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Dunlap, Rob & Lumby, Peter – Tozzer 2 #2

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Tozzer 2 #2

OK, I didn’t like this one either. Which is putting it mildly, but I’ll get to the specifics. The only benefit of the doubt I have left for this series is that maybe in the previous mini series all of the characters were fleshed out so wonderfully that I’m just coming into this late and I don’t get these people. That’s a pretty shaky premise, granted. So what bugged me? How about Michael Moore squeezing into a phone booth to get a pizza? Get it? He’s fat, you see. Or Vin Diesel speaking only in unintelligible grunts? He’s muscle-bound, you see. How about George Lucas yelling at somebody for wanting to use latex for an effect in a movie? His later movies are crap because of all the CGI. Or Eminem yelling faggot over and over (he’s apparently a bit of a homophobe in real life), or Michael Jackson registering for school as a 12 year old. The problem is that, while some of these things are true and able to be poked fun at, this is a lazy comic that is making fun of the stereotypes of these people a lot more than the actual people, which is what a good satirist does. It’s like all the people since the early 90’s who have been imitating Dana Carvey imitating George Bush Sr. instead of trying to imitate him themselves. It still looks good though, and at this point I think that if something is stupid enough there’s bound to be a huge audience for it somewhere. There’s a website up there, and it’s entirely possible that these guys could put out something good in the future, but this isn’t it. Oh, and if this hasn’t convinced you one way or the other, the next issue is apparently about Lara Croft of Tomb Raider fame. Just in case that does anything for you…

Dunlap, Rob & Lumby, Peter – Tozzer2 #1

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Tozzer2 #1

Just to make one thing perfectly clear: I’m basing my opinion on one issue of a mini series, and apparently there was already a mini series that came before this, so maybe I’m just a bit lost or behind everybody else. Still, this didn’t do much for me at all. What’s this comic about? Tozzer and his crew having adventures, I suppose. It’s so packed with parody that it was hard for me to make out the story. You have Michael Jackson and his ape traveling around and looking for Tozzer, Samuel Jackson (the Pulp Fiction character) and his Yoda puppet, Eminem, George Lucas, and more Matrix parodies than you can shake a stick at, if you have a stick handy. Oh, and judging by the cover, the next issue is about Michael Moore being very fat and trying to eat people. I’ll wait an issue or two until I totally make up my mind (the second issue is sitting here and I’ll get to it soon), but this looks to me like a bunch of tired, tired parodies being done one more time. There’s plenty good to be said for the art, and there were more than a few points that there was a gag or something that made me chuckle, but it’s more than a bit of a mess when you put it all together. Here’s a website, I’m hoping that this is just a bad first impression and it’ll get better later…