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Castro, Edgar – Retail Duncan #1
Retail Duncan #1
Here’s a simple way to keep “your” and “you’re” straight: if you are saying “you’re”, would it work if you switched it out with “you are”? Same thing with “your”: if “you are” fits in that spot, don’t use “your”. Sorry to start off with a rant, but if there’s one thing that’s fingernails-on-a-chalkboard annoying to me, that’s it. Well, that and the difference between “their, they’re and there”, but only rant per review is the legal limit around these parts. I mention it mostly because it’s the only thing that bugged me in an otherwise funny and occasionally insightful comic. Our hero, Duncan, needs to find a bathroom in the mall. OK, not the most promising of starts. He finds one, happens to sit next to an old friend, and ends up applying for a job. From there he’s given a series of tasks, including 18 hours of filling out a form, killing the Rancor monster, cleaning up after Lone Wolf & Cub and fighting off Chunk. If you don’t know who that is, kids, ask your parents. It’s a pretty funny comic, with a larger point or two thrown in about the whole retail experience. Maybe you should buy a copy and see for yourself? $2
Castro, Edgar – Hojuween
Hojuween Now Available! $.50
Well, at least the price is appropriate. Don’t get me wrong, this comic has more than a few fun moments and I actually thought the coloring looked good. The trouble is that (with the odd exception of the page I sampled) most of the text looked like he filled it in on the way to Kinko’s. Words are way outside the bubbles, errors have just been scratched out, you can even see him scratching out a letter on the cover! I’ll never understand why people who spend so much time on the art (and in this case color) can’t spend an extra half hour or so to make sure the simple things work. OK soapbox, you can leave the room now. The story is a simple 6 page thing which involves the gang, of course, going trick or treating. They threaten a neighbor, Hoju runs into an evil clown and a good time is generally had by all. I probably shouldn’t be so hard on him, as this is from 2002, but it’s such an easy fix: make the word balloons bigger. Ta-da! Still, it’s not bad for the price and kudos to him for coloring this thing. In other words, if you like his other stuff, splurge a little and get this. If not, try some of his more recent work first. $.50
Castro, Edgar – Hoju #2
Hoju #2 Now Available! $2
I can’t really figure it out. Am I allowed to say I like something “just because”? That’s the kind of quality review work you people have probably come to expect here over the years. Really, there’s all kinds of reasons not to like this. “Your” in place of “you’re” is really fingernails-on-a-chalkboard annoying for me, and Edgar gets it wrong almost every time. It was used correctly in one panel and it was shocking. The lettering is sloppy and often crammed into tiny word balloons, with him occasionally having to draw a little addendum balloon just to finish his sentences. The stories often go nowhere at all, and he thinks “poop” is far too funny. And yet I was smiling throughout this issue and did manage to get a few genuine laughs out of it. Maybe he’s just benefiting from my Friday mood. Stories include a gangsta God greeting an annoyed young man in heaven, Hoju getting his first soul (and finding out how to deal with the ladies), the little creature in Hoju’s head telling him the secrets of the universe, Hoju going to New Orleans searching for answers (and, of course, hitting Mardi Gras), some serious mayhem involving ghosts and making new ghosts, and Hoju chatting with his good and evil sides. Again, you’d think that all the flaws would have me hating this, but it really was a blast. Now if he could get all those spelling errors worked out he’d really be onto something… $2
Castro, Edgar – Hoju #1
Hoju #1 Now Available! $2
Random submissions are always a crapshoot, and this one started off a bit rough. If you look up at that top right corner you’ll see the issue number chopped off by the copier; a minor thing until you see that the first story (after an introduction of the characters, which is always a good thing) suffers from the same problem and is damned near unreadable because of it. Luckily you can still see most of it, as it turns out to be the origin story for a few of the regular characters. From there things pick up considerably, with the only noticeable errors being spelling and grammar. Seriously, if this website can do anything for the comics world, I hope it’s to relentlessly point out the difference between “your” and “you’re”, “their” and “they’re”, etc. Don’t just guess and throw one of them in there, take a half a second and find out which one is right! It’s probably just a pet peeve of mine, granted, but I always feel like the people who get it wrong just aren’t taking this seriously, which is quite possibly a legitimate position when you think about career opportunities in this field, but if you’re going to spend weeks (if not months) drawing something, can’t you at least fix the easy stuff like that? Yes, I am in fact always good for a rant on that subject, and Edgar didn’t have mistakes in every panel or anything like that. He just consistently got it wrong. As for the content, it got funnier as it went on, and he has a strange enough cast of characters that this could be the start of a very good thing. Stories in here include waiting to ambush the taco man, sadness about being fugly, turning down a date due to excessive cynicism, taking your creature for a walk in the park, the dangers of windows to a talking bird, finally confronting the real taco man, and finding out the real story of the lonely “taco man”. Finally there’s the one long piece of the comic, dealing with an accidental zombie outbreak that was oddly confined to only a few people… that they know of. All kinds of potential here if a few minor things are tweaked. Oh, and another tip to you youngsters: write your words before the word balloons. Crazy, I know, but it saves all that word cramming later. I bring these things up because I care, you know, and because there are enough things that can go wrong in making a comic that it’s good to at least have a firm grasp of the basics. Also, my lawn was doing just fine before you damned kids started walking all over it. My curmudgeonly nature aside, this is worth a look. $2
Castro, Edgar – My Cat is Satan
My Cat is Satan Now Available! $2
Anybody who reads this site on a regular basis knows that I have the same view of cat comics as that of a stereotypical middle-aged woman: I love them. I start from that position, and unless the comic itself is terrible that’s usually where I end up after reading it. Just wanted to make that perfectly clear, in case anybody out there thought I was capable of being professional and objective while reviewing this one.  This story (which was apparently done online first, in a page a day type of thing) is about how Satan decides to force people to reborn as pets for their punishment, but all the people rise up and throw him through the pet portal instead. Satan as a cat is, oddly, not much different from many cats I’ve known and loved. He (although the cat ends up being a sh, much to his chagrin) latches onto the ceiling, barfs his acidic puke on his owner, stabs the guy in the head and is just generally, well, evil. Other stories (not so focused on the cat) include playing Mario to the exclusion of all else, a religious guy stopping by, the owner blowing all his money meant for the vet, and of course the actual trip to the vet. It’s a pretty funny collection, all things considered, but the guy still has some serious trouble with spelling. And there’s still some minor trouble with the copier, but at least you could eventually figure out what everything was supposed to say this time around.  It’s worth a look and has some potential as a series, which is all you can ever ask out of these things. $2
