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Roberts, Rafer; Frost, Sean; Strang-Frost, Wendi – Wild Women of the Kitty-Kat Galaxy!
Wild Women of the Kitty-Kat Galaxy!
Full disclosure time: if I had my druthers Rafer would be chained to his drawing desk and unable to leave it (except for short periods of time to maintain his sanity) until Plastic Farm was finished. That being said, if he’s going to put that on hiatus to branch out into other projects for a bit, I couldn’t be happier that he chose to do a sequel (of sorts) to Dope Fiends of the Zombie Cafe. Dr. Gravely and Billy are back, and Dr. Gravely still can’t remember Billy’s name. Things start off when our heroes (who, hilariously, really can’t stand each other) accidentally create a “nick” in space while they’re working on another experiment. They naturally decide to go through this nick to see what loot they can take from the other side, only to discover a lair of cat women! As you may have guessed from that title/cover. The cat women put them in a dungeon after an ill-advised punch by the doctor, and that giant spider plays a pretty big role before it’s all over. I’m not saying much about the plot, because if you can resist a cover like that then there’s not much I can say to convince you. The sheer joy in the writing of this story by Sean shines through, the art is on par with the best work that Rafer has ever done (and he’s been improving consistently over the years), and that coloring job by Wendi is ridiculously good, perfectly capturing the “B” movie vibe that permeates this book. My only minor complaint (and I’m still not sure that it really is a complaint) is that they did chapter breaks in the overwrought style of pulp comics, with dramatic images of what happens in the chapter to come. The problem is that this book isn’t big enough to support that many chapters, so the chapters ended up being pretty short and those splash pages could be a bit jarring. On the other hand, they were universally awesome, so it’s impossible to come down too hard on them. Clearly, the only solution is to make the next set of these into a mini series where those chapter bumps are more appropriate, FAR IN THE FUTURE WHEN PLASTIC FARM IS DONE. Or, you know, more one-shots like this would also be fine. Or I could acknowledge that I’m not the boss of him and that I’ll just be happy when more issues of Plastic Farm come out. But hey, buy this one in the meantime, as you’d have a hard time not loving it.
Roberts, Rafer – Plastic Farm #3
Plastic Farm #3 Now Available! $2.95
Well, this series has offically stopped making sense. Rafer mentions in his intro that this issue has little to do with the previous issues, at least right now, but for us to trust him because he knows what he’s doing. OK, I’ll trust him. After all, I still have three issues sitting here, so I can verify that he knows what he’s doing by what happens next. If it’s still a mess by the end of #6, watch out! Because, um, consequences will be dire! Anyway, this one has two unrelated chapters to keep us busy. In the first one we have two skinny people who are reluctantly eating their dog. They seem to have a working truck, so why they’re eating their dog is a complete mystery. They’re called on by a local commune to help with an injured member, and that’s the chapter. Then you have a drug deal of some kind going down involving a couple of detectives and a big crime figure. That’s it for the main story. I have no idea at all where he’s going with this, but he showed me with the first two issues that he can spin a compelling (and confusing) yarn, so I’ll stick around for a bit. The back-up story is by Sean Frost and Wendi Strang-Frost, and it might make even less sense than the rest of the book. All in all, easily the most confusing book of the series yet. Buy it today! $2.95, contact info is up there…
