Starburns Presents (Free Comic Book Day 2018)

If you were a fan of the NBC comedy Community, then you are familiar with the character of Star-burns. For those of you who have absolutely zero idea what I am talking about, Star-burns was a burnt-out stoner with sideburns shaved into the shape of stars. He wasn't very smart and often ran slightly illegal hustles on campus.

The character was played by Dino Stamatopoulos, who was also a producer and writer on the show. A good buddy of Community creator Dan Harmon, Stamatopoulos along with Patton Oswalt and Harmon sought to create a Kickstarter funded comic book publishing company called Starburns Industries. Well, I don't think things got off to such a great start as I cannot find anything in print by SBI other than this 2018 Free Comic Book Day release. 

Starburns Presents is an anthology made up of 5 different stories. Patton Oswalt pens a true life tale about his first encounter with the costumed performers on the streets of Hollywood. Penciled by Troy Nixey (Vinegar Teeth), it's the best story of the bunch. 

The David Clarke (Heroes R Us) story of Oddwell is supposed to be about a frog hero in a mythical land. But the story has zero frogs and dozens of houseflies.

Hellicious by Welcome to Paradise's Alan C. Medina is about a little blonde haired moppet who might be the devil incarnate- or maybe one of his kids. 

Dan Harmon's Gregory Graves was my least favorite entry. It did have a good cliffhanger ending. But for the most part, this story was very confusing. Plus, I don't think we'll ever get a conclusion to this adventure since it looks like SBI is defunct.

The last couple of pages are from Stamatopoulos himself. It's a blend of weird infomercials and parody ads like you would see in a comic book. It's got a funny charm. But there are a lot of inside jokes that if you aren't really hip on the Dan Harmon conglomerate, you will more than likely miss out on the punchline. 

If you do a search for SBI, you find a website that specializes in online animated shorts and humorous cassette tapes. (Who still listens to cassette tapes?!) But there's nothing to be found in the comic book or graphic novel department. Chalk this book up to one of the many big ideas that never was fully explored in comics... But from the reading of most of these stories, I can understand why!

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.