Roberts, Rafer – Mishit #1

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mishit1

Mishit #1

Hey, wait a minute, Rafer threw an obscenity in his title!  I saw it as “mis-hit” before typing it out, now it’s clear what he’s doing with that title.  Kids, ask your parents about it.  This is, as the title suggests a collection of Rafer’s non-Plastic Farm comics for 11 years and, as such, is a bit spotty in the quality department.  He starts with a series of his weekly strips for a college newspaper, not the best of the bunch (as he freely points out) but rather the ones that have survived over the years.  Mostly forgettable stuff, but you can see the germs for bits of Plastic Farm here.  Next up is a short piece about his grandfather and his time in WWII, or at least the bits that he as willing to tell his grandkids.  Following this is a piece about the father of Behaviorism and his torture (basically) of a young kid while trying to prove his theories.  The heart of the book comes next, and my favorite story, about a young man and his life of absolute piety.  The trouble comes when he meets God after death and is told in no uncertain terms that he’s wasted his life… but gets a chance to get things right.  A few more shorties round out the book, dealing with a world traveler finally settling down (after finding a successor), a melting dog, and a redrawing of a comic Rafer did when he was 9.  I love the fact that he kept the dialogue exactly the same as written when he was a little kid, and the addition of some pages of original art from the story was a nice touch.  It also helped show why he bothered to redraw it now, frankly, but modern day Rafer playing around with a variety of monsters is much more interesting than 9 year old Rafer doing the same thing.  In the end, this is a collection that you’re going to be a lot more interested in if you’ve already read the bulk of Plastic Farm and just want to see more of his stuff.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s enough in here to keep the casual comics fan entertained, but this is mostly aimed at people who are already fans of his work.  Not sure about the price, and I don’t see it on his woefully unupdated website, but it looks like it would be about $10.

mishit2

Posted on April 26, 2010, in Reviews and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Roberts, Rafer – Mishit #1.

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