For as long as I’ve been going to small press conventions (my first was at APE in Chicago in 1995), a man in a hat named Matt Feazell has been around with his Cynicalman comics. The “hat” part isn’t particularly relevant, but for somebody like me who has trouble with names and faces, I can always spot him in a crowd. His comics are a delight, I’ve mentioned them several times here, and I always leave SPACE feeling like I should have grabbed another comic or two from the man. Brian (and Michael Anthony Carroll, who also contributes stories) had the idea to make a bootleg version of the comic, mostly because the idea of a bootleg version of a stick figure character was hilarious to them. And hey, they were right! This is both hilarious in its own right and a fantastic tribute to a true small press original. Most of these stories are parodies of different Cynicalman stories, so I’m definitely not going to be completely up to date on the specifics. I’ve maybe read 1/3 of Matt’s comics, and probably, if I saw all of his comics in one place, I’d discover that I’m vastly underestimating that. So if you’ve been reading his for ages you’d most likely get more out of this, but I got plenty out of it with only some familiarity, and I’d bet if you’d never heard of Cynicalman you’d at a bare minimum be very curious about the source material. Stories in here include Cynicalman vs. Godzilla, an investigation into whether or not he lives in a bootleg world, the appearance of bootleg Galactus, his attempts to fight the Deconstructionist, some interesting work with panel structure and the concept of time (I maybe read a bit too much into that one), some terrible advice from future Cynicalman on where to invest his money, and the inevitable Cynicalman multiverse story. Like I said, there’s some really good stuff in here, it’s well worth a look. $5
