Steiner, Steve – Odd Clods #1

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Odd Clods #1

Confession time: I’ve often been hesitant in the past when it comes to reviewing comics that come in newspaper formats. Not for any aesthetic reason, it’s just that I’m a simple country reviewer, with a regular old scanner that can’t handle the size of such things. Well, I think I’ve cracked the case. The sample image cut off a little bit of the words, but I think I nailed the combo cover image. And that concludes the segment of the reviews that nobody asks for: behind the scenes at Optical Sloth! I’ve been reviewing Steve’s book for lots of years, but it’s been a few since I’ve seen any of his stuff. He sent along a few of his newspaper comics, and this one in particular is a hoot, and a bit of a departure from some of his other stuff that I’ve seen. It’s a collection of short pieces, but thanks to the format he doesn’t have to worry about space constrictions and he uses that to his full advantage. Subjects include a hilarious piece on how teachers have learned to detect the early warning signs of a potential anti-christ in their classroom, the terror of seeing unknown warning lights in your car while driving, an awkward message sent by an even more awkward gift, the different types of parasites in the midwest, the research and conclusion of a recently discovered terrarium in the human stomach of a comatose patient, a simple test for determining what types of hair you’ve found in various apartments, and a brand new personal defense system that’s designed to stop bigger dudes (and impress horrible women who are only attracted to violence). You know, I was going to wrap this up by mentioning how his (already impressive) artwork has somehow managed to get even better, but after going through that wrap-up on the stories in here, I should really point just how damned funny this comic was. Just about every one got a laugh out of me, with the possible exception of the stomach terrarium story (which was really more of a horror piece anyway). Give it a chance, why don’t you? Don’t you like funny things too? $10