Written by Keith Giffen
Artwork by Benjamin Roman
Synopsis
It’s Halloween. Finch and three friends, Mr. Kitty, Pig Pig and Devil Lad (named for their costumes), are trick or treating. Skull-masked Finch is the leader. Mr. Kitty is kind of a horny “little perv”. Pig Pig is slow on the uptake. Mysterious Devil Lad shows up once a year from a neighboring town to poach candy. Elsewhere, Moochie and Mush are doin’ their own thang. Mooch is Finch’s murderous, frog-eyed younger sister. A tooth fairy, she gleans satisfaction in yanking molars from victims’ mouths as souvenirs. Mush is her dog, is missing part of its head and eats people.
“Yark!”
The moment our four hellions start ringing doorbells, they’re “apple jacked” (given apples instead of candy) by Old Lady Melcher, which is “way bad juju” (duh). For the next few houses, they’re greeted with Choco-Willies, their second least favorite snack. In desperate need of a sugar rush, they frame the kindly, aforementioned senior citizen by cramming a bunch of their dads’ razor blades into an apple and feeding it to a cop, claiming “I’m not gonna eat it… Old Lady Melcher… She’s always giving out apples.” Moments later, Melcher is swarmed by feds, her heart fails, and harmony is again restored to the universe. Afterwards, Moochie steals a bra from the town slut while her back is against the ground, transforming it into an over-the-shoulder-boulder-slinger from which to volley huge rocks at middle schoolers’ faces, killing them instantly. Of course, whorey Nips and her boy toy Biff are none too thrilled that her boob hammock was ganked and menace our heroes for the rest of the night. “Do you know how hard it is to find pretty bras my size?” Do you?!
Volume One is a manga, released through TOKYOPOP (for the love of God, don’t pronounce it mayng-guh — the antisocial kids at your high school will pitch a fit).
Review (SPOILERS)
Damn. And here I was looking forward to writing a rave review. I’ve said before that I’m not the biggest comic guy, and I’m not, but I know what I like, and this ain’t it.
Roman’s artwork is nice, cartoony, sharp and angular. Here, he claims his style was influenced by Calvin and Hobbes. I can see the connection. I’d also compare it to Jhonen Vasquez/Invader Zim. Roman’s illustrations are easily the best part, notwithstanding their business.
TOKYOPOP’s official YouTube account states that our characters “risk eternal damnation if they can’t fill their candy bags by sunrise”, which isn’t explained in the manga. Actually, a lot of things aren’t explained in the manga. Most of its dialogue consists of pointless bickering instead of useful backstory, like you’d expect. Oh, and you know those narrative captions found in the upper left part of the page, those rectangles that tell you what’s going on? NONE OF THOSE (I mean, I can tell there’s something supernatural going on in this town, but I doubt even the writer knows what, exactly, so fuck it). Yeah, combined with the busy artwork, you might be in for a few moments where it’s hard to entirely understand the situation. Also, you’ll encounter two different characters named Spike (?) and most of the dialogue is hard to read, spelled phonetically to match real speech (ex: reg’lar, instead’a, alluva sudden), so that doesn’t help.
Moreover, its humor is always too dry or too juvenile, never finding that happy, funny medium. Its scenes of violence are stupid, but not in entertaining ways, like that of DumbLand or Family Guy. Just stupid. One part sees Moochie eviscerate an old, bed-ridden lady on life support by snapping her own dentures at her. It’s not funny. It doesn’t even make sense. If memory serves me correctly, this one’s along the same lines as Lobo the Duck, but I haven’t read an issue of that in fifteen years, and memory always forgives, so those must have been really bad.
The Verdict
Skip it. It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.
But wait! Because I love you all so very much, here are the introductory episodes of the CG adaptation and motion comic. You can follow the links from here, but heads up, neither were finished and stop abruptly mid-story arc. I prefer these to the manga because of the voice acting/inflection, which makes them easier to follow:
Source:
http://fringevoid.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/i-luv-halloween-volume-one-comic-book-2005/
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