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Hollowspine

I'm Reading Comeeks

I dedicate this blog to comics in all forms, manga, autobio, superhero, art books, etc.  And of course, since I need a challenge, I've decided that I'll read and write (short) reviews for 365 comics during 2015.

That Pregnant Goat is Their Dad?

The Delinquents TP - James Asmus, Fred Van Lente, Kano

Yes, the goat, the pregnant goat, was once Woody and Quantum's father, until some sort of experiment thingy went wrong and he became a goat.  A lady goat.  Not sure if he came pregnant or if that came later.

 

If that paragraph weirds you out, but in a good way, then maybe the Delinquents is for you, Dad the Pregnant Goat is up there, but is not the weirdest thing in this comic.  If not, well, what about a map on the tanned backside of a dead hobo?  No?  Well, I can't blame you.

 

The book follows the adventures of two groups of heroes.  Quantum and Woody, who I already mentioned, are bros who, due to the same awry experiment have awesome powers.  Quantum (the only one in costume) can make force fields.  Woody, the drunk blond guy does zappy things.  They take on work for hire (good guy stuff) but mostly it seems anything that will pay.  When they take on a job to track down some weird hobo map they run into our other dynamic duo.

 

Archer was raised in a cult as a 'living weapon' to fight against the forces of the heathen modern world, but instead decided he'd rather eat at a McDonald's and imbibe caffeinated beverages like everyone else.  So, instead of disposing of the horrible Armstrong, as he was supposed to, he teamed up with him to learn the ways of the world.  Armstrong is immortal and has seen a lot of...stuff, so who better to guide the kid?  Of course Armstrong is also not very responsible.

 

A long time ago Armstrong was entrusted with the map to the Hobo Kingdom, "Candy Rock Mountain."  He promptly lost the map, but now finds himself and Archer once again on a quest to protect that mythological hobo encampment.

 

When the two teams meet, initially they don't care much for each other, but soon find themselves teaming up to fight against the brother's employer Stano and his strange genetically engineered hench...beast-men.

 

It was definitely weird, and as a person who has no background in either series before (obviously), I was able to follow it well enough (though I do wonder about that goat).  It's probably a bit off for those readers who do follow one of the two series though.  I thought it could have been a bit more cohesive, felt like readers would have enjoyed slightly more time on the  story and interaction between the characters than was allowed here.

 

I did enjoy that a whole tedious fight scene was replaced with a two page spread where readers could potentially cut out action poses of the characters and sound effects to make their own scene instead of wasting all the narrative space on it. 

 

If I were to follow up on one of these pairs of heroes, I have to say, Armstrong and Archer seem to have some interesting history on their side.  But, no goat.

 

Fans of Chew would probably enjoy the zany antics and weird foodstuff humor to be found here.

 

 

(Yes, I just wanted to plug Chew)