Drunken Cat Comics Anniversary
This is a special for the 11 year anniversary of Brian’s assorted comics, and I just have one question: where the hell is the Ruffians story? There are updates for a few of his older comics (otherwise known as “new stories”), but Ruffians, which was far and away his longest series, is nowhere to be found. Boo! Ah well, I can still judge the rest of the book on its merits. Our “host” for this comic is the drunken cat from the name who, if memory serves (and it probably doesn’t), has never really gotten this much face time before. The cat introduces us to the new stories and does make a passing reference to Ruffians, so at least it isn’t completely disregarded. New stories in here include Satan’s high school reunion (in which we catch up with Satan after he was introduced in Brian’s first comic 11 years ago), Fall Back (in which our hero goes back in time to try to recapture his perfect past love) and Big Metal Robots (in which… aw, the title tells you everything you need to know). Satan’s story had more than a few funny bits, the time traveling story managed to be a bit heartbreaking, and the story about robots sure did have robots punching and kicking big monsters. Kind of a waste of time for most of it, but the ending made it all worthwhile. The drunken cat shenanigans were also pretty funny, although that probably would not have been the case if the comic had gone on for much longer. 11 years is a damned long time in small press comics and, even though I haven’t seen much new from the guy in the last few years (which may well be entirely my fault), Brian has managed to amass a decent pile of comics over his time. Here’s to 11 more years, and to his getting back to work on Ruffians. Or, if he’s not going to get back to it, he should at least have the decency to put out a mini comic where all of the characters in that series get taken out in as many gruesome ways as is humanly possible. $4
