Sub-titled "Oddball Artists, Twisted Writers, Demented Editors, Office Politics, Hamburgers, and a Dead Stripper, this is the first issue of what is deemed a "mostly true 5-issue series about the whacked-out world of comic books."
Ted McKeever is one of my favorite comic book creators. He has a distinct art style that is not designed to create "pretty" characters. They tend to have odd shaped heads, and squared off teeth with spaces between them. In past works where he's had full creative control (Transit, Eddy Current, Plastic Forks to name some earlier efforts) there was sort of a cross between religious concerns and superhero ideas (with the protagonists often not really having super powers). The characters were people who were at their very closest on the fringes of society.
This time around McKeever is writing about a different type of character on the fringe of society--those in the comic book industry. He describes it as "mostly true" and if that's the case, issue one makes a case that being the writer of a comic book owned by somebody else is at the least a very frustrating position. Poodwaddle, the comic writer in Pencilhead, has a meeting with his editor, a man whose face is about 3/4 mouth--which is fitting as he's mostly there to yell and chew through Poodwaddle's thoughts. Poodwaddle is dropping off the pages for the next issue and on his way out he's given a complimentary copy of the last issue--one that in which he finds the editor has added Batman (the Adam Ward television version) like KAZAMs and POWs designed to suck in the superhero audience--even though the title isn't a superhero title. But that's okay because by the time they figure that out, they'll already have purchased the issue.
There are a couple of other stories lurking at the fringe of this issue--another comic editor trying to bring Poodwaddle over to his company and a strange creature following Poodwaddle around--almost looking like something he'd have created in a past work.
I was excited to see something new with McKeever's name on the cover and the issue didn't disappoint--I'm looking forward to issue #2.
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