Blog Archives
O’Brien, Keith (and Various Artists) – Samurai Slate in Punch Drunk or Bowl Me Over
Website (for Tom Cherry, can’t find one for Keith)
Samurai Slate in Punch Drunk or Bowl Me Over
So what exactly is your tolerance level for word puns? If it’s your favorite thing in the world, boy howdy do I ever have a comic for you! If you can barely stand them, you might want to save yourself some time and move on to the next review. Keith wrote these stories, all either one or two pages, and they all feature a comedic theme based on a specific type of wordplay. The strip I sampled (where the story works in using every day of the week) is the clearest example of it, but other stories in here use puns based on books, punctuation, cows, India, chess and minerals. If your eyes naturally roll to the back of your head every time you/read hear a pun, this book might just kill you. If not, there are some genuinely funny bits here and there, and just seeing how they manage to work all these words into each story can be interesting. So… get this with your eyes wide open. I doubt there will be much middle ground for an opinion here, but you might just love it. No price listed, but I’m guessing it’s a buck or two…
Martin, Dale – Watusi the Talking Dog #23
Watusi the Talking Dog #23
Wow, there’s been a slight gap in coverage of this book over the years, wouldn’t you say? I’m instantly impressed when a book gets as high as #23, even if, in this case, Dale is more of a ringleader than the sole force responsible for putting the book out. OK, he is the one who does that, but his main job is to get people to finish their panels and get everything back to him. All of these are four panel strips, Dale always has one panel (usually the first one to get the ball rolling), and in this issue Tom Cherry gets the last panel. In between you get Mark Morehouse, Larned Justin, Chris Garrett, Jennifer Hachigan, Michael A. Carroll, Matthew Corrigan, Dan Lauer, Keith O’Brien, David McGhee, Drew Boynton, Steve Willhite, Greg Gildersleeve, Owen Egan, Ryan Curran and Joyce Curran. Topics in here include inventions, China, late night, time travel, a barking contest, the lottery, Watusi’s sister, aliens, a flood, and health food. Tom only goes to the “it was all just a dream” well once, which is good, but overall this thing is more than a little uneven. Hey, it’s a jam comic, I think it’s supposed to be uneven. There are a few funny moments, even more unfunny moments, and a whole lot of confusion in between. Still, what Dale is doing here is admirable, and some of you artist types reading this should try putting together your own Watusi strips with a couple of your friends and see what happens. I doubt that it’s as easy as it looks… $1
