"Who Will Be The Bride of Monkeysuit? Laughs! Thrills!
Pathos!" the exclamation read. Huh. O k a y. What an odd
little blurb. Furthermore, there is some sort of bespectacled guy
in a monkey costume wearing a party hat, pantyhose and high
heels on the cover. Odd. Illogical. For those reasons, as well
as talking to Chris McCulloch (Monkeysuit contributor and
former writer for The Tick), I decided to pick up The Bride of
Monkeysuit (Monkeysuit Press).
I picked this up mostly because of the price at ComicCon (it's
amazing what things you can find at certain prices there), but
was pleasantly surprised upon reading it. It's a mish-mosh of
stories and styles . . . picture the format of Spike & Mike's Sick
& Twisted Festival of Animation with more variety and if it were
more comic-book oriented.
Bill Presing & Matt Peters' "Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher in The
Bosom of Terror": Rex Steele and his assistant Penny
simultaneously battle Nazis, aliens and Amazon women. Cheezy
to the max, intentionally (I presume). Humor reminiscent of Mel
Brooks with a hell of a lot more tackiness. Wonderful cliche'd
lines are just irrepressably funny.
Fariba Adams & Heather Heath's "Pickle Sandwich": A goth-
styled, angst-ridden youngster gets kissed by a girl and mulls
about a bit. I rather like this one. It's cute, but not overly
obnoxious or Sailor-Moonish. Think Calvin (of Hobbes fame)
played by Peter Murphy.
Mike Foran's "Rover": An interesting, surrealistic tale about a
lizard-boy (?) and his robot. Wonderful animation that's
reminiscent of a late-70's era Heavy Metal magazine comic that
I used to like. Pretty to look at and funny to read, all without the
use of dialogue. A must read!
Miguel Martinez-Joffre's "Kamikaze Joe": Time Travel Border
Patrolman Kamikaze Joe joins forces with Marie Curie to fight
The Mango Commandos with their evil machine comprised of
the world's most intelligent men. This is cool. Joe is just . . .
well, Joe . . . you'd have to read the story to understand the
poor slob. It's worth the price of the book alone to see Marie
Curie shoot a laser gun and say, "and if one more of you little
bastards stare at my breasts---I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"
Chris McCulloch's "Oh! To Be Super": You ever wonder what
would happen if Supes stopped caring about the world? I think
the result would be about the same as the one in this story.
"Sigh. Jimmy and his damn watch again. Uh-oh . . . last
cigarette. They can wait." The humor is vaguely in the vein of
The Tick. McCulloch manages to weave a beautiful love story
(boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy kills girl) in the midst of this one
as well. My favorite out of the bunch.
There are 7 more stories to peruse in this naked city. As long as
the Monkeysuit man stays in his . . . er, Monkeysuit, I'll be fine,
though. I also encourage you to check out the Monkeysuit
website at for samples of the
artwork as well as to harass . . . I mean, email the webmaster,
or even to get on their mailing list. An online store will be
available in the not-too-distant future.
RATING: FOUR AND THREE-QUARTERS CIGARS OUT OF FIVE POSSIBLE