Hornschemeier, Paul – Forlorn Funnies #5

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Forlorn Funnies #5 (preview)

This isn’t a real review, as this isn’t a real comic, just a preview edition for the 80 page, $10.95 monster that should already be out. Can’t find it anywhere online though (not that that’s saying much), but I just wanted to tell you that this looks incredible. He’s already had a few moments in the comics world where he’s convinced me that he the “next big thing”, but this solidifies all that. There were only 8 pages in here, and a full review will follow when I get the actual book, but buy this. Seriously. If I read anything in here to convince me otherwise I’ll let you know, but I laughed at 3/4 of this, and that’s saying something. Contact info is all over, but good luck finding the actual issue online. Oh, and sorry about the sample quality, but it’s actually supposed to look like shit.

OK, here’s the actual review, as I finally got around to buying this. It’s a flip book, for starters, with one half being chock full of depressing, sad stories, and the other half has constant wackiness, also tinged with a bit of a sense of the futility of it all. The bios at the back of the book are even different for each section, which is just another example of how much attention to detail Paul puts into absolutely everything. In the funny part (and this is an overly simplistic way to look at both halves, but it works, more or less), you have The Snob and the Blob, Whatever Dude, a story about as your loud, obnoxious boyfriend, a cute little thing running for no reason at all, and Vanderbilt Millions, a man who loves his horse but has some trouble with his wife. The depressing part has a crazy man with a gun (it’s a lot more complicated than that, but why ruin it for you?), a brutal killing on another planet, a doomed robot, and an orange. There are all kinds of things that impress me about Paul, but the thing that impressed me the most is his ability to master all kinds of different styles of drawing. Parts of this book look radically different, and the fact that it’s in color, while making the book expensive ($10.95), also make it gorgeous, and you should know enough about the guy by now, one way or another, to be able to make an informed decision about whether or not you think he’s worth it. He’s firmly entrenched in my list of favorites by now, that’s for sure. Contact info is around here somewhere…