{"id":19886,"date":"2010-02-06T14:47:06","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T20:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/?wpsc-product=broken-lines-book-one-by-tom-pappalardo"},"modified":"2010-02-06T14:47:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T20:47:06","slug":"broken-lines-book-one-by-tom-pappalardo","status":"publish","type":"wpsc-product","link":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/?wpsc-product=broken-lines-book-one-by-tom-pappalardo","title":{"rendered":"Broken Lines Book One by Tom Pappalardo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a comic exactly, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a short story exactly either. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mostly a short story with comical interludes thrown in, but what a story it is. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember the last time I was this impressed by a story where I had no real idea what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on. It starts innocently enough in an all-night diner with a cowboy and a man in a spacesuit eating dinner. Their waitress can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work up the enthusiasm to be too curious about them, and things proceed slowly for a bit until Maggie ends up having to get a ride home from these two. After they part ways, Maggie meets a group of demons from hell dressed as firemen (firemen make fires and kill people, firefighters are the ones who put them out, you see) before eventually ending up back with Cowboy and Spaceman and their silent friend, Vampire. She joins them on their journey across the country, trying to make enough money to survive along the way, while being chased by\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not sure what. Nor do we know where they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going or why they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going there. None of that matters even a little bit, as an engaging cast of characters (I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even mentioned Myron or the Vampire Hunters because why not leave a few surprises for you?) and a constantly funny dialogue keep things moving even when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re stuck doing inventory in a grocery store to make a few bucks. Spaceman is possibly a small retarded child judging by his actions, Cowboy is the stereotypical cowboy except with a clumsy streak, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the slightest idea what Vampire is yet, except that he seems to have given up drinking blood. What can I say, I was mesmerized and damned sad to see the last page of this book. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s projected to be the first of four issues, so at least there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plenty more to go. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recommend this enough for those of you who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mind a lot of really wonderful text thrown in with the pretty pictures. Oh, and Thomas did most of the drawing himself, except for a page each by Mister Reusch, Jason Goad and Matt Smith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_wpsc_stock":"3","_wpsc_price":"12","_wpsc_special_price":"12","_wpsc_sku":"","footnotes":""},"product_tag":[],"wpsc_product_category":[4747,5708],"wpsc-variation":[],"class_list":["post-19886","wpsc-product","type-wpsc-product","status-publish","hentry","wpsc_product_category-comics","wpsc_product_category-tom-pappalardo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/wpsc-product\/19886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/wpsc-product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/wpsc-product"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/wpsc-product\/19886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fproduct_tag&post=19886"},{"taxonomy":"wpsc_product_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwpsc_product_category&post=19886"},{"taxonomy":"wpsc-variation","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticalsloth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwpsc-variation&post=19886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}