Tag Archives: pappalardo

REVIEWS: Famous Fighters

This unusual comic is a compendium of nearly 10 years worth of goofy comics initially drawn by two friends just to amuse themselves, but now published to hopefully amuse others as well. Their single most successful creation is the Conan the Barbarian parody called “Barbarian Lord” . One-page “Barbarian Lord” episodes recur periodically throughout this issue, giving the reader sufficient time to adjust to its comedic weirdness. Each episode finds Barbarian Lord typically confronted by some blustery foe whose bravado is unmercifully dispatched by Barbarian Lord’s fist, sword, or battleaxe. Each slaying is then followed by a single-panel feature entitled “Poetry of Barbarian Lord”, wherein BL offers a tersely worded, haiku-like account of some past atrocity. Though all of the comics are highly stylized and perfectly rendered (the two creators work in illustration and graphic design), most of the other stories tend to overstay their welcome. One longer feature that mostly works, however, is an epic poem involving a protagonist’s Pong battle with Satan, which features inventive rhyming accompanied by wonderfully detailed illustrations of the cloven-hoofed Beelzebub. – Ari Charney, punk planet Jan/Feb 2007

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REVIEWS: Failure, Incompetence

Tom refers to this as “a collection/retrospective of the last ten wasted years of my artistic life (ha).” Well, he’s full of wilderness muffin mix, for rather it’s a collection of zany gag cartoons and longer pieces, all in a booklet that’s strangely reassuring to hold. Several pages show the influence of Chris Ware’s jolly despair, mostly in the bits featuring a sad sack who looks like a cross between Sluggo and Ware’s gloomy potato man. Recommended: four pages adapting the audio drama at the end of the long version of Stevie Wonder’s “Living For The City”. Hopefully, Tom will have something else for us to groove upon before another decade passes. – Mark Campos, POOPSHEET Oct 18, 2005

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