Zombie Fairy Tales #1

I've read a zombie horror/comedy special from Antarctic Press previously. It was pretty funny with lots of quick gags. Based on that positive experience, I was rather stoked to find this fairy tale based horror special from the same company. 

For the most part, I enjoyed this 2011 one-shot. There were some unique takes on Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks and the Three Bears that resulted in chuckles. I was disappointed that despite having Peter Pan, Tinkerbell and a zombified Captain Hook on the cover, they don't appear anywhere inside. But like most anthology comedies do, this special made the mistake of having 1 long story that wasn't all that funny and ruins the flow of the work. 

The Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women on the Moon both fell into this trap. They had fantastic, rapid fire skits that left you dying laughing; only to slow everything down with a very long, and nowhere near as hilarious segment that ruins everything! 

That's exactly what happens here. In a parody of the Disney Princesses, Prince Charming is about to break Snow White from her sleeping spell with a kiss when a couple of sidekicks approaches him with alternate options. The Little Mermaid and Jasmine are also in need of smooches. Whomever the Prince awakens will make him a very wealthy and powerful man. But just who will Charming select?

There were a few chuckles. But it was also a story that seemed to cross several lines. Hermaphrodite ( or trans- not sure which) jokes aren't funny. They clearly aren't jokes that would fly today... Or would they? Considering how the pendulum has shifted politically in the last year or so, it's hard to tell. Regardless, when they started mingling in characters from Resident Evil, they really overcrowded the stew and like those longer segments from comedic cinema history, it fell flat. 

Not sure if I wanna keep this one. It started so well. It ended so poorly. Can't win them all I guess.

Rating 5 out of 10 stars.

Fail of the Dead #1

I've been collecting comics for a very large portion of my life. It's generally a good rule of thumb that if snow appears on the cover of a comic book, then it's a Christmas themed book. There's a few exceptions to this rule that generally involves the presence of a snow or ice themed superhero or villain. Or if the book takes place in Antarctica like the Greg Rucka vehicle Whiteout. But with this one-shot from Ape Entertainment with a zombie whose tongue is stuck to a snowy statue, I thought I had a holiday win.

Well, I had a win. It just wasn't a festive one.

This undead filled comic is humorous in nature. Most are one-page or even one-panel comics devoted to the mistakes made by dumb zombies. There's a couple of multi-page stories. But for the most part, the jokes are confined to a single page. 

Very little words. Lots of laughs. If you are a fan of Troma, you'll enjoy this book as a few of the chuckles come at the expense of toilet humor. The first entry in this comic takes the potty joke literally. 

So why did I think that this was a holiday book? I clearly judged a book by it's cover. I thought the scene was a parody of that moment in A Christmas Story in which Flick is double-dog dared to stick his tongue to a frozen flag pole. I should have busted the tag and check the contents. But then I might have missed out on a few laughs. Thankfully, this was a bargain bin find, so I didn't spend much on something I didn't expect.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Steam Wars

  In a not too distant galaxy, not too very long ago the rebel leader, Duchess Imeon, has stolen the formula to making warp coal. This fuel is what powers the massive ships of the Hegemonic Crux, an evil empire lead by the mysterious Lord Baron. The Duchess escapes with a space cowboy and his giant bear copilot in their spaceship, the Twentieth-Century Fox.

   It looks like the Duchess is to become the evil Baron's captive when the Fox is shot-down. But her salvation comes in the form of the last laser-sword swinging Dragoon, Bo! But can the young mud farmer be trusted when it's revealed that Bo is actually the estranged son of Lord Baron?

     If this book sounds an awful lot like the adventures of the crew of the USS Enterprise from the Star Trek franchise- you're not very far off...

     Okay- I kid. But you know what sci-fi franchise this series is really based on. Just substitute junkyard chic with steampunk and craft it in the style of manga and you have Steam Wars. I just want to know how artist/ author Fred Perry and the folks at Antarctic Press got anyway with this?!

     As such an obvious twist on a timeless classic, this book is clearly an homage to the original Summer Blockbuster. There are a few funny moments in Steam Wars, but it's not a parody of the movies in which this book reboots. So, I don't see how this manga series could be covered under federal parody law. Plus, since Disney now owns the rights to that original property and Disney has been know to threaten lawsuits against pre-schools that paint Mickey Mouse murals on their wall, how did Steam Wars ever see the light of day?

     I'm not really a fan of manga but based in the source material I just had to give this a go. Thankfully, I enjoyed this book and though it borrows heavily from that other series, it doesn't copy it 100%. There are some changing plot threads and really neat differences that made this book seem exciting and new. Plus, if you are fans of a certain bounty hunter, I think your going to enjoy the fresh new take on him.

    If you can find this book, it's Worth Consuming.

   Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.