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Cherry, Tom – Nibble #9: Meet Fish Boy!
Nibble #9: Meet Fish Boy!
That, Aquaman, I tell you, he gets no respect. This isn’t actually about Aquaman, of course, it’s about Fish Boy, who has little to nothing to do with Aquaman, other than being maybe just a little bit of a parody of the guy. Fish Boy can breathe underwater, and no matter how long he stays underwater, his skin never gets pruney. And… well, that’s about it as far as super powers go. He’s not respected by his peers, he’s not feared by his enemies (if he even has enemies), and he has no luck with the ladies. Or lady, anyway. This is a short comic from Tom, but he manages to include several funny “facts” and there’s more than enough room for poor old Fish Boy to take a metaphorical beating. He even has a fun King Cat parody cover towards the back, which fits better than you may have guessed. It’s an enjoyable romp and it’s a measly $.50, what more could you ask for?
Cherry, Tom – Nibble #7
Nibble #7
I finally figured out what these comics remind me of. Stop me if I’m already used this in a past review from Tom (although how you’d stop me when you haven’t read this yet and I’m just now writing it is beyond me), but these comics are basically Sunday funnies. Oh sure, they’re puffed up ever so slightly to make up an actual comic, but the tone is the same, if often a little smarter. I’m also thinking back to the Sunday comics of my youth, which probably seemed better at the time than they actually were (if the current selection of Sunday comics is any indication, anyway) but they, like this, were just good-natured fun. So how about this particular issue? As you can see from the cover, there’s some roughhousing going on in this one. Two kids are using empty wrapping paper rolls to bash each other around until their older brother admonishes them for acting like kids. As violence is always the answer in these books (albeit harmless cartoon violence), things work themselves out rather quickly. Like all of Tom’s stuff, this one is definitely worth a look, and he’s somebody you probably want to follow if you’re desperately looking for examples of fun comics that you can show your kids. $.25
Cherry, Tom – Nibble #6
Nibble #6
A bit of an explanation will be required for this one. I’ve been sick as the proverbial dog since getting back from the holidays, with my head feeling like it’s been wrapped in gauze and thrown down a mountain. What this means in a practical sense is that I’ve been looking at a few comics that have been coming in and, while some of them look quite good, they’re also far too complex for me to talk about with any kind of coherence while I’m in this kind of state (even if this review ends up seeming coherent, it’s taking forever to write, mostly because my body just isn’t in working order at the moment). Anyway, along comes a few Tom Cherry comics, which are always short and to the point, so I picked one of them for the last review of 2011. Too much information? Quite possibly, but what are you going to do? This comic is about the boasting of a small rock. Seriously, you can see it starting on that cover image, then the sample image is of the next page so you can see that it keeps up. And that is the illustration for a good chunk of this book, so without a couple of pages there at the end this could have been done in a few minutes. As for the story, this boasting does not go unnoticed (either by someone actually hearing it or just the cruel universe in general), things change and there’s a genuinely funny final line. The end. Like I said, this is as much complexity as my brain is capable of handling at the moment, so your opinion may vary if you’re not hopped up on cold medicine, but I thought it was funny. $.25
Cherry, Tom – Nibble #2
Nibble #2
Crap, it looks like I’m reviewing a comic about Valentine’s Day after all. What can I say, Tom sent me a fresh pile of comics and this one was on top. There’s a simple premise here. A young man (apparently named “Baby”) made his mom a giant valentine. On his walk home, he’s startled by a cat, sending said valentine up into a tree. After attempting to get the valentine and failing, Baby is left wondering what he’s going to do… until he gets an offer he can’t refuse. For me this might just cross that line of being too damned cute for words, but different people have different lines for that sort of thing. Either way it’s still only $.25 and goes nicely in my pile of other Nibbles.
Cherry, Tom – Nibble #5
Nibble #5
I’d like to congratulate Tom Cherry on being the very first person this year (at the late date of December 22nd) to give me even the tiniest bit of holiday cheer. Not that I’m always that big of a scrooge, but as for this year, “humbug” does about sum it up. He’s done it with another of his tiny mini comics, Nibble, dealing with a couple of kids making a snowman. Sounds innocent, right? Well, said snowman wakes up, becomes self-aware, and… well, what would you do if you woke up to find out that you were made entirely out of snow, had sticks for arms, buttons for a mouth and eyes and a carrot for a nose? It’s killing me not to give it away here, but let’s just say that I laughed out loud. Tom sent along a few of his comics, and I’m looking forward to getting a chance to see what this guy is all about. These shorties have looked adorable, like Tom could easily jump onto the Sunday funnies and nobody would bat an eye, but with just enough darkness to keep me interested. Even if the rest of the books all suddenly take a drastic dip in quality, this particular issue is going to be sitting on my desk for a while. I can’t think of a better holiday conversation starter than this… $.25
Cherry, Tom – Nibble #4
Nibble #4
Add one more comic to your list of acceptable all-ages fare: Nibble. OK, maybe it’s too soon to say it after one issue, as this wasn’t perfect or anything, but it was adorable and even had a slightly amusing joke at the end for this adult brain. Granted, said brain is far too cynical to do more than crack a slight smile, but if anybody out there has managed to stay a bit less jaded than me (or has kids that aren’t quite there yet) than this is perfectly amusing shortie. I mean the shortie part too, as that $.25 price tag generally doesn’t come with books that are chock full of story. Either way the samples will probably tell you all you need to know, or if they don’t that website certainly will. $.25
Cherry, Tom – Nibble #3
Nibble #3
It’s going to be very difficult to talk about this book, tiny as it is, without revealing the punch line. There’s a little boy, you see, with flowers for hair. While eating an ice cream cone (you know, the one on the cover) he begins to attract bees, who must love the fact that he has flowers for hair AND is eating ice cream. One bee becomes many bees, said boy manages to get away and decides on shaving his head. Anything more than that ruins the joke, and what’s the point of reading these tiny things if you already know the joke? Funny, good punchline, there’s not a whole lot more you can ask for at $.25. Worth checking out, and you can still get everything on this page for a little more than $1.
Cherry, Tom – Nibble #1
Nibble #1
Here’s another tiny mini from Tom (or the first mini, if you’re reading this sequentially, which is how you probably are reading this in the future, as that’s how they’re listed and all). This one details an alternate theory on the life and death of Abraham Lincoln, as told to a young man asking his grandmother for help with a school essay. Grandma seems slightly confused in her memory of Abe, which leads to a rather amusing (and tiny, as you might have guessed from that price tag) comic. It’s long been my opinion that people who only put out pricey comics should at least have cheapies for people like me who wander around conventi0ns and quickly run out of money to buy hefty graphic novels, and Tom certainly has that idea down cold. It doesn’t hurt a thing that they’re all funny so far and leave me intrigued as to what else he’s done. Check it out, if you can still afford a quarter in this economy.
