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H., Eric – Chickenbot’s Odd Jobs #4
Chickenbot’s Odd Jobs #4
You know, for all the times that I’ve wondered if this website isn’t a complete waste of time, or if maybe I’m losing interest in mini comics, I think back to the fact that if it wasn’t for this site I would have never seen comics like this one. And OK, fine, I could have lived without it, but it (and other comics) have made my life just the tiniest bit better, and isn’t that the point of art? Oh crap, I just asked what the point of art was; even rhetorically that’s dangerous. Moving on, if you haven’t read #3 in this series, you’ll be more than a bit lost here. No recap of any kind, and that’s going to be the extent of my negative comments for this issue. Chickenbot starts off as he’s chasing the bad guys down, and we very quickly get a death, a highly quotable fight (“no one eats my head, you huggably-soft psycho”) , another death and an escape. Oh, and smallpox. Finally Chickenbot makes it to the big bad guy and things get wrapped up, but almost certainly not how you might have expected. Is that too vague? Yeah, I’m not spoiling any of this one, sorry. It’s a given that Eric has a pretty firm handle on the humorous aspect of this book, but I wasn’t sure about some of the weightier aspects. Could he play serious drama and emotion with a title character that is half chicken, half robot with the apparent last name of “over easy”? Yes. Yes, he can. He had already proved that he could handle the longer stories, but this just reinforces that. The tension and the pacing were also damned near perfect for both issues. The art also keeps improving, and it was pretty damned good to begin with. This comic has just jumped to the top of my wish list for new animated shows, and up until a few minutes ago I wasn’t even aware that I had such a list. Buy it, that’s what I’m getting at here. Maybe if enough people buy it he’ll become rich enough to spend some serious time on this, and I’d love to see what happened if he did. I think this is $4 but I’m not positive. Either way you can get this and #3 for $6.50 which, unless you already have #3, you should very much do.
H., Eric – Chickenbot’s Odd Jobs #3 – The Chicken Who Loved Me Part 1
Chickenbot’s Odd Jobs #3 – The Chicken Who Loved Me Part 1
Finally, Chickenbot gets to pick a cool job! After suffering through some dangerous and awkward temp jobs, Chickenbot walks into the temp agency and sees “Spy” as an option. He can’t resist, naturally, and us readers end up with what is the most completely satisfying Chickenbot tale yet. Don’t get me wrong, all of them have had their moments, and it would be a stretch to call any of them bad. This one just has the feeling of an artist that is hitting his stride with a character, and kudos to Eric for putting these issues out so quickly while still increasing the quality of his art each time around. That’s a formula for good things happening, if there is any justice in the world. There’s not, you say? Well crap. At least he still gets the satisfaction of making a great comic, and the rest of us get the satisfaction of reading it. Back to the story! Chickenbot gets acquainted with all the doodads that spies get to play with and learns of his mission to meet with an informant about a plot to poison chocolate. Naturally his informant is assassinated just before he gets to the good part, so Chickenbot has to improvise a bit to get closer to the man doing all the poisoning. And hey, it is a spy story, so it wouldn’t be complete without Chickenbot seducing the girlfriend of one of the major players in the plot. Any more would give away too much for my tastes, but a few James Bond bits are cleverly included, there were so many genuinely funny pages that I had real trouble picking just one (and only settled on this one because it’s vague enough to not give anything too major away) and things have been set up nicely for the next issue. His website is currently about 2/3 of the way through this issue, so head on over there and check it out if you like, but at this point people should really be getting on that Chickenbot bandwagon regardless. Also, as of an older update on his site, he seems to be getting down on the whole webcomics thing, which is perfectly understandable for people who aren’t independently wealthy and have a functioning brain. I’ll bet a few orders from you folks would perk him right up, and you’re only hurting yourself by not reading this series, so do the right thing, eh? No price listed, but something this hefty should be in the $5 range.
H., Eric – Chickenbot’s Odd Jobs #2
Chickenbot’s Odd Jobs #2
Eric made the decision to keep his comics self-contained after putting out the first half of the first “Odd Jobs,” and can I just reiterate that it was an excellent idea. This issue features out hero going back out to find another job and, as always, his options are rather limited. He goes with “paranormal investigator” over “gnome wrangler”and “dragon slayer” and ends up trying to figure out the truth about a UFO sighting. He heads out to the farm (and alien sightings are always on or near a farm), pokes around a bit and finds prairie dogs with hats firmly attached to their heads and the head farmer spontaneously combusts. Chickenbot seemingly has no fear, as he finds out the truth about the aliens and hitches a ride up to their ship. I won’t ruin any more of it, but I will say that he could have picked “dragon slayer” right off the bat and saved himself a few steps. Sure, putting these comics out as self-contained stories means there’s going to be more time between issues, but every one of these so far has been a treat. “Funny and smart” is a big part of what I look for in comics, and this one has both qualities in large lumps. The only trouble is with Eric’s website as, even though it has the entire comic available for free, there’s no link to any place to actually buy a copy. Wait, did I just say that getting to read his comic for free was a bad thing? I’ve been doing this too long. Clearly it’s a good thing for us comic readers, but if Eric is going to be nice enough to post the entire thing he maybe should have a link for people who like to own physical copies of comics. And some indication of the price. It’s a hefty thing, so I’m going to say $5 randomly, but I couldn’t tell you where to get a copy.
H., Eric – Chickenbot’s Odd Jobs #1
Chickenbot’s Odd Jobs #1
Are you one of the people who read Eric H.’s Odd Jobs #1, or perhaps saw the review for it on this site? Well, Eric has decided to put that whole story out in one issue, so this one is #1 of that series as well as the conclusion of the story. It would have been roughly two issues, if you were curious. You can read the review for that issue here, but to sum up: Chickenbot goes to a temp agency to make some cash. He picks the job of werewolf hunter, sets off to a town terrorized by said werewolf and has a series of occurrences that convince him that the people being terrorized are fairly worthless, but can’t leave until (contractually) until he finishes the job. The first issue (although I guess this is going to be the only issue from now on) ended with Chickenbot confronting said werewolf, but we really didn’t get to see much of the fight… until now. The rest of the story is the fight with the werewolf (and Chickenbot’s weapons all fail in spectacular fashion), followed in the morning by the fight with the child who is the werewolf on full moons. No spoilers from me, but that was some funny stuff right there. Eric is putting pages up at his website for free (which is a good thing, as I don’t see any way to order the comics from his website), so if you go there now you’ll be about a third of the way through the second part of the story. As for the comic as a whole I thought it was great stuff. His fight scenes were funny and suspenseful (a difficult bridge to walk), and as for the ending… well, how else is a werewolf supposed to be put under control? If you already read the first issue of this series you’re required to get this to see how it ends, if not, well, the whole story is now in one convenient package, even if it does seem to be tricky to purchase at the moment. Check out his website and maybe bug the guy, if he sent me a copy then he must have them lying around somewhere. No price either, but as this is two issues, let’s say $4.
H., Eric – Odd Jobs #1
Odd Jobs #1
Ah, the abbreviated last name. Always fun for a website like mine that at least sort of tries to keep things in alphabetical order. This is the first book of Eric’s that I’ve seen (unless he put out other stuff with his actual last name attached), but I highly doubt that it’s his first book. Either that or he was born with an innate knowledge of making comics. This series (and it better be a series after that ending) is about Chickenbot needing to find some work and heading out to the local temp agency. He gets to pick from a list, ends up with with the job of Werewolf Hunter, and sets out to complete his task. Once in the town he asks around about the beast and finds out that it has appeared 20 times and only killed 3 people and that the townspeople are utterly helpless on their own, unable even to clean up the dead bodies until outside help arrives. Disgusted, he attempts to back out of the job, but due to his terms of employment he isn’t allowed to get another job until this one is completed, so off he goes to confront the monster. No sense spoiling the rest of it, but I will say that most of the fight, if such a thing is going to occur, is going to happen in the next issue. The fun in this issue was getting to it, as Chickenbot is consistently entertaining, even if he does seem to have stolen his eyeballs from a character in the Neil Jam universe. It’s worth a look, although I’ll hold off going all nutzo about it until I see future issues. No price tag, but with a color cover I’ll go with $2.50 for no good reason.
