Kressbach, Karl (editor) – Hoax #5

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Hoax #5 Now Available! $2

The late 2009 reviewing of these Hoax issues continues, wildly out of order and for no good reason other than the fact that I somehow missed reviewing them all these years, and these comics frankly deserve better.  This one is especially interesting in that it essentially has origin stories for other comics available in the store, or at least early attempts at those stories.  There’s the story of the family from Chromosome Crossroads (namely how they got their start and how they weren’t always an interbreeding mess) and an early version of the guy from Cannibulimic, which I still contend is the best title in my store.  The title itself, that is.  It’s a pretty great comic too, but there’s a whole lot of competition in there.  Other pieces in this issue include Nate Neal with a Mexican adventure, Ben Carrico with a text piece telling us to use cash to avoid detection, Nate Neal with Truckhead reading his fortune, Karl with a short piece (all I’ll say about it is the title: Plop N’ Scrub), Ben Carrico with another text piece (this time about his personal view of the ghetto from his apartment and the cycle that keeps them all there), Nate Neal resurrecting Bill Hicks for his take on the current state of things (and, while it was tacky to do it, he sure seems to have come up with an accurate portrayal of the guy), Karl with a short silent piece on the wonders of life (and if you’ve read even a bit of Karl’s work you know that’s sarcasm), Nate with another Truckhead piece (where he’s haunted by commercials in his dreams) and a longer piece on various conspiracy theories.  There’s less variety in this issue at least in terms of the number of creators, but the pieces are stronger and you can tell they’re all really getting a handle on their various characters.  It’s a shame that none of their individual series seem to have been kept up, but it’s entirely possible that I just missed them and they’re still out there chugging away.  Either way this is a fun issue, and that’s a lot of comic for $2.