Brodowski, John – Curio Cabinet #3

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Curio Cabinet #3

Well, going by my completely arbitrary measure of how to tell that a comic’s creator has “made it” from my last review, it’s safe to say that John has now officially done so. Three incredible issues = admittance into the rare company of other people approaching comic genius, doomed as they are to a life of mostly unpaid artistic expression to a dwindling audience of diehard fans who are also increasingly unable to pay for such things. Hooray, my cheery thought for the day! Anyway, this comic is damned near a work of genius, and this is with me coming in with heightened expectations after the first two issues. First up is Human Again, the story of a suicidal hatchet (after his failed relationship with a teapot) and the unfortunate side effect of a hatchet leaping from the top of a tall building. Next is Silent Watcher, which would be a candidate for “story of the year” if this was 2008 already, and if I even remotely kept track of such things. Two friends are driving along the highway, rocking out, when the hand of god (or the hand of dog) reaches down and smacks one of the men out of the car. This, naturally, causes some confusion to the remaining man, and the effects on the smitten man are profound indeed. This ends in a final panel of such brilliance that it actually hurt me not to sample, but it just isn’t right to ruin a perfectly wonderful story because I feel the need to use that image as the sole example of the excellence of the work on display here. Next up are a couple of pieces about the quiet time of Jason Voorhies (yep, the guy from the Friday the 13th movies), involving him meeting a squirrel and “driving” a car. Then there’s Hatchet (no relation to the story about a hatchet), dealing with a boy who makes a little fort that he can see from his classroom. Finally there’s Hot Rockin, in which something resembling the Loch Ness monster comes onto land and deals with a land war in the only way he can. Seriously, in a series I can’t recommend highly enough, this one still manages to be the best of the bunch. No price tag, so…$3?