Miller, Todd J. – Loaf

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Loaf

This is probably going to sound like I’m picking on Todd, but I mean it as a general question: what’s the benefit of rushing to get something put together for a convention if you know it’s crappy?  Todd mentions in his remarkably sloppy intro that time got away from him but he wanted to get SOMETHING out there, so he apologizes for this issue and promises to do better next time around.  How does this help him in any way, or anybody who does this?  All this does is get the very least of your abilities and talent out to people who are, frankly, tired of seeing shitty mini comics after a day or so of a comic convention.  If you’re already an established or slightly established presence in the mini comics world, OK, crank something out, it’ll probably be better than nothing.  Or do a 24 hour comic!  If that’s shitty, well, it’s a 24 hour comic, what did you expect?  But this… blech.  In case you haven’t gotten the idea yet, yeah, I didn’t like this much at all, and it’s a shame that I have to trash something that is clearly not this mans best work.  There’s a two pager at the start that goes nowhere, a couple of one page strips with remarkably stupid punchlines, a mildly amusing strip on unforeseen irony, and a couple of serious rush jobs on the back inside and outside cover (but hey, at least he wanted to fill up the entire comic).  The bulk of the comic is a story about Santa Claus having a really bad year, as his wife leaves him, the reindeer are lethargic and the elves quit.  It’s a long way to go for not much of a punchline, and it’s a little depressing when the funniest part of the strip is Todd hand-lettering the pages and making a crack about Kinko’s screwing up.  On the plus side I did like the art, or at least I did for the pages that weren’t clearly rushed.  If it seems like I’m being too hard on the guy, well, maybe I am, and I’d love to see something he’s done since then (this came out in 2005) where he made a decent effort, but this is a review for THIS comic, and this comic sucked.  $2