Zack! Empire – Ugly People #3

May 30, 2012

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Ugly People #3

Since I’ve spent an awful lot of time berating many comics folks for their horrible misspellings and/or incorrect usage of your/you’re, and since I’ve done that in at least two different reviews of Zack’s comics in particular, it’s only fair that I point out that this issue is much improved on that front. In fact, I don’t think there was a single typo, or if there was I didn’t notice it, so kudos to the man. He mentioned in the letter he sent with the comic that he’s working with somebody who proofs his writing now and he’s actively trying to improve it himself, so as far as I’m concerned I’ll never have to mention this again in regards to Zack. Now as to the other members of the comics community who still can’t be bothered with a little self improvement, I’ll keep on your collective cases. Now on to the comic! This issue features the conclusion to the “Bacon on a Bounty” tale from last issue, as our hero and his ridiculous sidekick get actively involved in the case. Well, they try to get actively involved anyway. We get to see BDB’s reaction to that ridiculous sidekick outfit, them mapping out their “strategy,” BDB hitting on some high school girls, and their only (hilariously short) physical confrontation before things wrap up. I was hoping for more mayhem, but who wouldn’t want to see more mayhem involving a roided up gigantic piece of bacon? The other story in here is a day in the life of the crankiest man on the planet. Or at least the crankiest cyclops. Anybody who has had a shitty morning can guess some of the basics, but you’ll definitely be surprised when he punches out a ____. I really wanted to include it here because it’s so damned funny, but you should see it for yourself. And then be happy that you live in a world where such an image exists. $3

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Zack! Empire – Ugly People #2

March 19, 2012

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Ugly People #2

Would it make me an asshole if I put YOU’RE = YOU ARE in the header of my website? I can’t tell you how sick I am of seeing that simple error made over and over again. For some reason it bugs me more than misspellings, more than trouble with “it’s,” more than just about anything else. And Zack! gets it wrong just about every time. Not that he’s alone in that, or even close to it, but it boggles my mind that people can spend countless hours drawing something and then rush through the words that accompany them. Which is a shame, as I thoroughly enjoyed the comic itself. Eh, it’s not like those errors ruined the book, it’s just that they’re so. damned. easy. to fix. Ahem. So how about the content? Three stories in this one. The big one deals with Big Daddy Bacon, who is a muscled-up dude who works at a strip club, as he finally realizes that all the “free food” he’d been eating from his job was actually coming out of his paycheck. I defy you not to laugh at that sex scene in the early pages. Hilarity ensues, and BDB (which is what everybody calls him) eventually settles on being a bounty hunter to earn some quick cash. Which we get to see actually happen in the next issue, I hope. Next is another piece on the lack of motivation suffered by the author (actually the lack of finding a good idea to get a project started), and this time his computer and his “to-do” list team up to try and finish up a comic for him. Which doesn’t go smoothly, naturally, leading to probably the only computer vs. list fight that you’ll ever see. Finally there are a few recipes towards the end about how to make a few simple foods using your coffee maker if your gas gets turned off. Sounds a little horrific to me, but hey, I’ve been unemployed for months now and I may be trying those out myself soon. I just checked the last review I wrote about Zack and I went on and on in that one about his spelling problems there too. Look, his stories are funny, he seems to be producing comics at a pretty good rate and I like his artwork a lot. For all the people that make spelling/grammatical errors, at least he also puts in heavily detailed backgrounds on just about every panel, something that a lot of people skip over or just don’t want to do. It’s worth a look, is what I’m saying. $4

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Zack! Empire – Jerkface Comics #1

November 4, 2011

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Jerkface Comics #1

That does  it. Center for Cartoon Studies, I beseech you: if you don’t already offer a course on basic spelling and grammar, please start one up. Pretty please? At the very least make sure that it isn’t lost on your students that their comics can be the most visually pleasing things in the world, but if there’s a spelling or grammatical error on every page then it’s not going to make a bit of difference. Of course, I have no idea if Zack ever attended that school, so it’s probably a moot point, but holy Christ am I sick of reading comics by people who have no idea when to use “your” or “you’re” and seem to get tripped up on every word longer than six or seven letters. I am aware of the fact that this is my own personal crusade, so I’ll stop talking about it already. What about the comic itself? Well, I think Zack is a fairly young guy, so there’s all kinds of potential here. And he seems be be keeping a steady schedule of releasing comics, which is always a promising sign. The main problem is that there are three big stories in here and two of them are about how he usually can’t be bothered to make comics, which isn’t a great sign for his second book. The introduction page (where Jerkface battles with the words in the panels when they get a little too mean) was hilarious, and I also enjoyed the second big story about Jerkface and a friend dealing with an asshole. And it’s not like the stories about his lack of motivation were worthless, as that’s a pretty common staple of the auto-bio genre. The first one dealt with the problem in more general terms (he keeps getting distracted by thoughts of various lady parts), while the second story on this topic dealt with his inability to stick to a to-do list. There were funny bits in both stories, but a limit of one per comic might be a good idea in the future. And some of that dialogue was awkward as hell (saying it out loud and hearing how it sounds can help). Still, a fair amount of funny bits, and the back cover showing the things that weren’t in this issue was also nicely done. A mixed bag, in other words, but promising. Provided that you’re not as stuck on the spelling errors as me, that is, but that kind of thing should improve over time. Right? $3

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Posted by Kevin