Oak & Linden #1
I should mention right off the bat that I reviewed the fourth issue of this series a few weeks back and that it’s just about never a good idea to go and review earlier comics from an artist after you’ve already read their later, more polished work. Right away there’s an element of “why weren’t you as good at the beginning as you were after you’d had a few years to polish your skills” about the whole thing that’s just not fair to an artist. That being said, the guy did send me a whole pile of his comics, so what am I going to do, not talk about them? And with that kind of set-up you’d probably think that this comic was horrible, when instead it was just mixed, which is what you can expect with most first issues anyway. There are four stories in this one, and I did like how Pat listed them all on the cover. First up is a piece about a time traveling Abraham Lincoln, taken from when he was a young man in 1832. If you like zipatone then you’ll love this one, but in terms of a story it’s pretty thin. Still, there are a few funny bits if you like over-the-top hyperbole between two brightly colored foes. Next up is a story “from the future” about a hip-hop robot and his rapid rise and fall. Hey, such things would be a bit of novelty act, even in the future. Another OK story, but again nothing to really fully hold your interest, unless you’re extremely interested in a hypothetical hip-hop robot in the future. Next is easily the best story in the comic about a petrified girlfriend. Well, she doesn’t start out that way, but she’s increasingly telling her boyfriend that she’s cold and that he has to warm her up soon, but the boyfriend gets to her too late and she ends up petrified. Hey, anybody who has ever dated somebody who’s extremely susceptible to cold has wondered if that was possible. The boyfriend takes advantage of the situation to finally show her Star Wars, but years pass and things move on for the boyfriend. I’ll say no more to avoid spoilers but I did thoroughly enjoy that story and apparently it was continued in future issues. Finally there’s a silent piece about a man with an old film projector for a head and his dream about playing in a baseball game. I did like the ending for that one, but overall it was another OK story. So if I had read this one first (instead of #4), would I have been so “meh” about it? Probably not; the potential of both the art and the writing is pretty obvious here, and we already know that he put it all together a few issues down the road. If the man becomes a small press comics god then you might want a copy of this one to see where he came from, if not then it looks like there are plenty of better, later comics of his available, so maybe you should stick with those. $6
