Steckler, Ben – Get Bent #5/Unshaven Chi #0

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Get Bent #5/Unshaven Chi #0

I’m continuing my 2010 project of going through some of my old minis, and it turns out I have a lot of comics from Ben that I never reviewed.  Not entirely sure why, but I’ll try to add a few “new”ones here from time to time.  I also managed to update his website, at least a little bit, or at least to a site where you can buy some of his minis.  Not many, considering how many he’s done over the years, but if you contact him through that website above I’m sure he has some extra ones lying around somewhere.  So how about this comic?  It’s a flip book, and this is the issue where Ben gets tired of his ska guy storyline and starts to wander a bit.  In the Unshaven Chi part (the short end) we get to see him finally shave his beard (for a job) and resort to a moustache, all while we learn about his new job, why he still lives at home (at the age of 36) and how he’s unlikely to ever find a job in his chosen field in the area.  The bulk of the comic is in the Get Bent section, as we get the continuation of an older story (with a nice recap for the new readers) involving jail, hilariously offensive accents (although, as he argues convincingly in his intro, they do seem accurate), hoarded food, a plane crash and a jailbreak by a giant robot.  His short pieces involve the one sampled (and I would love to get ahold of one of those things), a piece about how he’s nobody famous and an obsessive reordering of flash cards.  It’s a solid comic, even if the main story meandered a bit.  It still had enough funny moments to make it worthwhile, and the shorter pieces were solid.  I didn’t see any sign that he’s still making comics, but part of the idea behind reviewing older books is that I’ll be doing a bit more research for future, older issues in this series.  $2