Fred the Clown #1, $2.95 US, published by Hotel Fred Press
Writer & Artist: Roger Langridge
Rating 5 out of 5 stars
His name is Fred the Clown, and he is an idiot.
Fred is the creation of Roger Langridge, a New Zealand-born cartoonist currently based in London. Fred previously appeared in print in a graphic novel published in 1999 by the British group Les Cartoonistes Dangereux. Since then, Langridge has also been regaling the world with Fred the Clown strips at his website on a weekly basis. Now Fred is back in print, as silly as ever. And we are more the richer for it.
I first came across Roger Langridge's work when he did finishes over Ron Frenz's pencils for a Captain America fill-in story set during the American Revolution. That issue came out during my stay in London, and I soon after met Langridge at a large comic convention in Bristol. My first reaction, naturally enough, was "Sure, have an artist who lives in Britain draw an overly patriotic story that takes place during the Revolution, it's the most logical thing!" My second thought was that Langridge drew some very wacky material, and that humor was not only his forte, but his preference.
I picked up the Fred the Clown release from Les Cartoonistes Dangereux, and found it to be quite hysterical. In addition to numerous chuckle-inducing strips by Langridge, the book also had a satirical, fictitious essay on Fred the Clown's publishing "history," in which Langridge spoofed various eras of newspaper strips & comic books. Quite pleased with the book, I continued to peruse Langridge's website on a regular basis, to read his latest Fred the Clown strips.
Then, out of the blue, in early October I came across a copy of the recently-released Fred the Clown #1. Somehow I had completely missed any advertising for it, or its solicitation in Previews. So it was very fortunate that I was lucky enough to find that Fred was once more in print, and that Langridge was attempting to publish an ongoing book.
The majority of the material in Fred the Clown #1 previously appeared online at Langridge's website. I'm glad to see some of that humorous work make it into print. Hopefully this will expose Fred the Clown to a wider audience.
I mentioned before that humor was Langridge's specialty. That is definitely apparent in Fred the Clown. Langridge has produced some brilliantly oddball material. His work on Fred the Clown is comedic genius. Langridge drops the bumbling Fred into one bizarre situation after another, with the clown almost inevitably ending up getting the short end of the stick. But since Fred is so horribly oblivious, half the time he doesn't even realize it.
I read the comic in a coffee shop, and ended up laughing out loud, hysterically, several times, no doubt to the puzzlement of the other patrons. Then I re-read the issue the next day, and laughed some more. Then I lent the issue to my sister, and she did some laughing, too.
I do wish economics could have allowed Langridge to publish the book in color instead of black & white. The strips are in color on the website, and look very good, with the colors often adding to the bizarre circumstances. I also wish that a couple of the strips would have been reproduced slightly larger in the issue, as it seemed that on a couple of pages Langridge shrunk them down to fit in more material.
However, these are very minor points, barely worth mentioning. Fred the Clown #1 is a well-drawn, extremely funny book. I was quite happy to see a second issue already being solicited in the current Previews. I hope that Langridge is able to publish future issues of Fred the Clown with frequency, as his work is top-notch.
To read the online Fred the Clown strip, and for info on Roger Langridge's work, check out the Hotel Fred website at http://www.hotelfred.com. It is definitely worth a look.
Magic Pickle #2, $2.95 US, published by Oni Press
Writer & Artist: Scott Morse
Rating 4 out of 5 stars
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a… pickle?!?
Magic Pickle is the story of a Cold War-era experiment to create a super soldier out of a delicatessen side dish. The result is a talking, flying, super-strong pickle code named "Weapon Kosher." Kept in suspended animation since the 1950s, Weapon Kosher is re-awakened in 2001 when rogue subjects from the experiment that created him reappear after half a century of inactivity. Weapon Kosher's assignment: to stop the Brotherhood of Evil Produce.
Unfortunately, Weapon Kosher's revival does not go off as smoothly as planned. During the decades of his hibernation, a house was build on top of the secret underground lab in which Weapon Kosher was housed. And so the pickle of power bursts out of his cryo-tube, flies straight to what used to be the exit, and crashes up through the floor of little Jo Jo Wigman's bedroom. Amazed and curious about this "magic pickle" that has appeared from out of nowhere, the young Jo Jo ends up following Weapon Kosher along on his mission. While all this is going on, the villainous Phantom Carrot and Chili Chili Bang Bang chart the Brotherhood's undoubtedly inept plan to conquer the world.
Quite obviously, Magic Pickle is intended to be humorous. Indeed, it is incredibly cute and funny. Much of the humor simply arises from the sheer ludicrousness of having a book about a super-powered pickle. A good deal of it also comes from the innocent, curious Jo Jo's interactions with Weapon Kosher, who plays the straight man, er, pickle. Weapon Kosher takes himself with complete and utter seriousness. He continually finds it exasperating to have a little girl tagging along asking questions that end up pointing out just how ridiculous the entire situation is. It's definitely a parody of superhero comic books, with Weapon Kosher's name no doubt spoofing Marvel Comics' tendency to churn out characters and teams that start with "weapon" (i.e. Weapon X, Weapon Prime, Weapon Omega, etc). By casting vegetables in the roles of heroes & villains, and having the entire affair viewed through the eyes of a little girl, Morse cleverly points out just how silly the superhero genre often is.
Morse's story will appeal to both kids and adults. There's enough sophistication and humor here that an older reader will have an appreciation for. At the same time, the cute-ness factor is certainly going to appeal to younger readers. Morse's artwork is of a high caliber. He renders some exciting & wacky scenes. There are a lot of great visual gags in the book.
There is a two-page back-up provided by Jim Mahfood, featuring a character known as Smoke Dog. It was decent, but not long enough to really capture my interest. Smoke Dog also showed up in the back of Magic Pickle #1, so presumably he will be present in the rest of the issues.
The only real complaint I have is that Magic Pickle #2 was too quick a read. I think I finished it in ten minutes. That left me feeling a bit disappointed, as I had paid nearly three dollars for the issue. I wish there had been more substance to the story.
In any case, the issue of price raises a nagging question: just whom is this series targeted to? As I said earlier, I believe it would appeal to all age groups. However, I don't know if any copies are actually going to fall into the hands of kids. Between the $2.95 price per issue, and the fact that the book is only being distributed through comic book stores, I think it is likely that the majority of people who purchase Magic Pickle will be in their teens or older. Which is a shame. Really, this book should be priced lower, and available for sale at newsstands & grocery stores. Unfortunately, the economics of the comic book industry, as well as the dire state of the distribution system, no doubt makes that a near-impossibility for Oni Press to enact. Hopefully once the miniseries is finished the entire story will be collected in trade paperback form. That would give it a larger distribution field, namely chain book stores such as Borders and Barnes & Noble, where it can attract a wider audience, including younger readers.
Magic Pickle is the kind of book that could really bring new readers to comics. The only obstacle is in finding a way to get it into people's hands. Hopefully Oni will find a way to do just that.
Titans of Finance $3.50 US, published by Alternative Comics
Writer: R. Walker; Pencils & Inks: Josh Neufeld
Rating 4.5 out of 5 stars
As someone who has enjoyed publications such as Paradox Press' Big Books series, with their sequentially illustrated examinations of various unusual real-world people and events, I decided to give Titans of Finance, with its "true tales of money & business," a try. I had already read one of the segments by Walker & Neufeld when it first appeared in one of the SPX anthologies, and I wanted to see what else they had to offer.
I found Titans to be an intriguing look at the more infamous movers & shakers of the financial world. Quite simply, in order to make ridiculous amounts of money like these people, you have to be more than a little crazy. Crazy to try new ideas, crazy to take tremendous financial risks, crazy to pit yourself against the rest of the world.
Of course, often such crazy actions lead to negative consequences, if not for the individual, then for those around him. If you fail, you crash & burn. If you succeed, you can be big, but you probably broke a lot of eggs along the way, and you are no doubt perched atop a mountain of ruined lives and shattered careers. What is the price of obtaining wealth? Most of these people didn't bother asking that question, because they simply didn't give a damn.
Leading things off in Titans is the segment from the SPX book, a seven page look at Ron Perelman. Comic book readers probably know Perelman for the hatchet job he did on Marvel Comics in the early 1990s, when he turned the so-called "House of Ideas" into a cash cow, and then proceeded to gut it. Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg, as Titans explains. In the last quarter century, Perelman has left in his wake a string of corporate takeovers, the depreciation of many a publicly-traded stock, and four wives.
Other individuals profiled include commodities speculator Victor Niederhoffer, risk-taking securities trader Jay Goldinger, as well as Al Dulnap, aka "Chainsaw," whose strategy for improving companies' performance & profits consists of ruthlessly laying off employees by the tens of thousands. I do believe there is a circle in hell reserved for his kind.
R. Walker does a good job at laying out all the dirt on these cretins of capitalism in a darkly humorous fashion. Josh Neufeld's realistic yet cartoony artwork is perfect for portraying these events by rendering the people involved in a realistic yet ridiculous manner that suits their actions.
The one criticism I had of Titants (aside from half the people profiled having yet to receive their just desserts) is that some of the segments were sparse and felt rushed. I think these could have benefited from extra pages. Fortunately, Walker does provide some useful follow-up information on the inside back cover detailing what these Machiavellian moneymakers have been up to in the time since their segments in Titans were originally produced.
Hopefully there will be a follow-up volume to Titans of Finance in the near future. Walker & Neufeld have definitely proven that this is a fertile area to explore. And it is rather cathartic to see these fat cat capitalists lampooned in such a manner. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing Walker & Neufeld have a go at Rupert Murdock one of these days.