Phang & Mak « Optical Sloth

Beranek, Adam – Phang & Mak #3

April 22, 2010

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!

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Posted by Kevin

Beranek, Adam – Phang & Mak #2

April 22, 2010

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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.

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Posted by Kevin

Beranek, Adam – Phang & Mak #1

April 22, 2010

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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!