Cates, Isaac & Wenthe, Mike – Elm City Jams #3

Website

E-mail

Elm City Jams #3

These two (Mike and Isaac) are the mad scientists of the mini comics world. The great thing about that though is that they focus a lot more on the “scientist” part and a lot less on the “mad”. What they’re doing might seem insane, but they know exactly what they’re shooting for seemingly at all times. They might not get there every time, but they’re sure going to give it a shot. That being said, I’m supposed to be talking about this comic, right? Well, it’s a jam book, so other people are involved. Specifically Tom O’Donnell, Jeff Seymour, and people named Shana and Harry. The story behind this issue is that there is one central idea for each comic, which only takes up a single page. Individual panels can be passed along to different people, and they were kind enough (on almost every page) to tell the reader who did which panel and under what constraints they were operating. Examples include having a duck or a monkey in every panel (but not both), having one inbred character, getting hot liquid thrown in somebody’s face, ethnic stereotypes, not being allowed to have robot, human or animal characters, stealing the layout from a page of Fantastic Four #1, and having a comic within a comic within a comic. Look, every single panel of every single page isn’t a masterpiece, but the vast majority of the stories here are a blast. And the best thing about these two is that while you have no idea what you’re getting from issue to issue, you at least know that they’ve put a whole lot of thought and effort into the concept. Well worth a look if you love comics and what they’re capable of being.