taiblogcomics

[taiblogcomics]

It's a Dogfight-Eat-Dogfight World

Hey there, alphabet soup. We're half done this miniseries by now! I dunno why this keeps being a thing I muse on. Kind of a running theme of the blog. I guess it's easy when it's a simple number like six issues. The one positive thing about Rainbow Brite only lasting five issues is that there was nowhere in those reviews for me to stop and muse over where we were in the series. No good halfway point. And I gotta fill up this preamble somehow, don't I~?

Here's the cover:

Another kind of simple cover. At least these covers are definitely things that happen inside the comic, unlike a lot of covers I could mention. This shot happens as early as panel two, arguably! But ye, it's where we left the last issue: the heroes have stolen a plane to get to America, and are pursued/intercepted by their friends. At least this one, you can also see Dick's moustache growing in. That's something, I guess! I dunno if that'll sell new readers, but if you're coming in on this halfway through, maybe you deserve to be confused~

So, Dick and Mutt are being transformed into exaggerations by a rainbow mist dropped from radioactive drone War Pig One. After escaping potential extermination by their own government, the pair steal a plane to fly out to meet their superior himself. Meanwhile, following the president's mental de-stablisation, the General sends two other pilots, Longman and Zee, to intercept the pair on the way. But they also have been affected by the rainbow gas, and we'll have to see how that interrupts their mission…

As Dick and Mutt continue to fly towards the US, Mutt also continues to argue with Dick about the strange outburst he made while stealing the plane--namely, referring to the pair of them as "Dastardly and Muttley". Dick protests that he did no such thing, and his moustache has always been like this! The argument is suddenly interrupted by two things. One, Mutt notices something beeping on the radar. Two, when he tries to articulate this to Dick, he suddenly becomes unable to do anything but bark like the dog he looks like. Instead, he has to seize the controls himself.

Meanwhile, over in Washington, the various cabinet members are having a hearing while the Vice President is being sworn in. Yeah, the President died last issue, sliced to ribbons when he ran through the harp, and the horrors of realism meant he didn't recover. Anyway, the various senators are arguing with General Harrier, finding several things suspicious. Yeah, those two CIA guys, Nixon and Perkins? They were actually undercover Air Force personnel, sent to take out Dick and Mutt. So they're highly suspicious why Air Force personnel would be assigned to assassinate its own men.

They're interrupted by the senator from Virginia, a visibly old guy they clearly all hate talking to. But for once, he commands the room, because he points out some of the actual oddities of the story--particularly, the radioactive test that started this whole mess. For example, does Unliklistan really sound like a real country? Or Unstabilium a real element? Isn't it all sounding a little… dubious? Like said Professor Dubious, the man behind the accident? You know it's concerning when what could be plot holes become part of the actual plot.

Up in the sky, Dick and Mutt just barely manage to avoid being shot with a missile. And rather than be grateful, Dick can only point out it wouldn't be so near a miss if Mutt hadn't started barking like an idiot, or a dog, or an idiot dog. He's recovered now, but he couldn't help himself and it scares him. Before they can ruminate on that, they're hailed over comms by the opposing plane. They recognise the voice as Zee, and she's demanding they surrender or she'll blow them out of the sky. In fact, she may not even wait for the surrender and just do it anyway.

Longman (whose callsign is "Uncle", by the way, so I will switch to that for consistancy) cuts in on the comms to inform Dick and Mutt that Zee got hit by the rainbow mists and is kind of losing it. He wants them to just land, so they can talk this whole thing over. She considers this insubordination, which I guess technically it is. Uncle then cuts off access to the weapon systems, and she decides in that case she'll just ram the planes together. And if this problem's just not enough for you, Mutt starts barking again.

Well, here we go. Dick decides that the only thing to do is take everything head-on, and flies straight ahead. Likewise, Zee considers it a point of honour to never back off from a confrontation. So the two planes are headed for a direct collision. Dick decides the only hope they have is to crash the planes together in such a way that they wedge together and fuse into one aircraft. He then realises what the heck he's just said, but by then it's a bit too late. The planes crunch together with the horrible squelching of metal on metal.

Dick yells over the comms that he's cutting engines and giving Zee the control to land them safely. And she initially tries to snarl that she'll not help a traitor, but then her personality slips and she drops into the southern-twanged damsel-in-distress version of herself again. And as they hurtle to the ground, trying to reassert Zee's better half, War Pig One drifts over a zoo below, causing the animals to become ones from The Jungle Book and Kung-Fu Panda. And a satellite from space reports a fuzzy image of the Earth itself, now sporting a pair of mouse ears. Well, they always said Disney would take over the world~

We don't actually get to see it happen, but the next thing we do see is Zee having somehow successfully landed the fused planes. All four occupants are unharmed, though Zee is not in a mood to leave it that way. Mutt's regained his voice again, trying to tell Uncle of what's been happening. At the same time, Zee and Dick are about to throw down. Dick's trying to talk her down, but his personality switch slips in and he threatens her to stand down or he'll spank her. She rightfully kicks him square in the plums.

In the senate discussion or whatever, they've since dug up the file on Professor Dubious. Turns out, his birth name was Alexander DuBois. He changed it shortly after his discovery of unstabilium, which is a red flag in itself. So how did a dubious professor wielding an unstable element set up shop in a country nobody has ever heard of? He had promised General Harrier he'd solve the instability issues, and ran off with the sample when he couldn't. And the General confesses, due to his own exposure to the element, he just let him do it. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Zee keeps beating on Dick in her fury, but as she does so, the cartooniness of it takes over and his injuries never get worse than his hand swelling up and throbbing red. Classic cartoon injury. Mutt's canine instincts take over and he bites her on the rump, letting Dick crawl away for a brief moment. Fed up, she draws her gun and unloads its contents. But between the act of drawing it and firing, it's turned into a harmless cartoony dart gun, leaving the pair covered in suction cup darts instead of being riddled with bullets.

So, now that Zee's perhaps calmed down since she's technically done her duty by firing upon them, they huddle up and begin a talk. They note that it's kind of odd that nothing's affected Uncle yet, despite his being around Zee ever since she got doused in the mysterious mist. It's proven that they affect stuff just by being around it, but he's not portrayed any noted personality shifts like the others yet. So the General will still be in D.C., and they decide to go calling on him. They turn south--just in time to witness an enormous mushroom cloud erupt from the direction they were about to head, ending the issue--and probably the city as well.

Well, now we're getting into the interesting stuff, huh? (We better be, we're two-thirds of the way through the story!) We've got our backstory revealed, we've got our main characters all united and together, and we've set off a major noticable event to propel this thing towards its finale. And what a finale it'll be~

#comics #reviews #Dastardly & Muttley #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

Just Plane Crazy

Hey there, dulcet tones of science. We'll be half done this series by the end of today's review! Isn't that exciting? I think it's pretty neat, anyway. Let's get into it~

Here's the cover:

Yeah! America! (Please read this ironically.) …That's about all I've got for this one. The covers have been gradually ramping up in interest--standing to running to riding a motorcycle--but it's not exactly the most attention-grabbing thing in the world. I do recall hearing back in, like, the Silver Age, covers with motorcycles and gorillas would sell better. Do you suppose that's still true nowadays?

So, Air Force pilots Dick and Mutt are sent to pursue a drone called War Pig One. The drone bathes them in rainbow mist, which causes them to undergo some bizarre transformations: Mutt fusing with his dog, while Dick develops complicated speech patterns and anger management issues. On the lam from their own military, the pair try to contact their General, which goes south. Things continue going south as they watch the news that night, witnessing the president use a cartoon mallet to bludgeon a senator. As if that's not completely normal in American politics~

So we open at the White House, definitely a first for this blog. The President and his entourage are discussing the previous night's events. The President did indeed bop a senator on live TV, though personally he's pretty regretful about it now. He found the mallet in his desk, and somehow just felt compelled to do so. As if it was the most natural impulse in the world. Ah, well, we've all been there, haven't we? Usually our impulses don't put our number one political opponent into a coma, but we all understand that urge, at least~

Nonetheless, the President seems insistant on pursuing the day's agenda as if nothing's changed, to the shock of his aides. Further shock ensues when his speech begins picking up some oddly familiar overly-descriptive patterns--and then when a photo-realistic coyote and roadrunner suddenly burst into the Oval Office and begin tearing around the room. The President gets more and more red-faced, yelling about the situation as the Secret Service chase the displaced desert wildlife around the room, while his aides do their best Joe Schmo impression.

We cut to what's essentially the same image as the cover without the heavy American symbolism. Just our heroes on their stolen motorcycle. Here's the big plan: they've got to get back to the US to talk to their superior, General Harrier, so they're going to steal a plane. Oh boy, this can't possibly go wrong! Like, even under the best of circumstances, flying a plane from Germany into US airspace seems like a bad idea. Worse if you're already a known fugitive from the military and have to steal a plane to do so.

Meanwhile, speaking of the General, he's called in two of his best to give them the special mission of hunting down the real villains behind War Pig One: Dick and Mutt. Longman and "Zee" Zabarowski are horrified at first, particularly Longman who considers the duo his wingmen, but their tone changes when the General shows them classified photos of the guys shot full of cartoon holes last issue, declaring this to be the direct cause of Dick and Mutt's actions. This kind of ignores the guy who was actually using the gun, but that kind of perfectly tracks with American gun policies anyway, hmm~?

Dick and Mutt put their plan into action, stealing the best plane they can find. They can't quite get far enough to take off, however, and Mutt thinks they're sunk. As Dick desperately scans the dashboard, however, he finds a big cartoony lever and button. Unable to think of anything else, he decides they should embrace the horror of it all and throws the lever. The plane sprouts huge monster-truck tires, enabling it to run over the cars surrounding them, then sheds them once it takes off. Mutt's mostly stunned that they're really doing this, and that such cartoony events seem to follow wherever they go…

Over in the US of A, the President is trying to simultaneously enjoy his daughter's harp recital while also on the phone with General Harrier. Seems the General was the one who signed off on the original Unstabilium experiment that led to the explosion some days ago that got this whole thing started in the first place. The General protests that they shut down the experiment due to veto, but before he can go further, the aides come in to tell the President he's been relieved of duty due to his erratic behaviour. Rather than go quietly and be taken alive, the President runs right through his daughter's harp, slicing himself to ribbons.

Now, while in pursuit, K. Longman and L. "Zee" Zabarowski go over their history with Dick and Mutt. Nothing seems abnormal with them until Longman notes Zee's crush on Dick, which suddenly puts her in a tizzy, screaming "HAYULP! Who's going to save little ol' me??" in an exaggerated accent. At the same time, Mutt notices something Dick shouted while they took off: "Dastardly and Muttley coming through!" He starts to press Dick on who that's supposed to be, only to stop short noticing two things. One, Dick's moustache has grown out rather exaggeratedly. Two, Longman and Zee have located them and fired a missile. Three, the comic's over for this issue~

So far, this seems to be another one of those instances where my recap can't do the comic justice because it is very dialogue-heavy. Additionally, due to how American comics are written now--i.e. geared toward being read as a complete story, or "written for the trade", as it's known--it's hard to react to an individual issue in the middle of the story like this. I have a lot to say about this story as a whole, but less so about the individual parts that make it up. Maybe that makes it a poor choice to review in my style, but here we are~

#comics #reviews #Dastardly & Muttley #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

Cartoon Violence and Comic Mischief

Hey there, shredded coconut. Well, that's all the preamble I got, so let's just get into this issue~

Here's the cover:

Honestly, not super different from the previous one, except that it's more action-y. Rather than just standing around, Dick and Mutt are now being actively pursued by this grawlix-spewing drone. I hope this gives you a good indicator of what I mean whenever I mention "rainbow gas" in the review. At least being in some sort of cartoony peril is something usual for these characters! They're rushing into the story, so so will we~

So last time, Richard "Dick" Atchley and Dudley "Mutt" Muller (as well as the latter's dog), US Air Force pilots, are sent to locate a wayward drone (War Pig One) that disappeared over a radioactive country a few days previous. The drone has somehow not run out of power, and bathes their plane in mysterious rainbow mist. After it falls apart in cartoony fashion, they're recovered to an Air Force base in Germany. During the night, Mutt visits Dick, revealing he's somehow merged with his dog into a bizarre anthropomorphic abomination, to Dick's horror.

Since Dick won't stop yelling, Mutt opts to just haul the man over his shoulders and abscond with him. Dick protests this treatment, also deeply horrified by what his friend has become. They're quickly surrounded by guards, who receive orders to terminate the pair, which sets Dick off as well, yelling at the man with flowery insults like "nincompoop". Before any orders can be carried out, though, that deranged agent Perkins comes waltzing up, carrying an enormous cartoon blunderbuss. He shoots one of the guards, blowing a hole through the man.

…A perfectly round, clean hole with no blood or gore. The man doesn't even fall over. He simply has a perfect hole through his chest, with no other apparent physical damage or impairment. Everyone other than Perkins is some mix of baffled and horrified by this. While Perkins reloads his oversized gun and the guards try to attend to their most holey fellow man, Dick and Mutt make their escape again. By luck, they run into a civilian on a motorcycle, and steal his bike while Perkins shoots at the guy, rendering him with a similar hole in his face.

The pair of them drive through the whole night, stopping at a diner for breakfast in the morning. The motorcyclist had a spare helmet, so Mutt wears it to disguise himself. The pair of them go over the events, which have Dick more angry than anything. Mutt points this out to Dick: he's not the only one who's changed. It's more subtle with Dick, but his manner of speech is definitely changing, using more creative and alliterative insults, even to average people like the motorcyclist. His word choice is also more archaic, notable since this is supposed to be taking place during then-modern day (the long-ago year of 2017).

Dick manages to calm down enough to start talking reason, and Mutt agrees they need to work together to solve this. Neither wants to be stuck as they are (Mutt especially has family at home), so they need to think of something. After a moment's thought, Dick notes there's something about that professor's name, the one who invented the reactor that caused that radioactive fallout in the first place. It might be worth looking into. And the General said they can come to him for anything, so that's basically their best lead. With no money to pay for breakfast, Dick pulls off Mutt's helmet to terrify the diner's occupants instead. Teamwork!

We get a brief interlude of the drone, War Pig One, passing over the ocean and turning a shark into a Jabberjaw expy, before it heads towards Washington D.C. That also happens to be where the General is, who's on the phone to Dick right at the moment. Both of them are arguing over the termination order. The General basically considers them Patient Zero, while Dick insists on calling in a personal favour that they're owed. Eventually tensions boil and the General takes a swing--punching Dick in the face through the phone receiver. Both are so stunned, they quietly hang up.

The pair get a hotel room that night with cash they pilfered from the diner, Dick grousing that a man like him has been reduced to petty theft. Mutt's still snickering about the punch in his distinctive, wheezy laugh. To distract themselves, they turn on the news. Given the events, the president is making a statement, and turns it over to a senator for the moment. Dick wants to turn it off, but Mutt notices something behind the president's back. He's concealing something. And before they can react, the comic ends with the president of the United States pulling out a cartoon hammer and bludgeoning the senator on live television.

Well, this story kicked off in a hurry, huh? The world's going a little bit crazy, and the more comedic things get, the more serious things get. I also appreciate the inversion from the Slapstick comics, where the more realistic violence was meant to contrast the cartoony characters. Here, the characters are all realistic, so it's the cartoony violence that's being played for horror. Like, that man who gets shot in the face only appears briefly, but the implications are horrifying. He can't speak anymore. Who knows if he can even see? He has no face, just a perfectly clean hole right through his head, big enough to pass your arm through. And yet he continues to live. It's funny when it happens to cartoons because they come back just fine the next scene. It's horrific when it happens to real people. Which is, of course, what this whole book is about~

#comics #reviews #Dastardly & Muttley #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

Pilots in the US Air Farce

Hey there, electrokinesis. Well, like I said at both the beginning and end of our look at Slapstick, we're doing a look at two different six-issue series focusing on toon physics. I was way into the concept, like, half a year back when I decided to review these. And this might be the darker of the two, fair warning! It is a Garth Ennis comic, after all. Yeah, that Garth Ennis. I normally do not like his work, but given that this isn't actually about superheroes, it's a lot easier to stomach. This is a good comic, I promise! But if it's not about superheroes, what is it, then?

Well, here's the cover:

Yeah~ This is about Hanna-Barbera characters. We're reinterpreting these beloved cartoon characters into modern, more realistic times, with a realistic art style! This seems ripe for disaster, but I promise you this goes somewhere very interesting and not as straightforward as I'm pretending with this description. So, rather than further coyness, let's get you familiar with these characters, if you've somehow avoided contact with two of the most iconic cartoon villains in, like, the last half a century or so~

The titular duo, Dick Dastardly and his sidekick doggo Muttley, got their start in Wacky Races, where their typical role was to get an early lead and then attempt to cheat and set traps to maintain that advantage. They can't simply continue and win, they're the villains, so they have to cheat. Dick really loved being a transparently evil villain. Not that he was a world-conquering monster or torturer or anything, the man just wanted to win some races. And he was really committed to his bit at doing everything in the most underhanded way he could think of.

Muttley, meanwhile, was his dog sidekick. Known best for his signature raspy giggle, Muttley didn't otherwise speak too clearly. Not that he couldn't speak at all, but usually it was some vaguely understandable muttering. And if it wasn't Dick's own overconfidence in his plans doing them in, it'd probably be because he pushed his abuse of Muttley too far or just Muttley messing with him for his own amusement. Kind of a disfunctional relationship, honestly, but what do you expect? They're the villains!

After Wacky Races, they went on to menace other Hanna-Barbera characters, particularly the likes of Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo. They also got their own spinoff, which is pretty good for a pair of villains who lost continuously! And that spinoff, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, is essentially the basis of this comic, which I promise we're gonna get to by the next paragraph. In fact, this one's almost used up, so let's dip in and see how you take that whole concept and bring it into modern realism~

So we start in the Middle Eastern country of Unliklistan, which we only see from a distance. Instead, we're hearing a radio broadcast where they're about to switch on their first atomic reactor. You can see the huge cooling tower and everything, it's the biggest building on the map. Before it starts, one reporter questions the active scientist (one Professor Dubious by name) whether the use of Unstablium-239 is a good idea. He will hear no protest, and activates the reactor. We are then treated to a massive explosion for page 2~

Four days later, we're joined in a United States Air Force jet piloted by Lt. Col. Richard Atcherly and his co-pilot Captain Dudley Muller, better known by their callsigns "Dick" and "Mutt", which I will also be using. Dick is annoyed for several reasons, not the least of which is that Mutt has brought his dog in the jet with them. Mutt reasons that low-level recon won't require the oxygen, and Dick tells him to expect the unexpected. Especially since a lot of these nations are unfriendly to begin with, and Unliklistan even more so, since the entire nation is currently irratiated following that explosion.

To that end, Mutt suddenly has a bogey on his radar. It's exactly what they've been sent to find: a surveillance drone that lost contact after investigating the explosion. And suddenly it's behind them. The pair catch a glimpse of it as it passes. It's a standard unmanned aircraft, labelled "War Pig One" on its side, and spewing a huge cloud behind it. But not a black cloud of potential engine failure. No, it's weird rainbow cloud filled with cartoon symbol swearing and other such iconography. The drone passes over them, bathing their jet in its cartoon discharge.

Dick tries to swing the jet around to follow it, but as he does so, the throttle turns into a cartoon steering wheel with an old-timey horn attached and detatches in his hands. Much like the Slapstick series before it, the cartoon objects are in a different artstyle to contrast them from the real world around them. Coloured outlines, a different kind of shading, the works. Anyway, with the steering wheel now disconnected from the aircraft, they start plunging to the ground. Mutt's eyes bug out of his head in shock, and I mean horrifically, hanging from the optic nerves and everything.

Dick yells at him to eject, and Mutt hits a button on his console, which has changed into just a single big red button. This launches them out of the jet--through the glass of their cockpit, at the end of enormous cartoon springs. They parachute to safety, and since I can see their parachutes, they're okay. Indeed, what we see next is Dick waking up in a hospital bed, covered in bandages. There's a few doctors surrounding him, letting him know that he's in a German air force base and that he's fine. Like, no trace of even any radiation sickness fine. Dick passes out again, asking vaguely where Mutt is.

Next time Dick comes to, he's being interrogated by a couple of secret agent types. They never say what organisation they work for, but they've got sunglasses, brown trenchcoats, and badges clipped to said trenchcoats. You know the type. Given they're in Germany, I'm gonna guess CIA? Anyway, while they're argumentative with Dick, they do tell him Mutt is being held in a different facility, which the wording "held" raises alarm bells for Dick. He demands more information, but they're leading the investigation, and show him a picture of the drone War Pig One.

He recognises it, stating his mission was to destroy it, which raises the suspicions of the first agent (we'll learn his name is Perkins in a few pages, let's go with that). Perkins states that the drone has been spotted in numerous locations over the Middle East and Europe since, and Dick remarks that it should've run out of fuel days ago. Perkins' partner, Nixon, tells him that it passed over their car that afternoon, and Perkins suddenly begins getting more erratic, shouting "you fool" and similar jargon, even accusing Dick of getting "wascally". Hey, is Hanna-Barbera allowed to reference Looney Tunes? Is that okay??

Dick asks if the drone was still spraying its bizarre cloud of stuff, and despite Perkins protesting not to give Dick information, Nixon confirms that they got a huge bath of the grawlix-filled mist. Dick notes to Nixon that this is when their aircraft started going out of control, then demands more information, such as where Mutt is and what exactly was being discharged from War Pig One. Perkins dives off the deep end, spewing almost as much gibberish as the drone was, until Nixon basically has to haul him away as he begins spouting cartoon cliche phrases.

Our comic ends with time having continued to pass since then. It's night and Dick's either asleep or just fading into it, when suddenly a voice calls out to him from the darkness--a voice he recognises. It's Mutt, and he's come to see him. He's escaped the other facility and is planning to have them both sneak out, but first he needs Dick to promise him to not over-react or panic when he turns on the light and shows him what happened. Dick does so, but immediately begins screaming when he catches sight of Mutt: he's fused with his dog, transforming him into a realistic anthro dog-man. As seen on the cover, so maybe this isn't as shocking to the readers as it is for Dick~

An intriguing premise to start with, eh? Of particular note, note how our titular protagonists aren't villains to start out with. (I mean, within the context of the comic; there's a lot we could argue about the US military, but this is neither the time nor place~) The clever among you can probably see where this is leading, but it's definitely the ride there that's the interesting part. As such, that's where we're headed the next few weeks~

#comics #reviews #Dastardly & Muttley #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

Tooned Out

Hey there, delicious dungeon demon desires. It's the Slapstick finale this week! It's been a great ride, but all fun must come to an end. Which is… maybe a terrible sentiment to have when dealing with literal living cartoons. But oh well! Let's just see how this fun ends~

Here's the cover:

Well, this one's a pretty fitting end and visual metaphor for the whole series. You get a symbolic "ending" with Slapstick being erased. But if you look close, what parts of him are they erasing specifically? It's his whole batch area, which the lack of has been his whole obsession throughout the comic. No wonder he's so horrified. So yeah, that's a pretty great sum-up of the comic as a whole, and a fitting note to go out on. Now let's get into it and see if Steve's downstairs desires are ever finally addressed~

All righty, recap time! So Steve Harmon, the Awesome Slapstick, has teamed up with ARMOR to go exploring Dimension Ecch, where he first gained his powers and lost his dingus. After rescuing his pal Mike in a fun Saturday morning adventure, the Princess revealed her true colours: she wants Dimension Ecch to remain sexsless (or secchsless, if you will) so she can run her baby-making scheme. And it's literal baby-making: melting down existing toons and remolding them into baby versions of themselves. Horrifying! No longer needing either of them, she condemns Slapstick and Mike to a gladiator tourney.

So that's where we open: Slapstick and Mike duking it out in front of a crowd. Except they're both totally whiffing the whole thing, since A) neither wants to actually hurt the other, and 2) to buy time in the hopes of the ARMOR agents coming up with a way to get them out of it. Because let's face it, neither of them is gonna come up with a winning plan. This goes on for some time, until the Princess dials Slapstick up on his phone and says she knows he's faking it. So either he really takes out Mike, or she will and "baby" Slapstick in the process.

So before Slapstick can make good on making Mike dead, he suddenly starts hearing a voice in his head. This voice essentially claims to be his fairy godfather, and the best way out of this mess is to breach the tower behind the stadium. To that end, Slapstick pulls a rope from his pants, then lassos Mike and swings him do-si-do into a wall. This goads Mike into playing seriously, and he pulls out a cartoon rocket launcher, blasting Slapstick backwards--and straight into the top of the tower, impacting through the wall. And he pulls Mike along because he's still lassoed with the rope. Brilliant~

Well, the Princess knows this is trouble, since that's where she's keeping her secret weapon. She sends her troops, the Luna Marines (a bunch of militaristic Sailor Scout stand-ins), to secure the tower before Slapstick finds whatever she's hiding. And what's up there? Why, it's the disembodied head of Julius T. Flakfyser, the Scientist Supreme of Dimension Ecch. He's the guy who got Slapstick his powers in the first place. Now he's a severed head, and he's been using a telepathy device to communicate with Slapstick. He also does a lot of shtick, so let me simplify it for you.

On his last adventure, when Slapstick defeated the Overlord and blew up his tower, Flakfyser got caught in the blast. His body is having fun acting as a Scooby-Doo villain in a swamp somewhere, but his head went flying and landed in the lap of a scullery maid. This worked out for both of them, as he needs her help to build a new body. She agrees, if he helps her get revenge on her evil stepmother and stepsisters. This ends up being the baby-making machine, and she uses it as she promised. And then she just keeps using it, and doesn't fill her end of the deal.

She then also used the story of the Champion and Adversary to seize political power, and that's how she became Queen Princess. But there's a grain of truth in it: Mike really is a champion. Since he's spent so much time thinking about Dimension Ecch and re-drawing Slapstick's adventures, Flakfyser believes he can re-draw the realm itself. So he actually can restore everyone's missing no-no bits. He's got a machine for it and everything. He just needs Mike to rewire it, and he needs Slapstick to fend off the Princess' troops until they can finish.

Said troops are already here, too. Every princess can call forth wildlife with her song, right? And the birds she's called are mutant ninja teenagers, and they knock Slapstick for a loop. He's blasted out of the tower, only managing to cling onto it with his tongue. By convenience, he crashes right into the cell where the ARMOR agents are being held. He grabs onto them, and Flakfyser dumps hot sauce on his tongue, which lets Slapstick rocket back into the tower using the heat. It's classic cartoon logic, very nice~

They're just in time, too, since the Princess has busted into their chamber brandishing a sword. The agents hold off her guards while Slapstick goes hammer-to-sword with her. Mike powers up the machine, and his thoughts begin to reshape Dimension Ecch back to how it was before--less cartoony, more realistic. It's happening in waves, and some of the guards start bleeding as they fight. Slapstick even briefly can feel himself turn human for a moment. It's working, and the Princess is getting desperate. So she pulls out her final gambit.

She has a new cartoon mold for her baby-ifier. Rather than a baby, she can mold Slapstick a new dingus, a better dingus that he can have while still remaining a cartoon. All he has to do is just… not save the day. She'll even let him bed her. And this is an attractive offer, especially for a frustrated 20-something who's never gotten it on. But you know what's better than sex? Not being an asshole who betrays his friends. So Slapstick beats her into a wall, where an anvil falls off a shelf and squashes her flat. How cartoonishly appropriate~

The device finishes its work, and the art style shifts the cartoony design to more realistic ones. Everyone celebrates the return of the fuc-king, and carry Mike off in joy. Everyone except Slapstick. He's remained as cartoony as ever. He asks Flakfyser what the deal is, and he replies that the invention only reshapes Dimension Ecch. Slapstick's from Earth originally. Peeved, Slapstick punts the guy's head over the horizon, which he admits he probably deserved. So despite saving everyone, our hero doesn't get what he wanted, eh?

Well, not quite. Noticing his bad mood, the other ARMOR agent--not Teresa, the one he's been hitting on, but the other gal, Isabel--comes over to ask what's wrong. He pouts how his lack of manhood makes him less of a man, and Isabel advises he forget Teresa. She'd never appreciate him anyway, she's got no sense of humour. But Isabel? She likes funny guys, and none of the other losers she's dated ever saved a whole dimension. She gives him a more private number to call, suggesting he do so once they get back to Earth. And Slapstick muses that he saved the day and got the girl. Maybe he should stop being so down on himself! Things are looking up!

But we can't end without a little sequel bait, so while Slapstick's closing out with a monologue about how sometimes happy endings do happen and everyone got what they wanted, tying up all the loose ends, we cut to a jail cell in ARMOR's facilities, where Quasimodo is grumbling to himself and scratching threats into the wall, clearly plotting a future revenge against Slapstick for selling him out… Which, sadly, as far as I know, has yet to be followed up on in a future comic! In fact, Quadimodo died in an Iron Man story in 2020, so a conclusion to that seems pretty unlikely now~

All in all, I think this series is a lot of fun. Slapstick's kind of a moody grouch of a protagonist, but not to a point where it makes him unbearable. It contrasts well with the cartoony goings-on around him. Besides, it's a realistic attitude to have, while also being an incredibly silly thing to motivate your character with. That's what makes it humorous. The various parodies are all on-point, and never come off as disrespectful to their original properties. And the excessive amounts of gore from the first couple issues tones down considerably afterwards, so I don't have any complaints about that either. A fun look at a modern Slapstick.

Next time, though, we'll be looking at something in a much less modern setting. Or at least with less modern inspirations. Like, Slapstick's book was all about a cartoon world being affected by Earth's realism. What if we go about with the opposite premise~?

#comics #reviews #Slapstick #The Awesome Slapstick #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

Nice Day for a Red Wedding

Hey there, clown corps. Headin' towards that finale now, huh? Genuinely, I don't think there's much chance of guessing where this is going, so let's just read on, shall we~?

Here's the cover:

Boy, speaking of heading for the finale… Or should I say, beheading~? Anyway, this must be the oft-rumoured princess we've been hearing so much about, eh? Nice to see her! So, what's the '80s or possibly '90s cartoon property we're fusing and lampooning today? Ah yes, that Saturday morning staple, Game of Thrones. Yeah, sure, we all grew up on that, didn't we? I guess they had this "Throne of Games" visual and wanted to lean into it. Like, there were definitely a lot of '80s and '90s cartoons about medieval kingdoms to draw from, we didn't have to go here~

We open with a cool map of the kingdom of Dimension Ecch, and I really appreciate it. Like, it's not informative for the story, I just like a cool map. Anyway, we also get some exposition. Long ago, the land was ruled by an Overlord, until the Adversary struck him down and cursed the lands to become… G-rated. And yes, they mean exactly what you think they mean. This is what all that jazz with the jokes regarding Slapstick's lack of equipment has been building up to. His dickishness has doomed an entire dimension to dicklessness~

Gotta say, I appreciate the detail in the art here. The same way that Slapstick and the other toons stood out as cartoonier than the realistic backgrounds in the previous issues, now he blends in perfectly and it's the ARMOR agents who stands out, looking realistic against the dimension's toony world. Really great work by the artist. So anyway, long story short, Slapstick is kind of annoyed no one recognises him. All that exposition didn't mention how he's really the champion and not Mike. After all, he destroyed the Overlord, where's his recognition?

So of course, overhearing him take credit clues the crowd of toons around them that he's responsible for de-organing the lot of 'em, and decide to burn him at the stake. Thankfully, his competent party members also are here to rescue him. When pressed, Slapstick tearfully admits his "condition" to Teresa, distraught that she should find him so unendowed, especially when she's starting to develop feelings for him. To be clear, the only feeling she has towards him is annoyance. Something the reader is also probably feeling by now, so let's speed this along~

Thankfully, the princess enters at this point, attended by a squad of magical girl soldiers. The princess is appalled to have heard all the talk about their privates, and fears they might be slipping into the old ways of no-no words and crude behaviour. And then, I swear to God, she breaks into a musical number. An honest-to-god Disney-esque musical number about how she solved the reproduction problem. It lasts three pages and has choreography. This comic is amazing. Slapstick is as impressed as I am, just to show you how good it is~

Anyway, the gist of her song is that everyone was despondant after their lack of genitals also seized the means of their reproduction. So she set up a system where literal storks bring everyone babies without having to go through all the, shall we say, messy parts. Slapstick wonders if maybe they took the fun out of it, but he's impressed she solved the problem regardless. It doesn't matter anyway, since now that Mike the Champion is here, he can fulfill the prophecy and restore everyone shnoodles. (I'm running out of euphamisms at this point!)

Trouble is, Mike's not here. He's still kidnapped by Skratch, the evil terrorist cat organisation. They've also teamed up with Sorceror Supreme and eternal enemy of the Taurs, the wizard Gorgonzola. You can see that Mike's makeshift costume was actually pretty spot-on. Gorgonzola is trying to get Mike to spill the beans on the prophecy and stop playing dumb. Trouble is, he's not playing. He genuinely has no idea what's going on or how to fix what's ailing them. And before Gorgonzola can interrogate further, the War DOGS start attacking their base.

While the War DOGS distract the cats, Slapstick and the ARMOR agents burst in to fight Gorgonzola. Slapstick's brought the two weapons he's proven are super useful against toon-kind: Bro-Man's sword and Quasimodo's arm cannon. So Gorgonzola simply waves his wand and makes them disappear in a puff of pink smoke. I guess magic trumps technology in this case. While the wizard continues to block shots from the agents' laser guns, Slapstick slips around and hits the man in the small of his back with his mallet. No magic spell to protect against plain ol' blunt force trauma!

He drops his wand in the process, which Taurette retrieves but cannot use. No weapon left, Gorgonzola turns to the real magic of this story: '80s cartoon parodies. As Slapstick goes to untie Mike from the big metal chair he was being held on, the chair unfolds and becomes a Transformers parody named Lay-Zee-Boyee, greatest of the Chairbots! Look, I know the Rock Lords were a thing. They didn't catch on, and I don't think Chairbots would either. Though you might get some enjoyment of having other Chairbots sit on each other.

Agent Teresa leaps up onto Lay-Zee-Boyee--who, incidentally, speaks in "robot" versions of urban slang (e.g. "Motherboard said knock you out")--and begins rewiring him to control his transformations. Keep in mind Mike is still tied to this robot as well. It's not important, but it will help add to the bizarreness of whatever you're visualising. She manages to get him to turn into a missile shape, and Slapstick uses his mallet to whack the missile, rocketing it straight into Gorgonzola, pinning him to the wall. If it wasn't an '80s cartoon, it'd probably be gruesome!

Rex also enters, having defeated the Skratch Commander offscreen. With the villains all mopped up, they return to the princess, now with Champion Mike in tow. Hey, are you expecting a twist? Because here it is! Gasp, the princess is evil! She's even doing a dark reprise of her song! Toons are immortal, but they can be broken down and melted. That's her baby-making business. To demonstrate, she melts down Gorgonzola and turns him into a baby, literally recasting him in a mold. Business is booming, so why should she let a couple of outworlders get in her way? To that end, she condemns both Champion and Adversary to a death battle in the arena to close the issue.

This issue is mostly a fight scene (and I have a feeling the finale will be too), but it is very silly, so I don't mind that as much as usual. Like, at least this fight scene is enjoyable to read, compared to half the ones in Suicide Squad. There's honestly still a lot going on here, so we'll see how they wrap it up in 22 minutes--I mean, pages--next issue~

#comics #reviews #Slapstick #The Awesome Slapstick #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

Cry Havoc! And Let Slapstick the Dogs of War

Hey there, jetpack technology. We're half done this Slapstick miniseries by now! We'll be two-thirds done by the end of this one! Isn't the number six grand? Well, let's get into it~

Here's the cover:

Oh boy, this cover. One, Slapstick himself is barely integrated into it. He feels like an afterthought. If this were a larger multimedia franchise, I'd think that was his stock art down there. No, instead, we're selling this cover based on the other thing on it. That's right, furries, we're targeting you! Let's talk about that for a minute! So, obviously, the first thing the War DOGS here are parodying is GI Joe (the ninja design really sells that). That fits with the other '80s references the series has been making: Bro-Man was He-Man, the Taurs were Smurfs with a light coat of MLP. But the second thing~?

Hey, show of hands, who remembers Road Rovers~? Because I remember Road Rovers. I was super into Road Rovers as a kid. Only lasted 13 episodes, believe it or not. It was very much in the vein of the other WB shows of its era: Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Freakazoid. Except it was an entirely action-focused cartoon with the same level of comedy, which is probably why it didn't last too long. Now, you could also argue it's a SWAT Kats reference, but A) the War DOGS are dogs, not cats, and 2) both are from the '90s, so it's odd either way~

Anyways, I could ramble about Road Rovers for the rest of this review, but Steve Harmon, AKA Slapstick, in an effort to cure his clowny cartoon condition, is conscripted by ARMOR to fight off other cartoons that invade our dimension. To that end, last issue he fought off the aforementioned Taurs, rescuing their lone female member, Taurette, in the process. Taking leave, Slapstick spends his time rebuilding the very portal that got him in trouble with ARMOR to begin with. And it's still getting him in trouble, as it starts shooting out beams that turn inanimate objects into very animated cartoons~

Steve's mom is upstairs remarking to her husband how she's glad Mike is visiting, she likes how he's a stabilising, grounding influence on Steve. Mike has a job, Mike has his own place, Mike isn't chasing some silly dream of being a superhero or mercenary or whatever the kids are calling it these days. Nothing strange happens when Mike's around. Of course, it's at this moment that the cartoon cup of coffee charges out from Steve's basement bedroom declaring he's "off the hizzy for shizzy". Perfectly normal events in the Harmon household~

Mrs. Harmon goes down to give her son a talking-to, during which the broom she's holding also catches one of the stray cartoonifying energy bolts and starts making lewd remarks about how she grips it. Slapstick snatches it away while his mom storms off, complaining "Richard, do you know what your son just did? He turned the broom perverted!" I feel like this issue alone, let alone this whole miniseries, could give me a top ten list of amazing out-of-context dialogue lines from comic books. We're only on page two!

Slapstick retreats back into his room, asking for a minute to think of something. Mike retorts that him thinking is what started this mess. While Slapstick's dirty laundry comes to life and begins a revolt, Mike reaches his breaking point and tries to slam the big red button on the portal device. Except… Slapstick didn't build the thing with an off switch. It only has an on switch, because he didn't want anyone turning it off while he was using it. I think that's more of the kind of thinking that got him in this mess, yeah.

He next tries to go for the plug, but the machine defends itself with another piece of equipment coming to life to protect it. Likewise, the fusebox comes to life before Slapstick can blow the power grid. This is getting out of hand--and out of room, as the cartoonification begins spreading to other appliances in the house. Such as the dishwasher turning on Mrs. Harmon. Now Slapstick's mad. It's one thing to go after him, but when you go after his family, it's too far. See, in spite of his attitude and lack of forethought and disregard of the law, he's still a decent guy under that clown costume.

While Slapstick holds back the other appliances, Mike also leaps into action. To fight a cartoon, you gotta think like a cartoon, right? So he manages to fight his way over to that on switch again, but this time he writes "OFF" over the "ON" and hits the button. And this works. That's absolutely fantastic, well done. However, it's only prevented further catastrophe, as it's shut down the portal but not reversed the transformations. ARMOR might have to come by and sort all that out. Which Slapstick is not looking forward to, in spite of his crush on that one agent.

Before they can further react, however, even more nonsense hits the fan. The War DOGS' tank materialises in Slapstick's room, and if he has a basement room big enough to hold a tank, maybe I'd be reluctant to move out too. Also, their appearance is accompanied by theme music, to Mike and Slapstick's bafflement. The War DOGS (which stands for War Defense Operations Guerrilla Squadron) start blasting, and their blue lasers have the effect of de-toonifying all the rambunctious furniture. Slapstick is unaffected, since he's been a toon too long.

With the active threat now neutralised, the War DOGS sound off. There's too many of them to go into detail (a full 12 characters with distinct designs, army roles, and dog breeds), but Rex is the leader of the bunch. And the only girl is named Crimson, because the GI Joe equivalent was Scarlett. And the ninja is named Silent-But-Deadly, in case you forgot what kind of comic this is. Rex reports that they were told by an informant that the Princess' champion may be here--and the devious enemy team Skratch may be after him. They can't let that happen.

So the War DOGS, Mike, and Slapstick all file out of the house, headed for the streets to do recon. Before Silent-But-Deadly can get in position, though, the dastardly felines of Skratch attack! They demand the surrender of the champion. And yes, they are indeed just a cat-themed version of Kobra. (That's the other reason why the War DOGS can't be SWAT Kats.) A brawl ensues, and in the midst of the fight, Mike gets hit by laserfire. Slapstick is pissed. He's tired of this "champion" nonsense, since every time it comes up, his friends and family around him just get hurt.

Slapstick takes off running, hoping to lead the fight to an empty field or something, so no random innocents will get hurt. But after a bit, he notices that, just like his Twitter account, nobody is following him. Looking back, he sees Skratch loading a captive Mike into a portal and disappearing. He begins shouting that they've got the wrong guy. Rex replies that of course that human is the champion. That's why they have to come to this dimension to find the champion in the first place. How could Slapstick be the champion? He's a toon like them!

ARMOR (including Agents Teresa, Isabel, and Taurette) shows up to corraborate Rex's story. Think about it: Mike and Slapstick were both at the football game when Bro-Man attacked. And the Taurs attacked the mall where Mike works, not the ARMOR facility where Slapstick was being held. Anyway, ARMOR is here to arrest the War DOGS for the dimension breech, but they explain they just used Slapstick's portal, getting him in trouble. But that's not important now. He'll deal with consequences later. All that's important is getting his friend back. So he ends the issue by leading a team-up of himself, ARMOR, and the War DOGS through the portal to Dimension Ecch…

I think, like last time, this issue a lot of fun. It's zany, it's silly, it's tiny, it's toony, it's all a little loony~ The solution to the over-powered portal is beautiful in its cartoon logic. And the parodies continue to remain on point, if a little one-sided leaning. Like, the Taurs were very Smurfs-coded (the names being "X Taur", the Smurfette type, the wizard antagonist, the hats) with just a bit of a My Little Pony coat of paint in their design. The War DOGS are the same way: very GI Joe parody with just a dash of Road Rovers slapped on top. Even Bro-Man is basically just He-Man with only a little Conan the Barbarian in appearance. So it's not really a parody fusion, it's a parody of one property with another property painted over it. I know they don't have time to run into the whole backstory of all these shows they're riffing on, just saying it's an odd amalgamation of things. I guess adding the second parody just makes it wackier or something. It's not bad in any way, just a thing I noticed about the choices.

Anyway, next issue, we're finally going to see the much-discussed Dimension Ecch and meet its oft-rumoured princess~

#comics #reviews #Slapstick #The Awesome Slapstick #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

My Little Taury: Friendship is Parodic

Hey there, sheep of your dreams. A rare update for Leap Day! Honestly, couldn't have picked a better series for this to happen during. Seems fitting, no?

Here's the cover:

All right, now you kind of see why I wanted to review this series, eh~? So here are the Taurs, the MLP/Smurfs hybrids that closed out last issue. We'll be getting to know them a bit more closely in this one, so that's all I'll tell you here. Instead, let's analyse these cutie marks. There's some classically evil stuff: skull and crossbones, inverted pentagram, Bill Cipher… A couple over here have Backstabber and Money=Power… Easily the most baffling one is the "stock woman on truck's mudflaps silhouette". What kinda traits does that confer~?

Our hero(?) Steve Harmon wishes to rid himself of his Slapstick persona, and to that end, he's hired tech goon Quasimodo to research a solution. Since Dimension Ecch gave him his powers, a trip back should undo it. They open a makeshift portal, but are detected and apprehended by SHIELD offshoot ARMOR before they can use it. Turns out there's been a rash of incursions from the dimension, including Bro-Man last issue, and they want to know the connection. When another incursion occurs and the Taurs invade, Slapstick volunteers to take care of it to throw ARMOR off his scent.

We actually join this issue by checking in with Slapstick's buddy Mike, who's working at an art supply shop in a mall in Paramus. He's recounting the events of last issue to his co-worker Jenny, noting how it'll make a great scene for his graphic novel. She's mostly feigning interest, privately thinking how it won't last six issues. Yes, very droll, a wink and a nod to the fourth wall. Except Mike's pitching a graphic novel. They aren't sold issue by issue. Maybe Jenny doesn't know that, but I do, and the distinction is something I love to nitpick~

While Mike continues to go on about presenting it at New York Comic Con, he suddenly feels a sudden sharp pain. He turns to find himself being attacked by one of the Taurs. He yells for Jenny that one of the high-end toys from Kay-Bee has gone Westworld, but that doesn't make any sense. Kay-Bee Toys went out of business in 2009! He seizes the Taur, berating it for breaking the First Law of Robotics, only to now have a view outside into the rest of the mall. The rest of the Taurs are running a slaughter over the other mall patrons.

Slapstick is teleported in, and he starts gleefully going to town on the Taurs. It's a fun fight scene, because keep in mind the Taurs are exactly as small as you think. Basically the size of a FiM brushable pony. Less than six inches tall, I'd say. So while Slapstick has the size on them, the Taurs have the numbers, evening the odds. They also have pointier weapons, at least at first. Once they jab him in the eyes, Slapstick utters the utterly immortal lines "No more Mr. Nice Clown! I'm reaching into my angry pants!" God, I love comic books.

Thankfully, Slapstick has no junk, so he won't be arrested for this. Instead, what he pulls from his pants is Bro-Man's sword. It's already been proven that this sword can cut through electroplasm creatures (but not actually kill them), and it's just as effective on the Taurs as it was at bisecting Bro-Man. In fact, it can cut through anything, and Slapstick's wild swinging unfortunately has him cut through a load-bearing support beam to the level above, collapsing part of the mall's walkway on top of him, losing the sword in the rubble.

Before the Taurs can advance again, they're halted by some weapons above. Mike and Jenny turn up, having raided the crafting store they work in to deck themselves out in post-apocalypse armour and makeshift weapons. This gives Slapstick the chance to haul himself out of the heap, where he finds another Taur in his hair. Before he can heave the invader, she has him halt. Introducing herself as Taurette (which thankfully does not lead to the joke you probably think it might), she offers to help Slapstick defeat her brethren if he spares her.

See, she's the only female among her people, and thus is constantly subject to taursplaining and the male gaze. So she requests asylum on the champion's world. Slapstick agrees, not bothering to tell her that his own people are just as bad. She tells them that the Taurs fear only one thing: the Sorceror Supreme of their dimension, Gorgonzola. He's a wizard who's out to capture the Taurs because they excrete gold. Well, at least he doesn't want to eat them. Slapstick gets a crafty look in his eye. Appropriate, since they're also holed up in the craft store.

As the Taurs--led by their red-hatted, bearded leader, Patriarchy Taur--prepare to regroup, suddenly another bearded figure in red flies overhead. The wizard Gorgonzola declares the Taurs have no refuge from his magic in this realm. In close-up, however, it's clearly Mike being hoisted by a rope, while Taurette hides in his fake beard and feeds him lines. The Taurs all soil themselves in terror--which, I remind you, means they all shit out gold nuggets. The sight of all that wealth gets the better of Slapstick, and he drops the rope he's hoisting Mike/Gorgonzola with, right on top of the Taurs.

The Taurs fortunately don't grasp the deception, but they do notice "Gorgonzola" has Taurette, and attempt to recapture her back to their village. Slapstick re-seizes the rope and swings into the fray, pulling Mike aside. He grabs Taurette from the horde, and not knowing how else to protect her, stuffs her down his inter-dimensional pants. Being stuffed down a clown's pants would traumatise anyone, and Taurette snaps at having to cope with this. She declares she will never be a damsel in distress again and grabs a nearby pocket knife defiantly.

Cutting a hole to free herself, Taurette bursts out of Slapstick's pants, causing a load of his stored objects to also come spilling out. Though briefy embarassed at being in his briefs, Slapstick tells Mike and Taurette to run for it while he holds them off. He doesn't initially have a plan until he spots something among the junk: the robot gun-arm he took from Quasimodo in issue 1. The one that shoots a horrifying electroplasm-disrupting beam. He immediately begins scrambling the Taurs into colourful puddles of goo.

The beam only destabilises them, however, it doesn't kill them. They're still alive and aware, and the big pastel puddle begins swirling around Slapstick. Before he can drown in a pool of Taur juices, the ARMOR agents show up with a big vacuum containment device, sucking up the goo formally known as the Taurs. Taurette buddies up to the competent women who just saved the day, while Slapstick tries not to make an ass of himself despite being literally caught with his pants down. The agent he's crushing on gives him a number to call if another incursion happens, and he treats it like a personal number.

The agents depart with Taurette, and Slapstick and Mike leave with the Taurs' golden leavings. A few days go by, and Mike drops by Slapstick's (parents') house to show off having redrawn his comic pages again. At least he's perfecting his craft! He finds Slapstick hopped up on coffee, having spent the last few days re-creating the portal to Dimension Ecch, deliberately in spite of ARMOR's warnings. Unfortunately, as the comic ends, he didn't successfully remake the portal--he made a device that ports Dimension Ecch's nonsense to this dimension, bringing several inanimate objects to cartoony life~

Well, this issue's a lot of fun. It's the least excessively-violent so far, only a bit of blood at the beginning. The Taurs being hyper violent is an excellent joke, contrasting how gentle their two blending series (My Little Pony and The Smurfs) are. The issue is a lot of fight scenes, but it's a lot of cartoony fun in the fight scenes. Most of the comics I complain about just being an issue of fight scenes (see: The Culling or any given Suicide Squad issue) are just schlocky action movie fodder, while this one is more like a stereotypical episode of Tom & Jerry. And also, despite this series not being above lowbrow, crude humour--the jockstrap pile, the Taurs crapping gold, all the mentions of Slapstick's dingus--I applaud it for knowing where the line is and not doing the obvious joke regarding Taurette's name. Kudos, comic~

#comics #reviews #Slapstick #The Awesome Slapstick #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

Isn't It Bro-Mantic?

Hey there, expired pepperoni sticks. We don't have Saturday morning cartoons anymore, at least not the way I knew them. But perhaps we can still live through them in other ways. Such as a superhero comic book with an embittered cartoon as its protagonist~

Here's the cover:

It's Slapstick vs Bro-Man! Other than letting you get a look at Bro-Man, I dunno if there's much to say about it. If you look at the background, it is kind of a realistic sort of background, which does at least contrast our characters. And if they're not cartoony enough, there's some grawlixes! Good enough? I hope so! Sorry this cover analysis is so short!

Our recap: Steve Harmon, the Awesome Slapstick, is a grouchy early-20s fellow, eager to move out of his parents' house. He's also a bit tired of being a cartoon clown, as he's sadly gotten stuck in his alternate identity. To the first end, he's been saving money by swiping mercenary jobs off Deadpool's account. To the second, he's hired tech-goon Quasimodo to work on solving his cartoony problem. Speaking of cartoony problems, though, while at a college football game, the field is invaded by our cover darling, Bro-Man, here to fight "the Princess' champion".

Bro-Man, Master of the Multiverse, immediately sets the tone for the comic by declaring he does not like to repeat himself, but announces himself again to search for the champion. You know, because it's the first page, and we need to remind the reader of the previous issue's cliffhanger. Slapstick prefers not to get involved, because he's a mercenary, not a superhero. Plus the campus cops showed up to gun down Bro-Man--to no avail. And to show you he's not a bad person, Slapstick decides to get involved after all because the violence is upsetting his young niece and nephew.

Slapstick jumps into the fray, but his mallet does little against Bro-Man's muscles. So he muscles himself up to match his physique with the classic cartoon trick of blowing into his thumb. However, being in melee range, allows Bro-Man the chance to cut off Slapstick's arm. It's a bloodless cut (unlike the policemen earlier), but Slapstick's still freaked out by the fact that he managed to do it at all. Normally he's invulnerable. And this is the second time in 24 hours! If he had a nickel for every time I referenced this meme, he'd probably have way more than two nickels at this point~

Fortunately, he has a spare arm hidden down his pants, which for once is not a lead-in to complain about his lack of "equipment". As he reattaches his arm, he also throws out a ton of other stuff that he has in the interdimensional storage space in his pants, including a bottle of mustard, a Batarang, an original Game Boy, the puzzle box from Hellraiser, and a rubber chicken. Bro-Man gets annoyed with the antics and mustard stains on his loincloth, and charges up his sword with energy. By the power of Greykin, he has the power!

He blasts Slapstick with the energy bolt, sending him through a wall and into the unwashed jockstraps piled around the locker room. This leads to a parody of Amazing Spider-Man #33, the famous one where he thinks about his loved ones and summons the strength to lift a huge pile of machinery off of himself. And it's the same here, except it's a huge pile of jockstraps. Just so you know the humour level of the book. But summon his inner strength and lift the dirty jocks he does! Just in time, too, because Bro-Man has cornered his niece and nephew and his friend Mike.

Thinking fast, Slapstick grabs a bar of soap and tosses it homeward, and Bro-Man slips on it when he advances towards Slapstick's loved ones. Slapstick then grabs his sword and cleaves Bro-Man cleanly down the middle. The fact that he just splits in half, no blood or guts, and lies on the floor proves that he's also made of electroplasm, just like Slapstick. And by the time SHIELD shows up to contain the situation, they discover only a ruined locker room and half of Bro-Man's body. Everyone else is long gone.

See, Slapstick brought the other half of Bro-Man with him, taking him to Quasimodo, who is hiding out in Steve's basement bedroom. He figures Quas can analyse the guy and find a way to reverse the Electroplasm transformation. And overnight, they devise a solution: if it was a visit to Dimension X (or Dimension Ecch, as it's been retconned) that transformed him in the first place, then another visit should be what he needs to turn back. They've managed to open a portal, but before they can step through, there's a knock at the door.

It's not his mom bugging him again either, it's SHIELD come a-calling. They have the left half of Bro-Man, and he's been babbling all night about what he's seeing out of his right eye. They finally managed to put it all together, and tracked them down to this spot. See, they're actually a division of SHIELD called ARMOR (not invented for this comic, believe it or not!) that specifically monitor alternate realities and the like. So they've detected the portal and incursion by Bro-Man, and now they're all in ARMOR custody, immediately teleporting them to their base.

Once held, Slapstick has two things on his mind: not telling the feds anything, and hitting on the hot agent that brought him in. Well, at least he has his priorities. When it becomes apparent that they can contain him indefinitely and Agent Teresa Rigotti isn't returning his advances, he turns on the waterworks (by way of a cartoon raincloud overhead) and starts selling out Quasimodo. They note that it was pretty evident Quas was opening a portal, but he's also working for someone else. Which is also true--Slapstick is the one employing him.

While Slapstick is trying to decide whether to sell out Deadpool or "that guy in the spider costume", an alarm goes off. Seems there's another incursion, and they're producing the same signal as Slapstick and Bro-Man, so they're likely just as invulnerable. It's a whole army this time as well: a bunch of brightly coloured centaurs that are equal parts My Little Pony and Smurfs. They're called the Taurs, and when asked if they have anyone who can even stand up against them, Slapstick volunteers. The agents groan, because they realise they don't have any other options~

So this is where the series starts getting really fun. Slapstick's a bit less dour in this one, but he's not complaining about his lack of privates, and he's doing the right thing--even if for wrong and jokey reasons. (He fights Bro-Man because he made his niece and nephew cry, and he can't stand the sound of kids crying. But I think it's an act because he's a grouch who doesn't like superheroes.) But the style and expressions for the blatant He-Man parody are pretty on point, and the comedy starts to shine more in this issue. And with the reveal of the Taurs for next time, you can really start to see where it's going to get absurd~

#comics #reviews #Slapstick #The Awesome Slapstick #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

Slap-Happy Fun!

Hey there, paisanos. Well, we came to the end of Rainbow Brite way too early, but we sure enjoyed what we got, huh? A little bittersweet. However, it's left me in a bit of a cartoon mood. As such, I got a theme thing I wanna run through for a while. I got two different series, each six issues long, that both use toon physics as a major story feature, in somewhat different ways. And to start with, let's talk a little about the protagonis for our first series~

So, probably the comic would introduce the backstory itself, but why don't we go into detail here, then we won't have to during the comic review! To that end, here's our hero: Steve Harmon, AKA the awesome Slapstick. Steve was the class clown and loved pranks and tasteless jokes. He'd do very well on modern Youtube, but his original series came out in 1992. When he got caught before a prank could go off, he dressed up as a clown to sneak into a nearby carnival for revenge. However, before his plan could come about, he ends up pulled into Dimension X by the evil clowns runing the carnival, and is transformed into a living cartoon!

Now he's Slapstick, a being made of a mysterious substance called electroplasm. Slapstick can be stretched and beaten and suffer any number of horrible torments, but not actually hurt. He also has a pair of gloves that act as a pocket dimension he can pull objects out of, particularly his signature mallet. Slapstick eventually defeats the evil clowns, rescues his kidnapped classmates, and realises he just had a full-on superhero origin. Now he can go and fight crime! Pretty good for a new character in a four-issue miniseries in 1992!

Slapstick had relatively few appearances since then. He became a member of the New Warriors, and despite his cartoony personality, he was particularly loyal to his teammates, as seen in Avengers: The Initiative, which was his next major appearance. This was following Civil War in Marvel, just to put you on the timeline. It was about this time that Steve spent more and more time as Slapstick, and eventually lost the ability to turn back into his human self. Problem is, he's your average high school teenager swimming in hormones, and his cartoon self doesn't have, shall we say, "an outlet" for that. This is a plot point, believe it or not!

So, being frustrated in such a way, conscripted by the military, and all the bullshit he went through in said military, Slapstick became a little bitter and cynical. Not unpleasantly so, he's not dark and gritty or anything, he's just a bit grouchy. This is what leads to his next major appearance: Deadpool and the Mercs for Money. This team included, aside from Deadpool himself, Foolkiller, Solo, Stingray, Terror Inc., Masacre, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and Hit-Monkey. Not a cheerful group! It was goofy, but they were also shooting people for money. In fact, most of them being unlikeable assholes is why Steve left the group and moved back in with his parents, which is where we find him now~

And after all that, here's the cover:

This cover (which is also the cover of the trade paperback I'm reading from) basically tells you everything you need to know. Here's Slapstick, living cartoon clown, who inhabits an otherwise realistic world. Well, as realistic as the Marvel Universe can be. But that's the best part. Slapstick is drawn with thick black outlines and minimal shading, standing out against all the other characters, who are rendered in a more realistically-drawn and properly shaded style. He really does look like a cartoon interacting with the real world. It's very good! Also, he commits unspeakable violence, as seen here. Like, this book is actually pretty violent and gory, and I will do my best to warn you when that's about to go down.

So we open in Bayonne, New Jersey, where a group of generic thugs are doing a crime down at the docks. It's not even past the first page before Slapstick appears, doing a cartoony violence on them to thwart their intended crimes. And I do mean a violence. You know, they shoot him, he plays like he's dead, then springs right back up and spits the bullets back at them. And he can spit the bullets at a machinegun speed. Or he knocks the teeth out of one guy's mouth, then hits the teeth with his mallet into another guy's eyes. Painful! Like, these first three pages are pretty violent. Use them as a litmus test!

These opening pages have just been a tale Steve (still in his Slapstick guise) has been telling at the dinner table, back in his hometown of Plainfield. His young niece and nephew are super into it, but the adults don't much care for his boasting. His parents don't much care for his non-traditional job, his brother Richard is only interested in his own IT work, and Richard's wife Portia thinks Steve ought to just give up being a mercenary and start a family. Mrs. Harmon tells her to downplay the idea, since Steve's "inability to perform his husbandly duties" is a sore point for him.

Steve leaves the table in disgust, which I think anybody would if their mom started talking about their "downstairs" problems at the dinner table. He storms outside and uses his phone to look for any ongoing merc jobs. Deadpool still hasn't figured out Steve's been using his log-in on MERK (the Uber for mercs!), so Slapstick's been swiping jobs off the system to spite his old boss. And he's found a listing for group of thieves breaking into the Edison Museum in West Orange, which is right nearby! Like, it gives a highway exit number and everything. If you learn nothing else from this comic, at least you'll learn some New Jersey geography!

Upon reaching the museum, Slapstick already finds himself on the right track: there's a sneaky shadow a-sneaking about on the roof! Upon jumping up to take a look, he encounters… the spectacular Spider-Man! Well, West Orange is pretty close to Manhattan, it's not out of the question. This was late 2016, so Spidey had just gotten his body back from Doc Ock and Parker Industries had not yet crashed and burned. He also notes it's been a while since he last teamed up with Slapstick, but Slapstick somehow doesn't recognise him at all. J. Jonah Jameson wishes he could be so lucky~

There's a brief fight, but Spidey easily dodges Slapstick's mallet swings, then trips him with a web-line. Slapstick recognises the move as one a buddy of his named Scarlet Spider used to do. Well, his debut was in the early '90s. Spidey's miffed to be compared to his clone, but both of them hunker down and clam up as the real thieves turn up. Slapstick slips off, pulls one of the goons away, and slips into his uniform, which looks ridiculous on his cartoon body. He then leads the rest of the goons into a nearby warehouse. A well-pulled ruse!

Slapstick begins beating up the goons, using their own gunfire to take out several of them. Spider-Man also soon enters, having heard the sound effects of "GUN GUN GUN GUN". No, I'm dead serious. Spidey's kind of appalled at all the blood, wondering what kind of superhero Slapstick is, acting like that. Slapstick is offended as well, being a "superhero" is a childish concept. Their argument doesn't keep up for much longer, as the goons resume shooting. Spidey goes back to non-lethally restraining them, like a loser non-mercenary, and Slapstick peels off to find the stolen loot he was hired to recover.

Down below, he encounters Quasimodo, a low-rent D-list Fantastic Four villain. Picture MODOK, but instead of a giant floating head, he's a hunchback man with He-Man action figure proportions. Ram-Man. Picture Ram-Man with a monocle, if he was in Tron. He also speaks in an incredibly robotic way, doing both the Elcor thing of stating intention before the sentence and using BASIC syntax. Actual dialogue: "10 DECLARE Soon none will dare mock Quasimodo--instead they will think he is hot stuff! 20 DECLARE Many of the Tinder dates will be mine! 30 LOOP Ha ha ha ha ha."

Slapstick leaps in to fight him, mostly to get him to shut up. He has the upperhand for a bit, but Quasimodo does a molecular scan and determines that Slapstick is made of electroplasm. And with that, he determines a particular frequency, firing a laser at Slapstick. He's at first skeptical, because nothing in this dimension has been able to hurt him thusfar. But then his arm actually begins to destabilise and melt. If he wasn't so cartoony, it'd probably be horrific. As it is, it looks mostly like a paint smear. Disturbing, certainly, but not graphic.

However, his arm doesn't totally slough off and dissolve, and Slapstick realises it can't be destabilised any further than it already is. So he uses his messed-up arm as a shield to get in close, then whacks Quasimodo big over the head with his mallet. Soon enough, Spider-Man comes in, having mopped up all the goons. Everything's good down here, too. Spidey reclaims the equipment for Parker Industries, and he splits, glad the team-up is over. Once he's gone, Slapstick lets the other shoe drop: he kept Quasimodo's involvement secret, stashing the villain before Spidey's arrival.

See, Slapstick's reasoned that if Quas here can find a frequency that destabilises his form a bit, perhaps he can find a way to undo it altogether. He's a little tired of being stuck in this form without access to his privates--plus, he still needs his arm restored anyway. But of course, why should a villain like Quasimodo help him? Why should he help any human? That's easy: since the accident, he ain't human. And besides, he doesn't want to imprison or coerce or trap Quas. No, in fact, what he wants is to hire him…

Next day, in New Brunswick, Slapstick does in fact have his arm back in working condition. No cure yet, but I'm sure he's working on it. This also confirms that Slapstick is indeed in his early 20s or 19 at the earliest--he and his buddy Mike are stated to be out of high school. In fact, they're here for a college football game! It's a fictional "New Jersey University", but given that they're in New Brunswick, it's likely a stand-in for Rutgers. Mike's glad things are looking up for Steve. He's hoping to pitch Slapstick's adventures as a graphic novel, and humorously the brief page he shows is in the style of the original 1992 series. Slapstick isn't impressed~

Mike, Slapstick, and his niece and nephew take a seat to watch the game, and the ref calls for mascots to clear the field. However, the brawny figure marching across the field ignores him, instead loudly declaring himself to be Bro-Man, Master of the Multiverse, and here to fight the Princess' champion. Mike muses that the guy looks kind of like Steve, and indeed, he's drawn in a similar flat-coloured thick-outlined style. The comic ends with the other team's mascot comes to clear the guy out, Bro-Man merely pulls out his sword, and gruesomely cleaves the guy in two. He's just another 3D sack of meat, not the champion he seeks…

Well, this is off to a pretty fun start. It's not like we're doing a gritty, dark reimagining or anything here, like I said. We're just contrasting a very silly character with the more realistic world around him--and frankly, he's a little sick of being the silly character, too. Basically it's Who Framed Roger Rabbit if Eddie Valiant was in Roger's body. Really, you can't blame poor Steve for his surly attitude. He got goofy-ass powers that eventually stopped turning off, got drafted into superhero boot camp where his former teammates' names were dragged through the mud (it was a whole thing), joined a mercenary group and then got kicked out of said group, had to move back in with his judgmental parents, and can't satisfy one of his basic needs as a human being--which he doesn't even resemble anymore. He's frustrated, it's understandable! Relatable, even. The violence and blood are a little high, but again, it's just to contrast him with the real world. Any cartoon would survive those injuries! So we'll see just how well he does against Bro-Man next time~

#comics #reviews #Slapstick #The Awesome Slapstick #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

Colour Me Sad

Hey there, crumb dumpsters. It's February now, huh? Or, wait, was it already February last week…? It all kind of runs together, doesn't it? Ah, well, let's just get into it.

Here's the cover:

Ah, good, another really nice cover. I'm glad to get to show you her red outfit, because it's pretty cool. The best covers of this series have all been the most magical-girl-focused ones, haven't they? Maybe that's a lesson other comics need to take to heart. I mean, I'd read Batman more if he was a magical girl, wouldn't you~? Anyways, cool cover, and cool outfit for someone who's essentially a magical girl track-and-fielder~

Our story so far: Real world girl Wisp used her friend Willow's security system to fight shadow monsters and got sent to the Rainbow Lands, where she took up the role of legendary hero, Rainbow Brite. The King of Shadows is stealing all colour from the world, so she has to unite the seven Color Guardians to reignite Rainbow Castle. She, her sprite friend Twinkle, and Color Guard Red Flare are in the land of Red Mesas to do exactly that: rescue another Color Guard from the dungeons. But first, they gotta fight an evil robot named Herky. Excellent!

Herky is a robot with one objective: grab the intruders. He's already got Red Flare in his grip, but Wisp is a bit more clever. Recall that Red Flare thinks his power of super speed is only good for running away. Wisp, however, is a little more clever, and able to use it offensively. She first runs deeper into the cave so she can use the tunnel to dodge an extended fist, and then loops around so she runs behind the various lizard minions, while Herky punches and knocks them all out. See how super speed can be the best power~?

Herky, frustrated now, activates his ultimate move: spin mode. Fall before the unchecked might of… the windmill! Red Flare quickly becomes ill, while Wisp just shows her skill at jumprope. Finally, Herky gives up on capturing her, and goes instead for outright attacking. He slams the ground, which causes the sands to ripple enough to knock Wisp off her feet. Herky's fist comes down, and she's knocked out. The next time we see our heroes, they're undeground, in the prison cells set below the mine. Captured…

Red Flare is depowered and Wisp is unconscious, but she's being tended to by someone off-screen. The dialogue indicates it's the green Color Guardian. While they tend to Wisp (with the help of Twinkle and the green sprite, Lucky), Red Flare gushes about Wisp's performance. Red Flare's own red Sprite, Romeo, is also here. Having seen her in action now, he's definitely convinced she's the real deal for Rainbow Brite now. Twinkle backs him up, telling Lucky all about their adventures so far. They're also preparing some bandages for the unconscious Wisp.

Wisp doesn't stay that way for long, though, since she's the main character and all. She wakes up, and almost screams. And here's where we get our first look at the green Color Guard. Now, Red Flare is just a human boy with spiky black hair. Green, on the other hand, has bark-brown skin covered in swirl patterns, and leaf-like green hair. She has two small branch-like horns just above her eyebrows, and her eyes have large black irises. She introduces herself as Patty, claiming her real name is too hard to pronounce with human mouthparts.

Yep, remember when Twinkle explained that Rainbow Land provides colour for all the other worlds? Yep, that was confirming the existence of aliens. When choosing Color Guard candidates, why not pick from the best in all the universe? Wisp is pretty stunned by the revelation, even having been in Rainbow Land with a magical Sprite for about a day or so now. However, while she's yelling about this, another voice rudely tells her to keep it down, as some folks are trying to sleep. And then from nothing, a fourth Sprite appears. I almost said "third", because Romeo has not contributed one lick to the conversation so far.

This is Gloomy, a dark-coloured Sprite, who's also called an Envy or N.V.--a Non-Visible. Colour extends beyond the spectrum of what we can see, you know! Gloomy is the Sprite for Ultraviolet. He's kind of understandably crabby because most folks can't even perceive him. It's hard to invite someone to a picnic if you don't even know if they're in attendance. Just like he's crabby now because they're interrupting his nap. Twinkle points out that he's not even locked up in a cell like they are, but he demands they be the ones to leave.

Wisp tries talking to him, but he's no less patient with her. He already knows who she is, because he knows Twinkle's own backstory. Twinkle used to get bullied because he was a white Sprite. But there's no such thing as a white Sprite. He doesn't know what land he belongs to or what his purpose is. So he poured himself into studying, and that's how he discovered the history of white Sprites and the legends of Rainbow Brite. He's been waiting all his life for Rainbow Brite to appear, so he'd finally have a purpose. And now he's found her!

Wisp calls Gloomy out for being a bully, since he doesn't see her saving anybody from that side of the cage. At least she tried! At least Twinkle tried, and he had to go all the way to another world. And Lucky and Romeo are here, too! Where's Gloomy's Color Guard, after all? Gloomy replies that it takes a certain kind of person to be the Ultraviolet Guard, and while he's listing off virtues, he catches wind of an unusual scent on Wisp. No one else can detect it, but he asks if she was wearing other clothing today. She mentions her friend Willow's jacket from earlier, and this is Gloomy's eureka moment.

Gloomy disappears, and they're not sure if he just turned invisible or not. He hasn't--we cut back to Earth. Like I said, it's been at least a day since Wisp and Twinkle met, and both Wisp's and Willow's families are at the police, trying to nail down their story of what happened to Wisp the previous night. Willow could see the shadows same as Wisp, but none of the adults could. All they know is Wisp disappeared some time after the alarm was tripped. The cops send Willow out into the hall so they can talk to her parents alone.

Frustrated, she storms out, pouting at how they don't believe her. If she'd made up the story, she'd have at least made up a better ending. But there is someone who believes her. Gloomy appears, and she recognises him as the same sort of creature accompanying Wisp when she disappeared. He tells her Wisp is in trouble, and she's the only one who can help now. But they have to hurry, or they'll miss the moment. He ushers her outside, to her confusion, and has her stand in a specific place. No time to explain! And the comic ends as a lightning bolt comes down from the heavens and strikes Willow! SHAZAM!

And I do mean the comic ends. Not just the issue. Yes, it is my sad duty now to reveal to you that, as good as this series was, it only ever got these five issues. This one came out five years ago this very month, so the chances of it getting picked back up are pretty slim now. As I mentioned at the start, this was an experiment in some way. We've seen disappointing comics before. Mostly because the comics were awful. Here, I wanted to show you that disappointment can come from good comics too~

So, yeah! We'll never see Wisp and friends get out of that prison. We'll never see the other members of the Color Guard or find out what kind of powers and outfits Wisp could draw from them. I think the ending here was setting up Willow to become Stormy, but we'll never see that either. We'll never even see more of these gorgeous covers! Isn't that just... unfortunate? I wish this could've gone on for so many more issues. However many it took to tell its tale.

Because let's face it, the one thing this series was bad at was pacing. It's a lot of exposition. It really has a huge backstory and a load of worldbuilding it wants to share. And it's good stuff! It's very interesting and enjoyable! But it is paced for a very long and ongoing book, and probably would've worked better as a graphic novel instead of an ongoing series. It's a real shame. Everybody who's also had a show cancelled early (especially nowadays in the streaming age) shares this pain. I hope this at least puts a little more word out there that this existed, for however brief a time, so you can hold it in your hearts with me~

#comics #reviews #Rainbow Brite #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

These Colours DO Run

Hey there, colorless don'ts. Can you believe it's February already? Let's hope there's some good comics to come in this, the shortest of months! In fact, here comes one now~

Here's the cover:

HORSE.

…Actually considering leaving the cover review at just that. Like, this is a fun one. It's certainly better than last issue's cover! Like, don't get me wrong. All of these covers have been well drawn and gorgeously coloured. Which, for a series that's literally about the power of colour, that's super important! But other than issue 2's magical girl stylings, I don't know if any of them have wowed me, y'know? They don't quite feel unique. You could put any horsegirl on this cover, and slap it on a tween YA novel. Maybe I shoulda been reviewing the alt covers after all~

In recap! Little miss Wisp has come to the Rainbow Lands, and Twinkle figures she might be the latest incarnation of legendary hero Rainbow Brite. And, in fact, she recovers a magical scepter that gives her such powers, at least for a little while. With the scepter on recharge, Twinkle opts to go looking for help in one of the confirmed still-free lands, the Red Mesas. Wisp takes a literal leap of faith and jumps through space to get there, and very nearly falls off the planet entirely. Thankfully she's saved by Red Flare, a handsome youth and last free member of the Color Guard. No word on whether the rest of the marching band is also free.

Red Flare starts with "So you're supposed to be some kind of hero?", which isn't very endearing. Wisp indeed retorts that she's supposed to be a kid who goes to school and doesn't walk around barefoot in a forest then a desert, but here she is anyway. This does little to bolster Red Flare's confidence, and he pulls Twinkle aside to have him explain the deal all over again. Twinkle is absolutely exasperated that no one listens, but dude, your whole job is exposition. That's why we have you in the story to begin with. Might as well play your role~

So here's another infodump for you. The Rainbow Lands consist of eight disk-shaped lands, seven orbiting the main land. The prism atop Rainbow Castle in the main land absorbs light and distributes it to each of the seven lands' own prisms, which then spread to other worlds to give them colour. But each prism also powers their own lands and gives them their unique powers. Red Flare, for example, can use the energy from red power prisms. But green ones will actually weaken him. By dividing up the lands, this is how the King of Shadows exploited the Color Guards' weaknesses.

Now, the legendary hero, Rainbow Brite, is someone who can use the colours of all the lands, as well as focus them together into white light. Strength through unity, you see? Half the problem, though, is that they only have half her accoutrements. There's a belt that goes alongside the scepter, and they need to find that fast. The other half, though, is: does this girl seem like a hero. Twinkle vouches for her, but Red Flare has a different tactic. He wants to hear from Wisp herself why he should follow her. Convince him!

Wisp sighs and brushes herself off. She tells Red Flare that maybe he shouldn't follow her. She doesn't think she's some superhero. She's just a regular kid. And who knows if Twinkle has ever been right about anything~? But… She is here now. Bad things are happening to this land and its people. She doesn't know whether she can actually do anything to help them. But she does know she has to try. And that's a great answer. Both in my opinion, and to Red Flare, who gives Wisp a fist bump and signs himself up. Red Flare joined the party!

So, what's first? Well, they should try and free the other members of the Color Guard. And here's a revelation: if each colour is weakened by its opposite, the Green Color Guardian is probably being held right here on Red Mesas. That seems like a good place to start. Another good place to start is the colour mines, which is being used as a makeshift dungeon. Staking out the joint, our heroes begin planning a way to bust in. However, before they can even get to discussing step one, they're interrupted by a noisy commotion nearby.

A group of lizard-like minions are dragging away a prisoner. This prisoner is a talking horse, a magnificent-looking white horse with a rainbow mane and an incredibly high opinion of himself. His name, as he grandly declares, is Starlite, and he is very much objecting to being dragged away as a prisoner. Actually, I'm not sure that requires much of an ego to object to, fair enough on him! Wisp, being a typical young girl, is immediately enchanted by him. Red Flare, on the other hand, shows familiarity with the horse, and would prefer they use his capture as a distraction.

Twinkle, chosen to be the tie-breaker, opts to go with Wisp. If she can free Starlite, that would be just as good (if not better) a distraction. Then he and Red Flare can slip into the mine under the confusion. One problem remains, though: the lizardfolk are still stronger than humans, and the scepter's out of juice. Red Flare, however, points out that it was said Rainbow Brite can use the powers of any of the prisms, and so he offers one up. Wisp absorbs the red light with the scepter and transforms!

This form's a little simpler than the full Rainbow Brite mode. The uniform's all red with some golden trim. It's got sneakers, fingerless gloves, and a solid-looking helmet. Think an all-red version of Korrina with no bare legs or skates. Even her blonde ponytail has red streaks in it! And "streak" is just the word, because she quickly discovers that this form also gives her the power of super speed, thus making her another in the legacy of scarlet speedsters. Red ones go faster! And so Wisp races off to handle Starlite's rescue.

And it's a pretty simple rescue, once she gets the hang of slowing down when and where she wants to. The lizardfolk are no match for her speed, and Starlite is soon free. She uses their own rope to tie up the lizardfolk, then flags down the other guards so they'll chase her. She's got super speed and Starlite is literally a horse, so they outpace their targets soon, letting Red Flare and Twinkle sneak closer. But as they run together, Starlite's haughty personality comes out. He's a little bit of a jerk, and doesn't want to be roped into a rebellion any more than literally roped as a prisoner.

Starlite abandons Wisp the first chance he gets, having never once called her by the right name. Dejected, she returns to her actual friends. Red Flare gets his "told you so" moment, but he's not smug about it, at least. Just the statement, then he moves on. Because Red Flare is actually a decent fellow, unlike Starlite. Anyway, the situation now is that there are more guards inside the mine. And one of them is a robot named Herky, personally built by Murky. Oh, I do hope he has a sibling named Jerky we meet later, that would be perfect~

Herky attacks, and Red Flare and Wisp decide to split their forces and get inside the mine, free the Green Color Guardian, and meet up later. It's a good thing Wisp is here, because Red Flare doesn't see his power as good for much besides running. You know, super speed, one of the most easily story-breaking powers there is. It's not very useful! And he proves this because, despite his speed, Herky is able to calculate where Red Flare will move next, and entangles him in his extendable arms. He's caught! Whatever will Wisp do now?? Probably save him and not abandon her friend, like that jerk horse, that's my guess~

Ah, this is a fun issue. More lore, as well as more focus on the powers and abilities Wisp can use! I love this kind of stuff, honestly. Anything with a variety powerset, unlocking each new power one by one... That's the stuff I really dig. And having her costume change to reflect each power and colour it represents is also a cool and unique idea! She could be the girl counterpart to Ben 10! Red Flare (upgraded from "Red Butler" in the original series) is also a likeable fellow. You can see how he's the last free Color Guard member--between his super speed and his actually intelligent personality. He's pretty well-written, which is very nice to see! Much more likeable than Rainbow Dash's terrible son~

#comics #reviews #Rainbow Brite #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

She's Got the Bright Stuff

Hey there, terminal velocity. As usual, I got no preamble when the comic is good, or when we're in the middle of something that doesn't need setup. So let's just get into it~

Here's the cover:

It's our heroes! There's quite a contrast between their facial definition, eh? It's not as strong in the comic itself, the art is not quite as realistic for Rainbow Brite as the covers. There's a difference, sure, but they still look like they belong to the same property. Honestly, though, not my favourite cover of the ones we've seen so far. Last one was great! This one's just a couple of faces. I do like the move to warm colours for this one, though~

So let's see… Wisp, a youth from our world, encounters colour-stealing shadows and sets off her friend's security system to banish them. This also whisks her away to Rainbow Land, where all colour comes from. Teaming up with a sprite named Twinkle, she learns that the King of Shadows is trying to steal all colour everywhere, leading to never-ending misery. Wisp is their only hope, as Twinkle believes her to be the latest in a line of legendary warriors taking up the mantle of Rainbow Brite. And having just picked up a magical scepter and transformed, there may be some truth to this…

Her two tormentors, chief scientist Murky Dismal and his personal monster Lurky, are astonished by this transformation. Murky in particular has been fiddling with it for months and gotten no results. He sends Lurky to grab her, and she responds she'll defend herself from someone who wants to hurt her. Lurky replies that he's not going to hurt her, he's just going to grab her and throw her in a dungeon. And then his boss will poke her with needles or something, it's not his business. Ahh, to be the ignorant minion to a villianous boss~

Speaking of said villainous boss, Murky has grabbed a huge gun, and Wisp has to dive out of the way of his laserfire. She drops the scepter in the process, revealing a flaw in this magical transformation: if she lets go, she reverts to normal form. In a normal magical girl series, this would be great for quick-change secret identity stuff! But in the midst of combat, it can be a detriment. Thankfully, Murky's weapon also has a design flaw, in that it takes several minutes to charge between each laser blast. I guess it's a fair fight when everyone's weapon sucks!

Retrieving her weapon, Wisp--or should we call her Rainbow Brite in this form?--transforms again and unleashes a huge burst of light, blinding her two foes. She's no dummy, either, and runs out of the room while her enemies are incapacitated. Discretion is the better part of valour and all that! It's not a very big tower, after all, and she makes it outside--right as Twinkle, still being chased by the shadow hound, is barreling towards her. With little other choice, she swings the scepter and unleashes a powerful rainbow beam…

…And rather than hurt the hound, the magical rainbow energies dispel the shadows, returning it to the rainbow doggy it once was! Murky, whose vision has returned, is both astonished and offended. His boss, the King of Shadows, stole those colours fair and square! They're rightfully his, how dare this magical girl return them unauthorised! Little does he know, magical girls do everything unauthorised. His sight's returned, his gun's recharged, and most fortunate for him, the magic scepter has run out of energy. Wisp is a powerless little girl again.

Thankfully, she did just save a giant dog from an evil fate, and it's more than willing to attack the villains to defend her. Now they get to be chased. Once they're gone, Wisp has a little breakdown. Sure, Twinkle is all impressed with her, but all she did was steal a scepter and run away. She wasn't aware of how to turn the dog back, it was just luck it worked the way she hoped. And now the scepter is out of power, maybe even broken. Twinkle assures her that one does not become a hero overnight, and she's the best hope he has right now. They resolve to continue traveling together until (one way or the other) he finds the hero he needs. Or at least the one they deserve?

To that end, they gotta go on a journey. And they gotta head out fast! Wisp asks what's the rush, and Twinkle leads into it by asking that, even though the King of Shadows has been stealing colours, she's seen a few while here, right? Yeah, the stuff Murky was using to power his devices! That stuff was red, yeah? So the lands of the Red Mesas must still be free. So they gotta get there while they have the opportunity. And thus you get this reveal: the realms of the Rainbow Lands aren't just different areas, but different planets altogether.

"Planets", in fact, may be a bit generous a term. They're actually more like individual discs, flat planes of existence orbiting around each other. Yes, in the world of Rainbow Brite, they literally live on a flat earth. With all the implications thereof! Yep, to that end, they're waiting for Red Mesas to pass close enough where they will literally jump off the edge of their current location and hope to land on the passing planet. Normally, there'd be a rainbow bridge between each land, but it's not active at present. That damn Heimdall is slacking off again, I guess.

Naturally, even an adventurous girl like Wisp has reservations about jumping 15 feet down to another planet, but the choice gets taken out of her hands when more shadow hounds come tearing out of the woods. No other choice, might as well jump! Wisp makes the leap, and only barely catches the edge of the Red Mesas, which is a desert planet. Twinkle is too small to pull her up, and she's struggling in the sand. Before she falls off and vanishes into space, a hand reaches down and pulls her up. A handsome young man in red trim introduces himself as he pulls her up. He's Red Flare, last free leader of the Color Guard. She's very glad to see him~

This is a fun and exciting issue! You get some magical girl action, some character development, and a very interesting look at the cosmology of this whole world. The adventure is well on its way now!

#comics #reviews #Rainbow Brite #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

How to Brighten Up

Hey there, cola-flavoured slime. How's it going? Transported to any magical worlds lately? If so, I'm impressed you're still reading this blog! If not, well, at least let me do so by proxy with our next review~

Here's the cover:

Ah, another simple but really fantastic cover! Like, when it's a cover you'd hang up in your room as a poster, that's when it's a good cover, in my opinion. Again, the actual parts of this are very simple, but the colours are gorgeous--which is very important for a Rainbow Brite series--and it really evokes a magical girl feel to it. Which I suppose Rainbow Brite actually is! I should note that all of these comics also sold with alternate covers that used the original '80s-style Rainbow Brite graphics, but I prefer using whichever's the "main" or "default" cover for any issue I review, and also I wouldn't hang up those alt covers as a poster~

So, last time we were introduced to our oddly-named protagonist, an imaginative young girl named Wisp. One night, she's woken from sleep by a couple of shadow creatures stealing the blue from her mother's car. Literally, stealing the physical colour from it. Wisp is attacked by the beings when they discover she can perceive them, and runs into a little sprite named Twinkle. Twinkle provides exposition while Wisp runs to her friend Willow's house to trip the lights of the security system. The bright lights banish the shadow monsters, but also Wisp and Twinkle are transported to Rainbow Land…

Rainbow Land isn't living up to its name much these days, as everything is dark and gray. Also, we open with Wisp being pursued by a large wolf-like creature, so that's not great. It's large enough that going deeper into the forest is actually a good idea, where the trees are too thick for it to pass. Catching their breath for a minute, Twinkle explains its nature as a shadow hound, and Wisp reasons that if it's sniffing out their colours, they should hide among the gray leaves. It's enough to disguise them long enough for a loud noise to scare the hound off.

What caused said sound, though? It's backfire from an inelegant, boxy-looking grey vehicle that's pulled up. A tall green-skinned man steps out, cursing both the vehicle and the name of Lurky for providing said vehicle. Grumbling, he dons a jetpack and blasts off, muttering that a scientist's work is never done. Both the vehicle and his jetpack produce copious amounts of gray smoke, so we've got a potential pollution subplot brewing. I thought this was supposed to be a Rainbow Brite comic, not Captain Planet~

Once he's gone, Twinkle explains that the green fellow was Murky Dismal, a scientist in the employ of the King of Shadows. The King hasn't been able to steal the colour from certain things, so he's hired Murky to examine them. So far, Murky has discovered a way to use stolen colour as a fuel. Given how much smoke he's producing, though, it may be burning a bit of a fuel-rich mixture. In short, he's an asshole, and the King of Shadows lets him get away with doing his own thing most of the time. Best to avoid him!

Instead, their attention returns to the shadow hound. Since it was once a regular dog from the Rainbow Lands, there must be a way to turn it back, yes? Naturally, a bright white light is needed. So, as Twinkle explains, all colour comes from Rainbow Land. It's actually mined, and then stored in various prisms, which beam it to Rainbow Castle, and then spread through the various other worlds. The King of Shadows has been conquering the lands with his minions, sealing the mines and capturing the Colour Guards, which prevents new colour from being created. Without colour, joy, fun, and diversity will also disappear.

The King of Shadows is too powerful for any one Colour Guard to fight, so the only hope is the legendary hero who can unite all the colours into white light: the legendary Rainbow Brite! And thus we come to the crux of the matter: Twinkle thinks he's looking at the next Rainbow Brite right now. Given her ability to perceive the shadows even back on her own world, this can only be the ability of someone with a connection to Rainbow Land. Naturally, Wisp protests that she's anything special, but Twinkle implores her as a friend, and she promises to at least try.

First step: we gotta break into Murky's lab. A powerful relic is held inside. They approach cautiously, but Twinkle reveals Murky doesn't really deal in minions. He just has a monster. This does little to assure Wisp, but since the monster's inside, there's little need for stealth outside. Wisp decides to climb a tree up to a nearby window, but partway up, the shadow hound appears again. Dogs can't climb trees, but they can headbutt them violently, nearly causing Wisp to fall. Twinkle takes it upon himself to distract the hound, so it goes running off after him, leaving Wisp quite alone as she climbs inside the lab.

While Wisp sneaks around, she can hear Murky berating his underling Lurky. She catches sight of what can only be the relic: a scepter held in a beam of light. She attempts to run and grab it, but instead runs right into a huge hairy brown creature: the monster Lurky. Wisp screams in terror, and Lurky responds in kind. Before Murky can order him to grab her, she ducks around him and closes her hand around the scepter. There's a flash, and a magical transformation takes place! A sequence, you might even say. And when the light clears, Wisp stands before them decked in the outfit of Rainbow Brite~

Second issue, also pretty good! Now you've got your backstory, your stakes, and most importanly: your villain. Lurky looks pretty much the same as his '80s likeness, but Murky's received a good deal of a glow-up, gaining full human proportions, and... well, I wouldn't say handsome features, but perhaps normal ones. He looks like a cross between Mandark and Bunsen Honeydew, which is fitting for his role as the Shadow King's chief scientist. They're a decent villain pair in the classic "smart guy, dumb muscle" mold.

Anyways, next issue, Rainbow Brite's gonna kick some ass. See you then~

#comics #reviews #Rainbow Brite #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

A Bright Start

Hey there, minigun fights. All right, I'd like to do a little experiment here. I'll get to the actual theme of this experiment when we finish! Let's just enjoy the ride 'til then, eh? So then! Well, we've reviewed one marketed-to-girls '80s cartoon-turned-comic series. Why not another one? No, not the one you're thinking of!

Here's the cover:

Yeah! Are you surprised? Did you even know there was a modern Rainbow Brite reboot? This is honestly a pretty good glow-up, transitioning the character from the cute cartoony style to a realistic one without actually losing any of the charm or what made it work. Really good! Love the shading, too! I think the dramatic lighting effects and the nostalgia factor will snag in the readers alone with this one. And the character design is appealing enough that it should hopefully draw in new readers! Hopefully… (This is foreshadowing.)

So we open with a fantasy novel being read. It's not even one of those "in media res" things that leads to a fake-out, you're blatantly shown the novel as it opens. It's your standard "Oh, the evil forces, including a dragon and a skeleton army, are attacking! Who can save the poor peasant people??" And then, of course, two heroes appear! It's Willow, the wizard, and Wisp, the warrior! Magic and melee! Swordfighter and spellcaster! Your classic duo! And as they begin to fight off the vast hordes of evil, Willow can hear her name being called.

See, turns out Willow and Wisp are a pair of kids in standard suburbia. I dunno who's naming their kids "Wisp", but she is a blonde-haired white girl, so it kind of tracks. Maybe it's short for Wispethany or Wispamantha. Anyway, it's Wisp outside yelling for Willow to come play pretend with her. Fittingly, it's wizards and warriors again, so this must be a mutual thing they're into. Willow yells back that it's called LARPing, and Wisp doesn't care, just come play. So Willow goes charging outside, after briefly being waylaid by her strict-seeming parents.

The two friends meet up, and Wisp gushes over Willow's newly finished wizard robe. Wisp also wants to make herself armour, noting she wants to actually learn to forge it. Okay, this kid is definitely cool. The pair head out in the woods to do their pretends, although they don't get too far into it before Wisp gets hungry. So they head back home, do more pretend, and it honestly takes me back to when I was a kid. Both solo and with myself or the neighbour kids, I played a lot of pretend. Eventually, though, it's time for Wisp to go home.

Wisp is dropped off at her house, and her mom is already asleep on the couch, having left a note and dinner for Wisp. Wisp even does her own dishes, brushes her teeth, and is just about to get ready for bed when she hears a noise outside. Despite the rain, Wisp fetches her wooden sword and heads out to see what's banging around. And what she finds is some bizarre, formless shadowy creatures. They've drained all the colour out of her mom's blue car. Undaunted, Wisp readies her blade. And then the creatures notice Wisp is also wearing blue…

They lunge for her, and Wisp slips from their grip and strikes one in the face. They're rather surprised that she's able to both see and hit her, so they begin a chase. Wisp slips off down the street, and while running, she encounters something even stranger than the formless beings. It's a little floating man or creature with white hair, a belt bag, and star-tipped antennae. He introduces himself as a sprite named Twinkle, and at least acknowledges that meeting a sprite is unusual for her. I'm more shocked Wisp can keep up as much conversation as she does while running for her life.

Twinkle gives a bit of an exposition dump that somehow also fails to convey anything: the Guardian of Blue was recently captured, so the King of Shadows has sent his minions to drain blue from anything they can. While it's not immediately useful, it might explain some things. Rather than ditch her shirt and run around topless--which might lead to a very different comic--Wisp asks if there's any other way to stop the minions. Twinkle suggests a bright enough source of white light might fizzle them out, and Wisp gets an idea.

She continues her run down the street, heading for Willow's house. Willow's folks have a security system installed, which includes some automatic floodlights, and she reasons that might be enough to beat back the shadows. Hearing her friend's shouts, Willow awakens and sees what's going on in her yard. Thinking quickly, she uses her LARPing staff to smash the window, which triggers the security system and floodlights. The very bright lights cause the shadows to disappear--and Wisp disappears too! Willow and her parents find the yard empty except for Wisp's sword, and Wisp instead finds herself in a grayed-out landscape as Twinkle welcomes her to Rainbow Land.

Well! As an issue one, this is a great start. Very much the start of any sort of adventure cartoon like I remember in my youth. A kid or two, they encounter a villain's minion encroaching in the real world, they get whisked off (or perhaps, wisped off?) to another world for magical adventures. You've seen it a million times, but honestly, it's a winner of a setup. It two-fold gets you invested in seeing where it goes next.

#comics #reviews #Rainbow Brite #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

We're Off to See the Wizard

Hey there, disqualifications. All right, I'm on the final thing in our stack! And we're gonna end the same way we started: with a FiM alt universe fic.

Here's the cover:

Yeah, remember way back when we did "Little Fillies" #1? And I was wondering if they'd do other Classics Reimagined titles? Well, here's one for you! And at least this time, I'm roughly familiar with The Wizard of Oz. Like, I've never read the original books, but I've at least seen the 1939 film a couple times. I know the basic plot from parody and reference and pop culture. I know enough to know the ruby slippers are movie only, and they were silver in the book! Anyways, a pretty nice cover for this. Same artstyle as the "Little Fillies" story as well. This one might grab a few more eyes, at least~

I think we'll do the same thing I did in the Little Fillies review, where I name the character as the original work, then parenthetically refer to the MLP character playing them. So obviously, our depressed farmgirl is Dorothy Gale (Applejack). She lives with Uncle Henry (Big Macintosh) and Auntie Em (initially Rarity, but when she's way into playing Big Mac's wife, they swap her for Granny Smith. They also change the role from wife to mother). While they're making changes, Dorothy demands to be switched into overalls. So much for the iconic gingham~

So, before long, a tornado comes a-spinnin' into the story. Auntie Em! It's a twister! Starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton! She chases her dog, Toto (Winona), into the bedroom. This keeps her from enterting the storm cellar instead. And she's gonna wish she'd been in there, because the tornado doesn't just destroy the house, it lifts the whole thing spinning and spinning into another dimension! One with brighter colours! The main comic so far has been in muted, sepia-like colours (not outright monochrome), but springs to "full" colour at this point.

When everything's stopped spinning, Dorothy (just assume this is followed by "and Toto" every time, unless I specify) takes a peek out into this wide new world. She's greeted, not by munchkins, but by Breezies, which is one of the only times they've ever appeared in comics. They're super-enthused to meet a new princess, Dorothy having crushed the previous one. Dorothy tells them that both these facts are wrong, only to be swiftly corrected with the shot of Nightmare Moon's legs sticking out from under the house, silver horseshoes in the air.

Who should enter now but the Good Princess of the North (Celestia). Dorothy objects to the lazy find-replace of "witch" for "princess", but Glinda or Celestia or whoever plows on ahead anyway. She introduces the concepts of one princess per cardinal direction, two good and two wicked, and the Unicorn of Odd (title drop!) who might be even more powerful. Dorothy is about to make a feminist comment, but is interrupted by Nightmare Moon's dissolving. The silver horseshoes are now relinquished, and Celestia forces them on Dorothy to keep the plot moving.

This version does mention the Deadly Desert surrounding the Land of Odd on all sides, which is why she can't immediately go home to Kansas. It's a bit distressing, but Celestia suggests heading east to the Emerald City where the Unicorn lives. And of course, the easiest way to get there? Follow the yellow brick road, of course. The Breezies agree to accompany her to the edge of their territory, and to Dorothy's relief, only the book is in the public domain. Thus, they don't have the rights to use any of the songs~

Finally, just as Dorothy is beginning to tire of the fawning reverence of the Breezies, they reach the end of their lands and part ways. They soon come all up ons a cornfield, and Toto begins to bark. Dorothy's worried for a minute, but it turns out to be just a scarecrow. To her shock, though, the Scarecrow (Pinkie Pie) begins to talk. She's very glad to have somepony new to talk to, since it's all been birds beore now. She's just terrible at scaring the crows, to her utter shame. She's just too good at making friends! See how she's made a new one just today~!

Dorothy uses her farm-found applebucking skills to knock the Scarecrow off her perch, freeing the straw-stuffed mare to move around and travel. And travel she does! She decides to accompany Dorothy on her journey, in the hopes of getting a brain from the Unicorn. She's happy enough with a head stuffed with straw, but what she really wants is to plan parties. Can't do that without a brain! And the comic ends as the pair set off, with Scarecrow also needing to be reminded they don't have the rights to the songs. But it's a comic book, so they won't be able to tell if she hums it instead~

Well, this seems like a lot of fun so far. Let's be honest, The Wizard of Oz is a lot more of an exciting and interesting story than Little Women. I'm sorry, but it's true. It'll appeal to your demographic a lot more, too. The roles seem pretty tailor-made for this, and Applejack is a natural snarker. So the asides and fourth wall breaks (there's a whole page of Celestia and Luna I left out to keep up the flow and to allow you to find the jokes on your own as you read) fit more naturally here. They got better at it here, with "Little Fillies" being their testing ground. I look forward to more of this, but alas, this is the only issue I have so far! Just like last time, we'll have to wait until I get a new shipment to finish the series~

Next week, though... Well, I have a few ideas I wanna explore. They'll tide us over in the meantime~

#comics #reviews #My Little Pony Classics Reimagined #My Little Pony Classics Reimagines: The Unicorn of Odd #The Wizard of Oz #Taiblog

[taiblogcomics]

An Equestrian Exposition: 30 Pages of Ponies and Music

Hey there, worm drama. We're back on schedule! I hope your holidays were merry and bright, or whatever holidays are supposed to be. Well, I don't have much else for this preamble, so let's just get into it~

Here's the cover:

Ah, the "corkboard covered in polaroids" is a classic look! Always kind of a cool aesthetic, if you put in the effort. I think this one definitely is. Some of these MLP covers have not been great, but I think this one is! Let's talk about Bridlewoodstock for a moment. First of all, I think they were really reaching for the pun on this one. Secondly, it was a 45-minute special episode in G5. It had nothing to do with the ongoing plot (which G5 did actually have!), so we can probably jump right in. So is this going to be an adaptation? A continuation? I dunno! Let's find out.

Obviously, we open in Bridlewood. Izzy is preparing flower crowns for anypony who wants them, because this is obviously some absolute hippie bullshit. We get a full-page splash showing the whole grounds and setup, and these are the kind of pages I absolutely love. The sort of thing that's a treat just to look at, like a Where's Waldo book. Like, I don't think there are even any Easter eggs or hidden stuff in here, it's just fun to run your eyes over the page and see all the simplified characters. It really shows the scope of the event, and I think it's great!

This might be either an alternate continuity to the Bridlewoodstock special, or it's set during said special without impacting it. You can tell this because Izzy is still paranoid about the Troggles. She's right to be, you don't want them to trap your Muncher in a cell he can't run out of easily. Anyways, she's made a special flower crown as a display piece, made of the special Lumi-Blooms that the whole event is revolving around. She fears it might attract the notice of the Troggles, but thankfully nopony has asked about it yet. Then two ponies walk up and ask to purchase it. Wah-wah-waah~

So the big problem, first of all, is that there's only one Lumi-Bloom crown and two interested parties. They didn't come together, and they're obviously rivals. One is a fan of the Hoofpicks, while the other is here to see Electric Blue. These are bands performing at the event, if that wasn't clear. They clearly do not like each other or their music, and when they both reach for the crown, its glow disappears. Both are shocked, and Izzy isn't much better off. She figures it's vibes, y'know? Their disagreement is harshing everybody's mellow, you dig?

Izzy abandons her booth into her lackeys' hooves, and takes the two squabblers on a quest. No doubt she has something Izzy-ful in mind. She leads the two of them around the grounds, showing them everything from food stalls to jam bands, but the pair of them just keep bickering with each other over the way their preferred band is so much better than the other's. The argument continues right up until the reach the stage of a band called The Foals. Suddenly the pair of them unite over a mutual criticism of The Foals, agreeing that music is cool even when you don't like the band that much.

Well, that problem really wrapped up quick, huh? The remaining 22 pages must all be ads or something like--oops, no. Once the crown starts glowing again, a bird swooping by flies off with it into the woods, where its radiance awakens a sleeping shadow--one of the aforementioned Troggles. This is all unbeknownst and unseen by our cast, however, as they just lament the loss of the crown. With the once-quibbling ponies now making up, they set out to spread this unity to other members of their respective fanbases. If only it were so easy in real life.

Pipp comes by, glad to see problems have resolved themselves without her intervention. This is good, since she's set to go on next. She sends Izzy out to get her lucky microphone, which is over in a rest area with Sparky. Sparky is Hitch's baby dragon, sort of the G5 equivalent to Spike without the "little brother" charm he had. I mention it only because Sparky has barely ever come up in the comics, if ever at all. This might be his comic debut, for all my search can tell me! Anyways, he looks absolutely ridiculous here. I dunno if that's the artstyle, the Bridlewoodstock design, or both~

So one of the main things that makes Sparky less charming than Spike is that Sparky is a literal baby. Like, they called Spike a baby dragon, but he could talk and had autonomy and stuff. Sparky's inability to talk leads to a lengthy wordless section of the comic wherein the awoken Troggle tries to steal Pipp's microphone. There's several pages of chase scene, and Sparky eventually recovers it, returning to his lawn chair exhausted. And thus, cue the tired old punchline of "Here you are, Sparky! I haven't seen you move all day!" Sparky gives the reader an annoyed look, and I'm giving it right back. It's your comic segment.

So the reason Sparky even won that chase is because the Troggle got distracted by another pony's red mane and wandered after it. This pony is Cherry, and they play in the Hoofpicks. It's that band from the earlier segment! Unfortunately, by the time they turn up on stage with their bandmates, their voice has completely vanished. And of course this would happen just before they're set to go on in 20 minutes. Ain't that always the way? The rest of the band tries to come up with a solution backstage, while Zipp and Pipp go looking around outside.

Despite my criticisms of Sparky earlier, Pipp continues to show why she's the actual worst character in G5, musing whether it might actually be a good thing that Cherry lost their voice. This is because she does not "get" their music and thinks their songs are "dark" and "unusual". Plus there was almost a riot over Izzy's flower crown earlier. Zipp rightly points out that whether Pipp likes them or not, plenty of other ponies are excited to see them, and it'd be nice to not ruin that for them. Plus, not everyone likes her music either. Pipp accepts the criticism and shuts her trap.

As the minutes tick by and her bandmates prove to continue to be unhelpful, Cherry takes a ruby necklace and goes out to take matters into their own hooves. Thinking they've noticed the Troggle, they head into the woods--and somehow, by now, night has fallen--and just holds up the ruby. The Troggle is attracted to the ruby and gets sucked inside, restoring Cherry's voice. And points to them, they show real decency by apologising to the Troggle, knowing what it's like to be judged for looks and voice. There's a subtext here with Cherry using non-gendered pronouns, I'll let you work it out~

Cherry rejoins the band, playing it off cool and attributing their voicelessness to an attack of nerves. The band buys this, but Zipp eyes the ruby hanging around Cherry's neck. She doesn't voice her suspicions, but you can tell she's having them. Cherry also tosses Pipp a casual good luck as they walk out with the rest of the band. Pipp hesitates, then apologises to Cherry, saying they really do have a beautiful voice. Zipp notes that this is rather big of Pipp (the first time anything about Pipp has ever been described as "big"), and she replies that maybe she's just starting to see what Izzy was getting at with the whole Bridlewoodstock spirit.

However, as Cherry goes out on stage, we see somepony else who's not got the spirit. This pony is waiting at the gate, and as we spin back the clock 11 hours ago, we see what's wrong. This pony, Columbia, came with a friend, and she wanted to spend the whole day together. But the friend, Peony, wanted to get some merch before the show started and the two split up. Peony heads for the Hoofpicks' merch booth, gleeful at all the exclusive stuff, but is informed she needs to go to the back of the line. As you might imagine, it is extremely long.

Once she finally gets there, Peony asks the ponies ahead of her how long they've been waiting. One starts a speil about how it's been so long, he's forgotten the taste of fries and his own name, before being cut off by his partner and told it was only 30 minutes. Well, that's not so bad! Cue a time passing montage, while you can see Peony absolutely not moving forward from that spot for the next 11 hours. And even several scenes previous to the comic go by in the background. I really don't believe Izzy's tour and Sparky's chase took place five hours apart.

With only 30 minutes before showtime, Peony collapses in despair, which finally gets Sunny to put in an appearance in this comic. She asks Peony what's the matter, and the whole situation spills out. It's a tear between regret over missing the exclusive merch, or the regret of wasting the whole day instead of spending it with her friend. Sunny wisely points out that while merch is cool, memories are also cool. Both are something you can treasure. And whatever merch you may or may not have, nothing can make you less of a fan. And so the comic ends with the two friends reuniting just in time as the Hoofpicks begin to play~

This is kind of an interesting one, because structurally it's more or less an anthology story, but each of the stories are interconnected and form a larger narrative. It's actually very clever and really makes use of the ensemble cast (except Hitch, who is remarkably absent despite Sparky's presence). It's pretty good, too! You could probably fit this all into the actual special's narrative. It's been a hot minute since I watched it (or G5 in general, for that matter), but I don't think anything here contradicts the episode. You could squeeze it all in before the climax with the Troggles. This also might contain the first non-binary MLP character (at least as far as I can remember), and I think that's certainly something worth noting~

#comics #reviews #My Little Pony #My Little Pony: A New Generation #My Little Pony: Bridlewoodstock #Taiblog