Comic Quickies Double Your Pleasure

Well, I'm still way behind on comic reviews, and as new comics come in each week, I seem to get even more behinder behind.  So this week I'll focus on three titles but give the rundown for two issues of each title.  Up first: Axe Cop!

Axe Cop Bad Guy Earth #'s 2 and 3: Axe Cop is probably the hardest comic to write a review about because so much random, inane, insane, and hilarious stuff happens in each issue it is hard to talk about a few and have things still make sense.

Basically, in Axe Cop Bad Guy Earth, Axe Cop and his team are trying to save the world from being turned into a bad guy world. And they do that by time traveling back to the time of dinosaurs.  With me so far?  Yeah, amongst other wild and weird happenings there's a trip to the year Zero Thousand and Zero, some insanely epic battles between good and evil, a magician riding a gorilla riding a lion, and a jillion bladed blue diamond sword. 

Though the second issue in this three part series felt lacking in the usual Axe Cop magic, the third and final issue had everything you could ever want and more from an Axe Cop comic.  What blows my mind about the Bad Guy Earth story line is how random, and frayed the story seemed to be, but somehow, and with great humor managed to pull everything together for a great ending, and with an amazing lack of story or plot holes.  Dare I say Brilliant?

If you haven't treated yourself yet, I urge you, nay, command you to check out Axe Cop.  It is totally free, and guaranteed to make your week better.

Sweet Tooth #'s 20 and 21: The Endangered Species story arc begins in issue #20 and as usual this looks to be another fantastic Sweet Tooth story arc.  When the ladies went off to gather some firewood, they unwittingly got trapped ewok-style in a giant net.  When they didn't return, Jeppard and Gus headed out in search of the missing women.

While Gus and Jeppard are tracking the ladies there's some great back and forth dialog between the two old companions that shows just how strained their relationship has become.  The girls on the other hand, are rescued by a strange man who has probably the sweetest dwelling in all of Lemire's post-apocalyptic world.  The man, Walter Fish, has holed up inside a dam, which has been completely retrofitted for post apocalyptic survival.  It sports some great green houses, massive stocks of canned goods, artificial light, and a cozy home and hearth.  Despite his friendly demeanor I get the sickening sense that everything is not on the up and up with ol' Walter Fish. 

In the 21st issue, Lemire takes an interesting story telling apporach.  He flits back and forth between two threads: Gus and Jeppard, who are locked in a life or death battle with a hungry bear, and the women, who are hearing Walter's life story.  The twist is that the Gus and Jeppard thread is told only through images and no words.  It's a pretty cool concept, and the wordless story telling matches the visceral battle, and captures the emotional ending perfectly.

Not surprisingly, this latest story arc is off to an awesome start.  As usual, I can barely wait for the next issue.  Sweet Tooth continues to reside at the top of the comic heap for me.  Fantastic story telling and wonderful art make this comic a regular favorite of mine.

Chew #'s 18 and 27: Huh?  Issues 18 and 27?!? Yeah, you read that right, being the crazy bastards that they are, Layman and Guillory followed up issue 18 with a nine month glimpse into the future of Chew.  Unorthodox I know, but before we get there let's take a look at #18....

Moving past the boob-tastic cover, there's uh, mounds of entertaining story in this issue.  From the looks of their most recent missions, it looks like Agents Chu's and Colby's director is trying to get them killed.  However, the two seem to have a strong survival instinct which has helped them escape the wrath of death cults, mobsters, cannibals, and mounties.  However, now he's got them running back-up for the ladies of the USDA on a suicide mission to take out a crazed general.

In the ensuing firefight, due to heavy losses, Chu and Colby are forced to use their secret weapon.  With a simple press of a button, Chu unleashes the "holy shitstorm of cataclysm" that is Poyo.  If nothing else, this issue is awesome simply for the bad-assery of Poyo, and the new sound effect: "fuckrack".  Gold.

Ok, so the 27th issue...with a glimpse of what is happening nine months down the road there is bound to be some spoilers right?  Well, on the very first page we see that Tony Chu is in a coma.  He's being visited by his twin sister, Toni, and from there we get some of Toni's back story, about her days of working at the Farmington-Kapusta International Telescope.  Aside from observing the stars or whatever, her and her fellow scientists got way into licking hallucinogenic frogs so they could pass the time by tripping balls all day long.

Once their assignment was finished, one of the other scientists decided to bring some of the froggies back with him, which then got interbred with those damn chogs.  Enter our old pal D-Bear who steals the hallucinogenic chogs for his sketchy ass restaurant, then gets busted on a covert NASA mission by Toni and her partner.

The issue is a little confusing because there is very little to frame things around, but at the same time, it works pretty well as a slice of story.  A few important things are revealed, obviously that bit about Tony being in the coma, but also it appears that Toni has some sort of food-related power as well, the intricacies of which I haven't quite figured out yet.  They also mention that Tony is an ex-FDA agent, so that is likely a clue of something that is to come as well.

More good stuff from what is steadily one of my favorite comics in my pull box.