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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

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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