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Friday, September 3, 2010
Death Comes to Monkeysuit
Review by Michael May
Written by Various
Illustrated by Various
Published by Monkeysuit Press
$11.95
Written and Illustrated by Steven DeStefano, Douglas Lovelace, Prentis Rollins, Pat Giles, Mo Willems, Chris George, Mike Foran, Miguel Martinez-Joffre, Robert Kopecky, Fly, Andrei Poteryaylo, Amanda Baehr, and Jonathan Royce
File this under "Where Was I?"
I like to think that I know about most of the comics that come out. I'm kidding myself, of course, but I like to think it anyway. I mean, I get a lot of press releases and review copies and I thoroughly scour Previews every month, so I feel pretty in touch. But there's just too damn many comics in the world and sometimes – like with the Monkeysuit anthologies – some slip by me.
It's a shame too, because I've been missing out. Death Comes to Monkeysuit is the fifth in the Monkeysuit series after the equally coolly named Monkeysuit, Bride of Monkeysuit, Viva La Monkeysuit, and In Search of Monkeysuit. In keeping with the pulpish, noir title of this volume, the design of Death Comes to Monkeysuit looks like a pulpish, noir paperback complete with a fake tattered cover, a list on the back cover of other "amazingly popular titles from our Monkeysuit library" that includes fake titles like Mystery at Monkeysuit Gulch and Kiss Me, Monkeysuit, and a price tag that looks like it was made with one of those generic pricing guns that they use at the used book store. You can imagine the fun these guys must have had when they put this package together, and when you read the stories inside, you'll see that no less love went into the creation of the content as well.
The first story, Steven DeStefano's "Good-Guy and Easter Boy in Comic Book Land," is silly, but contrary to what the cover suggests, most of the stories are neither that nor pulpish. They are all a delight to look at and/or read though. As with any anthology, quality varies from tale to tale, but even those few that are weaker in writing are wonderfully illustrated. The majority of them by far though are strong in both departments.
Like I said, "Good-Guy and Easter Boy in Comic Book Land" is pretty light-hearted. It features a couple of super-hero wannabes – one of whom is a rabbit (I'll let you figure out which for yourself) – visit a comic book store and hilarity ensues. But even this, the blithest story in the book, has something useful to say. As Good-Guy fusses and debates over the merits of Marvel vs. DC and the value of "collectible" nostalgia, Easter Boy finds happiness in the quarter bin where he discovers old Dan DeCarlo and Charlton treasures. One of them leaves the store satisfied with the experience; the other feels completely let down. Take a guess.
Other tales are equally as provocative. Douglas Lovelace's "Perfect" explores the concept of perfection as viewed from various angles and tells a nice little slice-of-life story about a fun family moment in the process. "Dealtown" by Pat Giles is a moving piece about Giles's memories of his absentee father, the moment at which Giles realized what kind of person his dad really was, and the effect that had on his feelings. "On the Job" is Amanda Baehr's ode to cartooning, in which she makes it clear why she's compelled to do what she does. "The Stinky Guest" by Michael Foran unexpectedly challenges readers' prejudices.
My favorite though is Prentis Rollins's "My First Encounter with Evil." It chronicles Rollins's childhood experience with a bully, but transcends introspective, "this is why I turned out this way" storytelling. It actually says something new about the human condition and does it in a captivating, surprising way.
A couple of other stories are especially worth mentioning, even if they're more for fun than making you think. Miguel Martinez-Joffre's "Atomic Shelter" is about some nerdy high school students who try to uncover a charity scam that the most popular girl in school seems to be running. Thanks to its great timing and hyper art style, it reads like an episode of a Cartoon Network series. Part three of Andrei Poteryaylo's "Adventures of Captain Puré and His Faithful Cat Chernosliv" is an amazingly illustrated story about a grouchy fisherman and his long-suffering feline as they search the wharves for the fisherman's lost love, running afoul of a white slavery ring in the process. It's an offbeat adventure drawn by someone who looks like he's simultaneously channeling Sergio Aragones and Jack Davis.
At over 120 pages of memorable stories that you'll want to put on your bookshelf and revisit from time to time, Death Comes to Monkeysuit is a bargain for its $11.95 "fake sticker" price tag. I may be late in discovering it, but the silver lining is that I still have four more issues to find and enjoy.
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April 22, 2008:
February 4, 2008:
November 20, 2006:
A Comic-Con without the Captain
