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Bog Wizards #2

I had a few doubts about this story coming out of the first issue, wondering a bit if it could hold up over the long term.  All doubts have been smashed into teeny tiny chunks with this issue.  First off, just look at that cover.  That’s brilliant.  Things pick up where they left off in the last issue, leading up to the second page of the story, and it’s the one I sampled below.  Go ahead, take a minute to check it out.  The reaction from the giant was hilarious, as was the reaction from our hero.  The giant makes a deal with our hero in exchange for not eating him (even though this giant doesn’t eat people anyway), which causes our hero to remorselessly mess things up for everybody else to get himself out of trouble.  So what gets him back on the side of right?  The possibility of getting with the fairy queen, of course.  From here we get some fantastic fight scenes, and here’s where Rob really shines: his depiction of the various monsters.  Two full pages introduced the monsters a bit earlier (I particularly loved the vaguely Mr. Potato Head looking monster), and great glee is taken in taking these creatures out.  There’s more, a lot more than you may think with a mini comic,  but I’m gushing here, and I do have to save some praise.  Why?  Because this issue comes with a Bog Wizards board game.  How is it possible to include a board game with a comic?  Rob has broken the game down into two large color pages, along with three pages of cards to use in the game and a page of characters.  If you wondered about the names of any of the monsters from the comic, the mystery is solved here (my favorite is called Yogblog).  All of this comes in a plastic bag with simple instructions, ending with the following disclaimer: “Have cautious fun.  Don’t expect too much.”  I think the man’s selling himself short.  This whole thing goes for about $6, and the arbitrary pricing system in my brain says  that is just barely too much for a comic (even one that’s this good), but is a steal when you factor in the board game.  He didn’t skimp on the details for it either, it looks gorgeous.  Buy this from the man, we should all do our part to make Bog Wizards a phenomenon.

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Bog Wizards #1

I do believe that this is Rob’s first attempt at fantasy, in this case the story of a young man, a curse, a fake wizard, a demon and some bad bargains. Things start off with the father of the young man dying a slow, painful death, and telling his son about an awful thing he did years ago, something that he’s still paying for, something that caused a curse that only the son can remove. From here the story is full of zigs and zags, as most of the attempts to fix things make matters worse. I’m keeping this as vague as possible to avoid giving things away, as per usual, and because of the simple fact that Rob kept me guessing throughout this story, always the hallmark of a good fantasy story, or a good fiction story in general. Oh, and Rob describes this as kind of like a 24 hour comic, but done over the course of a month instead. Good stuff, unless you hate all wizards, demons and curses, in which case everything else on this page is probably a bit more realistic and more to your liking. $1.50