RIP: The Napalm Assault

Some of you may have noticed the sudden absence of www.thenapalmassault.com. I’m sorry to say that I have to announce the passing of this lovely website. It was fun while it lasted, and I hope it brought entertainment to at least one person. If it was just one person, the whole thing would have been worthwhile.

It was always Leo Perez’s brainchild. He came up with the idea, but more to the point, he paid for it. Lately, he’s been making great steps forward in his comics career, and he just can’t afford to keep up the Napalm Assault while making a name for himself as an artist. He gave me fair warning, and I prepared for the end.

It’s a shame. I look back at what the website was supposed to be, and it never lived up to our expectations. Originally, it was Leo, Cliff Breaux and me. There were a few other interested parties, and the main cast was joined by the Righteous Sandwich for a while. But I have my scribbled notes from when a bunch of us got together to brainstorm what the website should be, and I’ve got to say, we were ambitious motherfuckers. Here’s a look at some of the ideas:

--We were going to have a great cheeseburger competition between Jim Sauve and me. I’ve always contended that the Country House makes the best burger in the area. He was going to challenge me on that.

--We thought about having a rotating political humor column.

--We came up with strange ideas for reviews. We wanted to review things people ordinarily didn’t review, like graveyards and websites.

--Fucktard of the Week.

--The Horrors of Channel Surfing.

--We thought getting me liquored up and unleashing me on some kind of local event would be a good idea.

--The Napalm Podcast. Believe it or not, there are actually episodes of these, starring Leo and Cliff, but none of them have been posted for the public.

--Investigative reporting of funny shit, not important shit.

--Cliff had a tongue-in-cheek opinions column in mind called something along the lines of “If You Don’t Agree With Me, You’re Racist.”

--Animal Shelter of the Week.

--We were going to have a monthly contest in which readers could win a chance to date one of us. That’s not as egotistical as you might think. We figured no one would actually enter, that it would be a bit.

--Not Just Wrigleyville—meaning, fun things to do in Chicago that, well, you get it.

--Vegan food reviews.

--And then there were reviews in general.

--I also wanted to invite a few friends to write for us. Fitz would do Nintendo retrospectives, and Jason (now known as the Drudgeon at Forced Viewing) would do horror movie reviews.

--And then there was the list of things I wound up doing for my own blog and posting links on The Napalm Assault: The DUI Diary, bar reviews, whiskey reviews, Meeting Authors, etc.

That’s quite a menu. If only we could have gotten this thing off the ground. That’s one of my big regrets. At first, there were posts from all of us, but over time, I wound up being the only one posting anything. It got to the point where Leo just handed the reins over to me, but by that point, I knew it was done. The site continued slogging along for a while, but it was a lingering death. It’s probably for the best that it’s gone.

I remember when I first started working on the site. The thing I offered first and foremost were comic book reviews. I think originally, Leo was going to cover DC, Cliff would do Marvel and I would cover all of the others, including and especially the indies. But I’d reviewed comic books for the college paper, and I was kind of eager to get back to it. That led me to wanting to do Cool Shit, and other comics-related coverage.

It was fun. It really was.

What does the passing of The Napalm Assault mean, going forward? I’ll be retiring a lot of my regular posts. Comic book reviews, which were posted, for the most part, at the Napalm Reviews Tumblr, will cease. Cool Shit will end, and that’s probably for the best. I only ever talk about the same books, anyway, and it is probably my least popular column. Only about 20 of you read it on a regular basis. It’s fun to do, but it’s time has passed. (Can you believe I’ve been doing Cool Shit for almost four years?! Here’s alink to the first one, just so you can see what it was like.)

The same with other reviews. Writing them takes up waaaaaaay too much of my regular fiction writing time, and let’s face it, I’m never going to get money for my reviews. The time has come to cut the weight holding me down. Don’t worry, I’ll still be reviewing horror movies for Forced Viewing.

I’m sorry to say that I’ll be ending One Question Interviews, as well. There is a lot of positive response to this column, but it’s not turning into what I want it to be. I was hoping to use the first five posts as a springboard to get a wide variety of writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, stand-up comedians and more to participate. I have not gotten a favorable response in that area. John Everson is the only person I don’t know personally who was interested in taking part with this column, for which I am very grateful.

I will also retire any convention coverage. It will be weird to go to C2E2 and not write anything up, but so be it.

It's weird. I started writing about comic books in college, back in the late 'Nineties. Back then, no one gave a shit about comics. The fact that there was a regular comics column in the college newspaper was absolutely mindblowing. I even won a state award for it. Now? You can't escape from comics. Somehow, I think the world will survive without my coverage.

What will continue? You’ll still get the occasional Everyone’s Got One. Whenever I have the material, I’ll post more Meeting Authors. If it strikes my fancy, I might do another Forgotten Comic Books. And as always, if something fucked up in my life happens, I’ll blog about it.

Well, that’s it, then. A door closes on a chapter of my life, and maybe another one opens. I hope you’ll join me. Whoops, there was one more regret I wanted to mention.

I really, really, really wish Leo had let me call the site The Third Testicle.

COOL SHIT 4-17-14

AMERICAN VAMPIRE: SECOND CYCLE #2: Wow. Back for two issues, and already things have just gone off the fucking rails. First of all, it’s great to see Cal again. But under the circumstances? I’m sure all things considered, he’d rather be in Philadelphia. And now that we’ve met the Gray Trader, things are probably going to get even more fucked up, especially if he’s really what Cal says he is. I’m so glad this book is finally back.

THE TRANSFORMERS: WINDBLADE #1: Ever since the animated movie, people have been baffled by Arcee’s existence. How could there only be one female Transformer? What are they, fucking Smurfs? Well, IDW has decided to address the issue by bringing in more women characters. As previously seen, they were taking care of the dying Metroplex up until now. Now, they’re on Cybertron and they’re trying to help Starscream get things up and running. Windblade is the only point of communication they have with Metroplex, since she’s the only one who can speak his language. It’s interesting to see this concept in action, but what really made me crack up was when Rattrap voiced it in a very awkward moment: “So . . . uh. What’s the—uh—whole you both being called ‘she’ thing about?” I could be mistaken, but I think Mairghread Scott is the first woman writer to ever tackle this title. Too bad they’re only giving her a mini-series.

ROVER RED CHARLIE #5: Only Garth Ennis could take a story about animals and make it as obscene as possible. I love the way these dogs think. “I’m a dog!” is how their frantic barks are translated. Oceans are big splashes. Humans are feeders. Those who haven’t had their balls cut greet each other by fucking. Take this POV and put it into a zombie apocalypse, and you have this book. In a previous issue, artist Michael DiPascale portrayed a human licking shit out of a dog’s asshole. Somehow, in this issue, Ennis and DiPascale outdo that scene with the short bus. I’ll let you read about that all on your own, though. It’s that good. I hate stories about animals, but I’m going to miss this one when it concludes next month.

STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS #2: It’s good to see Eli all grown up, and it would seem that he lost his foot in that car accident. He lost his father in it, too. But it looks like he’s gained a few interesting stories, and he might be getting laid pretty soon. But this isn’t his story. This is about a troubled young woman named Virginia, and her relationship with her aunt and uncle. David Lapham does two kinds of stories really good: tits and violence stories and depressing stories. This one is the latter, and the ending is just a heartbreaker.

IT'S NOT JUST A KEVIN COSTNER MOVIE: A whiskey review of Tincup

The first thing you notice is the odd look of the bottle. It seems taller, but that’s only because it doesn’t have much of a neck. It’s also shaped like a hexagon with a tin cup for a cap. Very intriguing.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Colorado whiskey, made from Rocky Mountain water. At first, that seems like blasphemy. Very few good whiskies are made outside of the American south, but Tincup will change your opinion.

Distiller Jess Graber is a man who loves his booze. You can tell that right away, as soon as you open the bottle. It smells like bourbon, but there’s also a hint of rye in there. It’s 84 proof, which is a little low for the newer generation of whiskey, but that makes for a nice and mellow experience.

This is some seriously smooth booze. It goes down with the ease of water, and it doesn’t even give you an afterburn, much less an aftertaste. And due to its low alcohol content, it won’t completely fuck you up. You’ll get a nice buzz going, and it won’t sneak up on you. It won’t play tricks. It will put you in the perfect enjoyment zone.

So why call it Tincup? And what’s with the tin cup cap? Graber says he “made Tincup in honor of Colorado’s first whiskey drinkers and the cups they drank from.” How awesome is that? The only problem is, the tin cup it comes with sucks. While it looks cool as all hell, it leaks out the bottom. Not too much, but just enough to make you feel guilty for wasting booze.

But that’s kind of like getting pissed off for seeing a Country House cheeseburger on a paper plate, a minor complaint. This is some good shit, folks. You should try it as soon as you can.

ONE QUESTION INTERVIEWS: MAT FESTA

If you’ve followed my convention reviews, then you know who Mat Festa is. He’s done books like MISERERI NOBIS and PASSAGE, and you can find his work in PRODUCT OF SOCIETY. When you see him, you wouldn’t think such a short, skinny, bearded guy would be capable of the madness and beauty you find in his books, but that is a part of his genius. Here is my question for him.

ME: You’ve got an odd juxtaposition of horrible things and really beautiful things in your work. What must your dreams be like?

MAT FESTA: My dreams are far stranger and horrible than anything I’ve put down on paper. In fact, my first book was largely composed of most of my nightmares. They get very surreal and abstract. What’s interesting is, I’ve noticed that I don’t have recurring nightmares, but I do have recurring places in my dreams, and over the years I’ve started to network and map it out, and I’ve realized that where I’ve been dreaming is one big enormous labyrinthine city. If I found this place in real life, I’d be able to work my way and find my way around in it. That’s my reflection of life itself.

At this point, Angel Onofre, a fellow artist at DanCon, interrupted this interview by posting a sticky note to Mat’s back, a gift from CheeseLord’s Jon Lennon and Leo Perez that said simply, “Kill yourself.”

MF: And I always get interrupted during interviews by terrible people . . . One more thing. Jon Lennon is a pedophile.

His work can be found here. Buy something, will ya’?

DANCON: THE UNEXPECTED CONVENTION

Every time I cover a convention like Wizard World Chicago or C2E2, I almost always say that my favorite part is Artists Alley. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy meeting celebrities and has-beens and big name comics creators just as much as the next guy, but the true magic of the con experience is finding an amazing new book from an up and coming writer or artist (or in many cases, both in one person).

I discovered that a few of my friends were going to be at DanCon this year, and truth be told, since it didn’t get much attention, I didn’t really think about covering it. And then I found out that it’s in Orland Park, which is not far from my native Elmhurst, and that the price of entry is only three bucks. To top it all off, it’s one big Artists Alley. That’s it. No celebrities, very few vendors. Indie creators are the main draw of the place.

That doesn’t stop cosplayers. The very first thing I saw as I parked was some kid dressed up as Captain America, shield and all. I walked in the doors and saw the shortest con line I have ever seen, which warmed my heart, considering the garbage one has to go through to get into WWC. They also give you a bunch of free stuff, including a Hellboy mask.

Inside, it’s a very intimate setting. There are no lines to meet anyone. Maybe that’s a bad thing, since it usually indicates that someone isn’t worth the attention. However, if you see a book that really turns you on, you don’t have to wait to meet the creators. They’re just there. It’s very easy to meet new people. No one is on guard. It’s a very slow, laid-back environment.

There aren’t any creeps, either. The only problem I noticed was a guy who walked around playing really atrocious music loudly. The wife of the showrunner came by, asking if the guy was being obnoxious with his tunes. They’d already told the dude to turn down his music, and according to all reports, he was a dick about it. With reinforcement from the creators, she had security throw the guy out.

That’s it. Aside from that, there were no big problems.

Granted, it’s a small environment, and it’s only on a Sunday, from ten in the morning to four in the afternoon, so there isn’t a lot of room for problems, but still, that’s an amazing feat.

I got to catch up with friends there, as with every con. I saw Jon Lennon and Leo Perez, as always. Mat Festa was also there, as was Kurt Dinse. It was altogether an excellent experience with no tension or pressure at all.

Unfortunately, some of the strengths of the show also feed its main weakness: it’s a small show. There isn’t a lot to see. I still managed to come home with a good bundle of books, and I only spent about $100, but it wasn’t even a fraction of what an Artists Alley at, say, C2E2 would be. I would like to see more variety in their future, but I can promise one thing: if they’re back next year, I will be there. It’s a great time, and I recommend you all join me in its glories.

I just hope they move on from the stamp system. I’m a big fan of lanyards to get into a show. Hell, I’d even take a stupid wristband. That wouldn’t be so bad, since DanCon is only a day long. But a stamp? Fuck. First of all, I’m a sweaty motherfucker. By the end of the day, the mark was almost gone. I also had to avoid washing my right hand after going to the bathroom, lest I wash the mark away. That’s fine for number one (I hold my dick with my left hand), but for number two, I wipe with my right hand. Thank Christ I didn’t have to take a shit that day.

One more thing: while I was there, I commissioned a great work of art. I promised the artist I wouldn’t reveal his or her identity, but I would be remiss if I didn’t share the piece here. You may recognize these two parties as Jon Lennon and Josh Filer. Or you may be too lost in the nutsack and the grotesque double cumshot. But here is one of my favorite pieces ever. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I do. It’s worth the $20 I spent on it and so much more.

COOL SHIT 4-10-14

KICK-ASS 3 #7: (Please remember that Cool Shit contains spoilers. To quote a great man, “Tread lightly.”) Mark Millar’s not fucking around. This is the end of KICK-ASS. He pulls a very bizarre move in this issue though: he has the Motherfucker turn on his Mafia family and try to save Hit-Girl. I’m unclear as to why he does this. It’s completely out of character for him. Is it just so he can have his Hobgoblin-from-the-third-Spider-Man moment? Ugh. Not that it matters, though, since the Motherfucker gets killed in this issue. Seriously, Millar is an animal. He could do anything. There is one issue left, and there’s no way to predict the ending. For all we know, Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass die in the end. I suspect Hit-Girl will get it. I don’t know about Kick-Ass, but we’ll see soon. (PS: I love Big Daddy’s monster truck.)

G.I. JOE: SPECIAL MISSIONS #14: This one is reminiscent of the old Marvel G.I. JOE book. This is the perfect example of a Special Mission, taking one character and spotlighting him in the field. This is Lowlight’s book as he faces off against a Cobra sniper with a wounded Mainframe in the middle of it all. Since COBRA FILES ended, I’ve been greatly disappointed with this title. It was nice to see this one go out on top with a cool issue. That’s right, this is the last issue of SM. We’re stuck with the regular G.I. JOE from here on out (and the original Hama series, which is hit or miss). It’s a shame. I hope the next step for IDW and these characters is much better than what we’ve been getting lately.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE #4: And so the first story arc ends. It comes to a very satisfying ending. I’m not sure if it’s something that Rod Serling would have done, but tone-wise, I think he would have been proud. The only problem I have with it is the introduction of the next story by interweaving it with this one in an odd hybrid of an epilogue/prologue. It seems a bit cheap. I’d rather do without it. Besides, it ruins the effect of the final monologue (which, presumably, belongs to Serling). But I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve read the next issue.

THE WALKING DEAD #125: Here we have it, ladies and gentlemen. The moment of truth. Rick vs. Negan, one on one. Except . . . it’s not the two-fisted battle in a boiler room you might expect. No, it’s a verbal argument. And shockingly enough, Rick gives Negan a wonderful argument for why the war should end. He’s of the opinion that they could achieve wonderful things if they just worked together instead of trying to kill each other. Surprise! Rick gets through to Negan. He sees the light. It looks like we’re going to have a peace agreement. Too bad Rick fucking slits Negan’s throat. All right, I don’t really think he does a good enough job. I’ll bet next issue, it will be revealed to be a shallow job, and Negan’s going to make it. Kirkman’s not done with a guy like Negan, not yet. No fucking way. We don’t have his backstory yet. But we’ll see. Next issue is the last of “All Out War.”

Here’s a bonus: NEXT TESTAMENT #8. I’m going to review it next week on Wednesday at the Napalm Reviews, but I just wanted to share this wonderful image from this book with you. Haemi Jang is a wonderful artist.

Stay tuned next week for a special announcement concerning this column.

A VERY UNUSUAL ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: A DanCon review of APOCALYPSE MAN

You’ve seen all kinds of different zombie apocalypses, but this one is very different. In the world of this book, one moment you can be a regular guy, and the next your body is swelling up with alien eggs until you explode.  The eggs then hatch to become giant monsters. Well, it’s not that fast. You do have some time to stagger around like, well, like a zombie, but when it hits you, it comes fast.

The focus of this story is Bryan and his family of survivors: bad-ass with a shotgun Adrienne, snarky kid Blake and fat dude Aaron. They lament the passing of their loved ones, but in an odd way, they’re grateful that they didn’t survive to see how terrible the world is now. But mostly, their biggest problem is trying to get Aaron to stop eating all their food.

And then, the unexpected happens. They’re surrounded by zombies bursting with monster eggs and the very monsters that grow from them, and all hope seems to have left them . . . and if someone ruins the ending of this book for you, they should be thrown into a pit of horse cum.

The remarkable thing about APOCALYPSE MAN is that it’s a one-shot. It isn’t the first in a series, and there is no promise for a continuation. Not enough stories are handled this way in comics. As with TV and movies, there is always the greedy desire to get a story out there that turns out to be so popular, people want more of it. This is completely contained within itself, which is why it manages to make the strong statement that it does.

Writer and artist Brad Sun certainly knows what he’s doing. With the exception of the monsters, this could be any old story. It could have been made in a cookie cutter, but with the sudden turn of events near the end, it catapults itself into a whole new realm. The artwork is a perfect match. It’s dark and rough, just like the world it portrays. And the monsters are just disgusting.

If you’re looking for a quick, great read, look no further.

APOCALYPSE MAN

Written and illustrated by Brad Sun

Published by Sunbros Studios

40 pages

$5 (I think)

ONE QUESTION INTERVIEWS: JOHN EVERSON

John Everson is a Stoker-winning horror novelist located in Naperville, IL. He was one of the Dorchester writers before the company collapsed. Under their banner, he wrote books like COVENANT, SACRIFICE, THE 13^TH and SIREN. He is now working with Samhain. I first met him at Flashback Weekend, where I bought the limited edition hardcover of THE 13^TH, which has amazing artwork on the dust jacket, and I ran into him again at DanCon. This is my question for him:

ME: I noticed in the acknowledgements of THE 13^TH that a lot of the book had been written in bars, notoriously loud places with plenty of distractions. How do you manage to write in such a strange, loud environment?

JOHN EVERSON: That one’s easy, actually. The wall of noise creates a Cone of Silence, really. If I’m in a bar when they’re not playing music and there are only a few people in there, my ear will immediately pick up the conversation at the table next to me, and I won’t be able to do anything. When it’s really busy and the music’s loud, it’s just a buzz, and I can go into my own space. The thing I like about writing in that environment is, unlike in my house, where there are a million things that need to be done—I can feed the birds or clean the bird cages or clean up my office or make dinner or whatever, or talk to my son. In a bar, I can’t do anything. I’m not going to just walk around. I stay seated at the booth, people bring me beer, which is always a good thing until the bill comes, so I get a lot done there. I’ll spend three or four hours there, and it’s private me time.

His new book is VIOLET EYES and can be purchased here. Usually, I just leave plugs nice and simple like that, but he said a bit more when I asked him about the new book, and I thought you might enjoy this, so here you go.

JE: The new book is called VIOLET EYES, and it was also written in many bars. It’s sort of my big KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS book. It was a lot of fun to write. And in the acknowledgements, I say I’ve always done a lot of writing in pubs. In this one, I put where it was written. Bars in Ft. Worth, TX, Florida, Toronto, Vancouver and Munich, Germany, my first trip abroad. I went there for business a few days and got some writing done.

John Everson’s website is here, and you can follow him on Twitter at @JohnEverson

IT CAME FROM CHEESELORD: A review of THE THING THAT CAME FROM SPACE OR SOMETHING

Meet writer and illustrator Angel Onofre. He’s the new blood at CheeseLord Comics, an indie press known for severe depravity and hopeless despair. How does Onofre measure up?

Well, in this book there isn’t a lot of hopeless despair, but there is a certain kind of depravity. It’s not the same brand, but it’s definitely fucked up. The protagonist is Angel, who one day decides, out of the blue, that he wants to create a webcomic, but he doesn’t know how to figure out HTML. On the advice of a crackhead, he goes to a drug dealer who knows someone with great HTML skills, but first Angel must do something for him: deliver a letter.

If you know anything about CheeseLord Comics, you know that letter isn’t very innocuous. It leads Angel down a road of aliens, space drugs, poop and death.

It’s very strange, because unlike other CheeseLord books, the humor here is actually light hearted. It’s fun, and it helps that the style is so cartoonish. Everything is so exaggerated and over the top, it makes one feel like this could have happened in the world of Ren and Stimpy. Even scenes involving lots of violent death come off as hilarious.

And you will never guess where the story is going. You’ll be pleasantly surprised, and when you read the description of the next issue, you’ll laugh your ass off. Buy this book and find out what happens when you take space drugs, and why it’s never good to snort something that fell from the sky.

THE THING THAT CAME FROM SPACE OR SOMETHING!

Written and illustrated by Angel Onofre

Published by CheeseLord Comics

38 pages

$5

COOL SHIT 4-3-14

CROSSED: BADLANDS #51: To be honest, I’m not a big fan of the patient zero story of this series. I much prefer not knowing how the plague started. Yet, it IS written by Garth Ennis, and it’s winning me over. It’s so strange to see the Crossed running around without the cross and still remaining somewhat lucid in their rape-y violence. It’s also becoming very apparent that the whole thing will be kicked off by some fuck-up from a bureaucrat, which titillates me to no end.

G.I. JOE SPECIAL MISSIONS #13: I’m practically checked out of IDW’s G.I. Joe books, ever since they ended THE COBRA FILES. Still, this issue features a guest appearance from Putin hisownfuckingself. I’m waiting for the day the real Putin kicks the shit out of a reporter on live TV. He’s probably too cold for something like that, but he does have a pumped up masculine image of himself, so . . .

CALIBAN #1: A double dose of Ennis! This one’s weird because Avatar doesn’t often do SF (hey, it’s been a while since they regularly published STARGATE SG-1), and neither does Ennis. Here we have an interesting concept: what happens when two spaceships, both in their own subspace, cross paths. It doesn’t turn out well for the crew of the Caliban, in particular the poor bastard pictured above. It’s going to be interesting to see where the story goes from here.

TRILLIUM #8: Did I miss a memo or something? I could have sworn this was a regular monthly series, and here we are at the last issue. I did some poking around, and it would seem that it was always meant to be eight issues, but I have my suspicions that it wasn’t. If it was canceled, shame on Vertigo. This is one of the best books they have going right now. Still, it came to an amazing, mind-bending ending. The last few pages contain some of the best work I’ve seen from Jeff Lemire. All told, this couldn’t have been a more perfect ending. I’m very satisfied. I’m going to miss this book.

NO, NOT THAT KIND OF DICK: A review of DICK MUMMY

This book actually has a cool concept. Take your average noir detective and make him a mummy. Not just any mummy, though, one who has to keep sacrificing pieces of himself in a spell in order to stay alive. Set him loose on the dark streets, where werewolves and zombies roam, and you have a pretty decent book.

Dick Mummy even has a great inner monologue. It reads like poetry, it really does. He’s also got a magic bug that can track people. He has a quest: to find the Accursed Six, a team of villainous mummies.

All of this has a lot of promise, but sadly the book doesn’t deliver like it should. The main problem is in the execution. As awesome as the inner monologue is, it just destroys the story entirely. Dick Mummy finds a group of werewolves in an alley, along with a young boy who died in the middle of a transition from human to wolf. Dick Mummy tracks down the werewolves and finds zombies instead. Etc. So rest assured, there is a story, but you wouldn’t know it from reading the book.

Every detail of the story that we don’t get from the artwork is given to us through the filter of Dick Mummy. There is no dialogue. There really isn’t any character interaction. For the most part, we’re reading Dick Mummy’s thoughts as he wanders around his city, and when something happens, we’re still lost in his thoughts. Because of this, we’re distanced from the action. A story that should be popping off the pages instead seems bland, the background to a character who is waaaaay too involved with himself. It’s a shame. Writer Peter W. Caton has an interesting idea. If only he knew how to tell it and let actions and characters speak for themselves.

Artist Greg Hiatt is amazing, though. The image of that poor kid, stuck between human and wolf in death, is chilling. The Accursed Six are decadent and vile. The werewolves are formidable and scary. Dick Mummy himself looks pretty cool and awful, what with his rotting face under a classic fedora.

It would seem that this book is a spin-off of another series. It might have been a bit too soon to give him his own title, at least for now. Maybe he’ll fare better in the future. For now, it’s a serviceable book. You’ll enjoy the monologue as a piece on its own. However, as part of a story? It gets in the way too much.

DICK MUMMY #1

Written by Peter W. Caton

Illustrated by Greg Hiatt

Published by Moon Comics

17 pages

$4.50