vince DePorter, Corey Barbra
Inks: Adam Dekraker, Hilary Barta, Jacob Chabot
Colorist: Rick Neilsen, Mark Martin, Wes Dzioba
Letterer: Comicraft
Cover: Sherm Cohen
Publisher: Bongo Comics/United Plankton Pictures

After 12 years of television dominance, Spongebob Squarepants has finally made his way to the comic book page. Judging from the initial offering, however, he may have been better served by taking his time and doing it right.

This first issue contains several short stories and a couple of activity pages, none of which really deliver to any substantial degree. Part of that is a fundamental issue with the property itself. Spongebob’s brand of humor is very fast-paced and very slapstick… it’s “beat, beat, joke! Beat, beat, joke!” Which works just fine on the television. The first eight pages, though, show conclusively that it doesn’t work in a comic book. If this tale about Spongebob tackling one dream after another one were, instead,  the storyboard for an episode of the cartoon, it could have been a pretty good one, but this story just has no punch.

Halfway through the book we get the one really solid story, a Squidward tale in which our favorite grouchy squid struggles with an irritating song that gets stuck in his head and starts following him around. Stories about music are always tough in a visual medium like a comic book, but writer David Lewman delivers with this one.

The one thing that keeps the score here relatively high is the good artwork on the main stories.  Several of the artists who contribute to this volume manage to give us sharp, on-model depictions of Spongebob and his crew. But the shorts go in the opposite direction, to the point where I don’t even think I’d recognize all of the characters if not for the appropriate colors.

When Disney comics started being created in the early 40s, it was clear that the formula that makes for a Disney cartoon doesn’t work in a comic book. The creators had to keep the core of the characters intact while seeking out a new way to tell stories about them. The result is that the Donald Duck we see in his greatest cartoons is somewhat different from the Donald in his greatest comics, and the story styles are drastically different. The creators of Spongebob Comics need to figure out a  way to do the same with this title, or it just won’t give even the most dedicated of readers a reason to pick it up every other month.

Rating: 5/10

Comic Book Guy:The Comic Book #5

February 20, 2011

Title: The Death of Comic Book Guy Part Five
Writer: Ian Boothby
Pencils: John Delaney
Inks: Dan Davis
Colorist: Nathan Hamil
Letterer: Karen Bates
Editor: Bill Morrison
Publisher: Bongo Comics

Let’s recap: Comic Book Guy is dead, Marge owns the comic shop, and the terrible reign of the Graphic Novel Kid has continued unabated… y’know, until he died too. Obviously, we know the CBG isn’t going to be dead by the end of this miniseries (of which this is the final issue), so I don’t think it counts as a spoiler to say that most of this comic book is concerned with unraveling the truly twisted array of plot threads, mistaken assumptions, and false identities that have built up over the previous five issues. In fact, that’s where the weakness of this issue lies. Almost the entire issue is one big wink at the camera, allowing Ian Boothby to painstakingly dissect the various ways in which the script misled and tricked us for four issues. It’s the sort of thing that’s fine as a climactic scene of a storyline, but to devote an entire issue to such a scene is massive overkill. It basically indicates that the first four issues were way too convoluted in the first place. There are still some nice jokes, gags, and Easter Eggs, the sort of thing that Simpsons fans will enjoy and comic book nerds (like myself) will find entertaining, but in the end, it feels like a long way to go to get there.

Rating: 6/10

Futurama Comics #40

December 5, 2008

Futurama Comics #40 (Bongo Comics)
By Eric Rogers & Mike Kazaleh

It’s X-Mas time again, and this year Bender’s got a new gig as a department store Robot Santa. In addition to getting to abuse the customers, he gets a free pass when Santa goes on his annual X-Mas killing spree. Meanwhile, Leela and Fry are stuck with Zoidberg on a delivery run to Santa’s workshop. The quality of this title wavers — sometimes it’s the next best thing to a new episode of the cartoon, sometimes it’s weak. This issue is one of the best yet. The Bender/Santa storyline is good, and the Zoidberg stuff is downright fantastic. The artwork is sharp, and evocative of the cartoon in all the right ways. Awesome comic, great for Futurama fans, and a nice little Christmas treat at just the right time.
Rating: 9/10

Simpsons Winter Wingding #1

December 1, 2006

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Springfield’s Letters to Santa and other stories

A holiday-packed anthology of Simpsons goodness.

Writers: Paul Dini, Tony Digerolamo, Sarah Dyer, Evan Dorkin, Eric Rogers
Pencils: Phil Ortiz, Jason Ho, Joey Nilges, John Costanza
Inks: Mike DeCarlo, Jason Ho, Andrew Pepoy, Phillis Novin
Colors: Nathan Hamill, Chris Ungar, Nathan Kane, Art Villanueva
Letters: Karen Bates
Editor: Bill Morrison
Cover Art: J. Rote & Serban
Publisher: Bongo Comics

Picking up on the format of the popular Treehouse of Horror specials, the good folks at Bongo comics give us this first anthology of holiday tales from the world of The Simpsons – and for the most part, they’re pretty darn good.

Paul Dini gives us the first story, “Springfield’s Letters to Santa.” As Santa Claus goes through the mail from the worst town on Earth, he makes a drastic claim. This story is a lot of fun – in addition to the peeks into the desires of Springfield’s varied residents, Dini manages to work in several in-jokes. There’s an appearance by a character Futurama fans will no doubt find familiar, and although she’s never mentioned by name, Dini’s own Jingle Belle character plays a nice role in the beginning of the story.

Tony Digerolamo and Jason Ho come in next with an “Angry Dad” strip, based on the episode of the TV show where Bart became a webtoon mogul. This is basically an extended series of gags about Homer making a fool of himself in the winter, and for what it is, it works fine.

Digerolamo and Ho come back for “Hot Cider in the City.” When Bart discovers that Christmas Carolers often get free goodies from the people they sing to, he conjures up a scheme to milk Ned Flanders for all he’s worth. Lisa, as always, is the voice of reason, and although Bart doesn’t really learn a lesson, it’s still a fun story. Digerolamo and Joey Nilges come in next with “Homer’s New Year’s Resolutions,” another short story in which Marge goes through Homer’s past failures at bettering himself, and we see the results of yet another attempt.

Writers Sarah Dyer and Evan Dorkin, with John Costanza’s pencils, bring us “The Gift of the Maccabees,” with Krusty the Clown. On the “All-Singing, All-Dancing, All Shvitzing Krusty Hanukkah Special,” Krusty relates the sad story of a lost love, and how boneheaded gifts on each of the eight nights of Hanukkah led to his heartbreak. This is a twist on the old O. Henry story, but one of the most original twists I’ve yet seen.

The issue wraps with “Snow Falling on Cheaters,” in which a mysterious someone is stealing snowmen from all over town just hours before the town’s big Snowman Competition, and it’s up to Chief Wiggum and his mend to find the perpetrator. Wiggum and company, of course, aren’t the most adept police force in the world, and so it’s kind of a shock when one of their schemes actually works. Sorta.

Overall, this is a fun comic and a nice addition to the Bongo line.

Rating: 8/10