The W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G Technical Pamphlet #1
I’m all for comics people getting into something a bit meatier. One shots about how crappy life/relationships/everything is are fun for awhile, but give me a decent series or mini series any day. Lucky for me, Ed has started an 8 part story detailing the life and eventual incarceration of an infamous computer hacker. Things start off slow in this one, as it mostly deals with the very early years of Kevin “Boingthump” Phenicle (yes, the nickname is explained here). The inside cover wraps around with comments from people who knew the man throughout his life, something that’ll make a bit more sense as the story moves along, and the whole thing is told as part of a radio broadcast detailing his life, although it’s mostly there to set things up and it transitions into a normal comic story smoothly. In here Kevin learns the basics of getting things without paying for them, scamming his way into a free pizza, as much Pac-man as he wants to play with one quarter and an unlimited bus pass with a simple paper hole puncher. Oh, and he gets beat up a lot because he’s much smarter than everybody else and a quiet kid. It’s an interesting start, maybe not the greatest comic in the world as a stand-alone mini, but that’s not what it is, after all. It has all the makings of a great graphic novel if everything keeps up and Ed keeps putting these out on a consistent basis. $3
