Website where you can buy this comic
Oatmeal II
There’s a very simple rule I try to follow with this website: if I’m going to talk about something, there should be a simple way for anybody reading this to get that comic. A website is best, an e-mail address is great too (I’m a big fan of making the attainment of said comic as easy as possible), but if all I have is a PO box or regular address, I’ll stick with that. Why am I mentioning all this? Oatmeal is, as far as I can tell, not available anywhere. I’m pretty sure I got this at SPACE last year (2008), so it’s still possible to find, and I’m breaking with tradition here because this is worth seeking out. OK, maybe it’s not if you don’t like clever, sprawling outer space adventures with a varied and ridiculous cast of characters, so if that’s not you there’s plenty of other things on this site to keep you entertained. The level of detail in the art here is tremendous, as there’s no wasted space at all. Lars uses every bit of the panels, even if it’s just to show various debris scattered on the ground. Kids today, take note: if you’re going for sprawling and/or epic, attention to detail like that is key. I should mention that this came out in 1996, maybe they just did things differently way back then. How about the story? Two young women set out (in space) to visit their aunt. There’s a crash, some space sirens, a brief time stranded on a planet, a strange genius with a clumsy assistant, and sorry but there’s just no way a capsule review is going to do this thing justice. Like I said, there’s no easy way to get this that I could find online. This is here more as a public service announcement, that if you do see this lying around somewhere then yes, it is worth picking up.
UPDATE: Mark Innes contacted me and provided me a link to his publishing house, which puts out this and all sorts of other comics, which you should maybe think about buying.