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Beranek, Adam – Phang & Mak #3
Phang & Mak #3
Is it OK to pass judgment on a comic by the third issue? Before I start, as always, this is just my opinion and there’s an audience out there for just about everything, in theory. Here’s the thing: the art really isn’t getting appreciably better, the dialogue goes from bad to really bad, depending on the scene, and the story isn’t going anywhere at all that I can make out. When the dialogue goes “jive” it gets hilarious, but I don’t think that’s intentional. There was only even one fight scene in this one, so I couldn’t even recommend it for the mayhem. I’m not giving up on this series, mostly because Adam has been nice enough to send me each issue, but there’s really not much of anything in here for me to recommend it to, well, anybody. Contact info is up there, $2.95!
Beranek, Adam – Phang & Mak #2
Phang & Mak #2
So is it ever explained why that dog says “Bah!” all the time? For some reason it gets on my nerves, but maybe it wouldn’t if there was some reason behind it. More of the same in this issue, and I still have no idea where the story is going, if there is a larger story. Phang kills some cops and a banker, screws his ex-wife (after she gets all hot when she learns that he killed a banker), and talks to his therapist, who looks strangely like his ex-wife. The art still looks fairly sloppy to me, but there was a slight improvement in the writing in #2. It’s still not really my thing, but if you like a bit of mayhem in your comic, you could do worse. Contact info is up there, its’ $2.95.
Beranek, Adam – Phang & Mak #1
Phang and Mak #1 (drawn by Jason Day)
About the only thing I can think of is that the Adam Beranek who did the other comic on this page can’t possibly be the same person who did this one. Still, the fact that I think that means that he can show some range, so good for him. Where the other book was cute and fluffy, this one has violence, drinking and the characters saying “fuck” a lot. This one is mostly about a vampire and his dog fighting crime, or at least fighting the elements of crime that they don’t agree with. I have a few comments for the creative team, and I hope they’re understood to be constructive criticism and not an expression of my hatred for them. To the writer, I have to mention that using punctuation here and there is a good thing. Not sure why so many people feel the need to leave it out but please, throw some commas in there now and then. Helps the word flow. To the artist, I’m afraid that this book should have been black and white, instead of colored. The colors highlight an obviously rushed page or two, or maybe I’m just being too picky. To the colorist, nice work. See? I’m not all negative. I’ll see where this story is headed when I read the next issue (it’s 12/15/03 as I write this and I’m running out of comics to review, so I’m breaking up individual creators) but for now it’s a jumbled mess.Let’s hope it gets better because there is potential here. I’m afraid that Phang is going to be a Cassidy clone from the Preacher series, so here’s hoping I’m wrong. Contact info is up there, check out their stuff!
Beranek, Adam – Silent Forest
Silent Forest (with Christian Beranek, Nick Beranek & Chris Burke)
Finally, here’s a graphic novel of a comic that I didn’t like at all. Sorry, but it’s true. This one has the inhabitants of the Silent Forest reveling over their ousting of the evil golf course, which causes them all to remember something different as to how they got rid of it. Then they go wrestle (no, I don’t know why), which is followed by a bunch of strange dreams and a football game for the fate of the forest! OK, good news first. The art is MUCH better than the first time around, and I don’t think it was that bad then. Good stuff, all of the pages look great, and that’s saying something with this many pages. The characters are a bit more interesting this time around too, as they get time to help flesh them all out a bit. My main problem with this book is simple: puns. Now, I can usually let them just roll off my back, but the puns in here were so bad that I literally almost stopped reading it in the middle, and that never happens. When one the characters said “Holy cow!” only to have a literal holy cow drop down out of the heavens… oof. I think blood shot out of my eyeballs. Still, if you can get a dark marker and cut those things out, it’s far from being all bad. Pretty far from being all good too, but there you have it. It’s $11.95 and I think it’s out by now (I got the preview edition because I’m special!), so check out the website up there.
Beranek, Adam – Silent Forest #1
Silent Forest #1
There are times when you can judge a book by its cover, and this is one of them. I probably wouldn’t have even picked this one up but they seemed like nice folks and no one was at their table at the time (I got this at SPACE), so I got the book. It’s the story of some bears who live in the woods who are angry about a new golf course that interrupts their sleep. It’s pretty dopey, honestly. I’m sure there are some people out there who would enjoy this, but I’m not one of them. One thing for every creator to keep in mind is what the character’s dialogue would sound like said out loud, and almost everything in here would sound awkward in conversation. Not that funny and too cute for words describes this pretty well. Go to the website if you’re curious, here’s hoping for better things from them in the future.
