B.P.R.D. (Bigger Possibilities, Readers' Delight)

Before we get started here, I'm going to say that I'll try to do my best to talk about this comic without spoiling anything. But frankly, the story is a little confusing at places, so there's a decent chance that I'll spoil something without even meaning to.
And by the way, fuck all of you with your spoiler alerts. People who should be using them don't, and the people who do use them a little TOO much. If you write a blog about Inception today, I'm going to assume that you are going to include spoilers as that's the only way to really discuss something beyond a review.

BPRD (and I'm not putting in the periods because between pushing SHIFT+B, the letting go of shift for the period, then shift and then a letter, I'm going to drive myself fucking insane. I guess it would have been easier and more professional to do it once and then copy and paste, and it would have been a hell of a lot less work than writing all this, but fuck it) is a Hellboy spin-off. Much like the way we got Joanie Loves Chachi from Happy Days, or PB Twix from Twix, Hellboy has spun off. What makes this spinoff a little different is that the only character from the Hellboy canon who doesn't appear in the spinoff is Hellboy. He does make brief appearances in flashbacks, but that's it. It's like he was having contractual issues, so they wrote him out of the book in order to acknowledge that he's gone.

Hellboy is kind of an enigma as characters go. In looking at the bibliography, he's clearly popular. But he hasn't starred in a hell of a lot of books. I'll take quality over quantity any day, don't get me wrong, but most of the really big comic characters are also the ones who've been around for a while, or else they pop up in damn near every book. Is there such a thing as a Marvel book in which Wolverine or Spider-Man doesn't stop by?
What it tells me is that Hellboy did some things right. Hellboy did some cool things, but I think that for as good as they were, BPRD does the good things better.

For example, BPRD delivers big time on great monsters that look like something Dali would have come up with had he stopped spending so much time on bizarre mustaches. Same thing with cool steampunk robots and shit.

It also forces the mixture of science and the occult. Because the BPRD is an entire organization, we see a lot more of the regular dudes who are trying to fight vampires with guns. It turns out that, though they are the central characters, the freak-o's in the BPRD only make up about 1% of the entire thing. The result is that you get a lot more everyman perspective on shit, which is a big plus and something that was missing from most but the first couple Hellboy issues.

While we're on the topic of characters, it's kind of nice to see main characters that all have clear flaws. Abe Sapien, fishman, is a little strong-headed and takes his work too seriously, sometimes at the expense of the emotional stability of the team. He's like a really successful businessman who gets shit done, but isn't so great with the interpersonal relationships. Johann, ghostman, has experiences so far outside the realm of normal understanding that things don't always make sense to him. And Liz, firelady, is all over the goddamn place.
A writer once said something like, "It's not important that you identify with characters so long as you sympathize with them." That's a lesson taken to heart in BPRD, and one that is sorely lacking in the world of comics where you see so many contrived plots and arcs that try so hard to remove characters from looking like the bad guy or having any real responsibility when shit goes bad.

There are a couple words of caution if you're thinking about reading this title.

One, I don't know how you could read this in small pieces. It begs to be read in large chunks, four or five trades at a time, because there are so many threads and characters that pop up form time to time. You won't be totally lost if you put it down for a while, but you'll be some lost, for sure.

Two, these trades run at eighteen bucks a pop, and they're skimpier than the average woman's bikini sold at your local Target. I could get fucking sponsors and just lay them in there if someone would just pay attention.
But seriously, I don't know how someone could afford to buy this whole series ongoing. It would be worth it in that you could do rereading, and I think they have pretty decent reread value. But just be warned that you're in for a big initial investment.

If you like Hellboy, read BPRD. If you don't like Hellboy because you find it a little confusing or spare, give this one a try. I'm telling you, this one is a different creature.

Comic Strips

This time, something a little different.

I can remember being a kid and skipping all the front page news (boring), business news (I checked my stocks online by the time I was nine, okay?) and sports (picture of a man in tight pinstriped pants throwing a ball towards another guy so that he could hit it, but just barely? No thanks) to get straight to the comics.

So what's in the comic pages today? I looked up a handful, then read short collections of each.

Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson

This strip is pretty good, compulsively readable. It's hard to make the comparison, but it's the closest thing we've had to a Calvin and Hobbes since Calvin stopped showing up in papers and started showing up on the back windows of cars that carry people who say things like, "Yew better watch what yew say about flannel."

The art is good, unique and scribbly without being messy. The different characters actually have different faces, which is something you don't see too much of. Even artists who work for the big publishers will draw about three different faces and call it a day, add a beard or a hat if necessary.

The main thing I could complain about is that it gets a little precious at times. It has realistic insights into the way kids act, but sometimes those don't kill me with laughter. That said, considering that they're looking for publication in major newspapers, who seem as prepared to take risks as I am on the dance floor after zero beers, it works.

Pearls Before Swine by Stephen Pastis

There are some things to like about this strip, for sure. It goes to much darker places than I've seen in many other strips, which is welcome and makes room for lots of jokes that might not have found a place in the papers before. The characters also drink beer from time to time, which is appreciated. Pastis is clearly making a strip that is designed to appeal to an older audience, which is not a bad idea.

Are kids even reading the comics pages? I mean, I did, but I couldn't type "Naked Woman" onto any type of machine as a kid and then just have one pop up in front of me. We had some time to kill.

There are two things I'm not so into in this strip. First, he likes to do the occasional strip that just sets up a very long pun. He usually reserves the last panel for a character to break the fourth wall and ask for the strip to end, but I don't care for pun humor more than once every never.

Second, there are these recurring crocodile characters that drive me insane. They talk in a patois that is not too hard to parse, but still pretty goddamn annoying. I get it. They're dumb. Just write in sloppier handwriting for all their dialogue and I'll make the connection. Of course, based on the internet searching, the crocs are very popular, much like their shitty shoe counterpart. So maybe it's partly the fault of the world, who are dumb. Dumb as hell.


Dilbert by Scott Adams

I think we all know about this one.

One thing that you can tell right away when reading this in a collection is that Adams recycled panels like a motherfucker. Even in these Sunday color strips, that picture of the building exterior shows up all the time. This isn't the transition back from a commercial to an episode of Family Matters where you can just show the same still picture of their house over and over, only changing near the holidays to show a string of lights.

The other thing you get a little too often is something that is accurate to a T, but doesn't make you laugh so much as feel depressed about your job. I can't recommend reading this one in the morning before going to work.





Foxtrot by Bill Amend
Um...well, you have a dad who is bad at grilling, a boy-crazy teenage daughter, a teenage son who eats a shitload, and a nerd boy. And a mom.

I don't know. Of the comics here, this one did the least for me. The jokes are pretty standard, transparent setup that ends in the expected joke.

It's totally something I would read when I was 8, but now I don't think I could justify it.