Comic Library International is a nice package. 152 black and white pages for 12.95 US. Inside is a wide variety of comic stories primarily aimed at an all ages market. People complain that there aren't many kids comics out there and they also say comics should be in a thicker format. Publisher and creator George Broderick Jr. has done something about that and this is the result. Now to the stuff inside. There are 9 stories, plus a one page editorial and some creator biographies. The first (and last) story is called Click Track. It's about an old action hero now up in his years but just got a starring role in a new action movie and he's all set for his big comeback. Being a tad older, Click has some macho opinions about everything, tends to fly off the handle, hollar at people and break things. But he's still a nice guy who slowly tolerates different things that come at him. He meets his stunt double who then becomes a main character throughout the story. There is a bit of a superheroish element to the story which wasn't for me, some comedy which was sorta okay. I found the script to be good and the art to be good, as well. At first glance the art didn't appeal to me, but it won me over within a few pages. Second story is by publisher George Broderick Jr. called Stardust and Thor, which I think has a lot of commercial appeal. Stardust is a superhero and a simply designed one that is likeable. Thor is a cute puppy dog that goes with him all over the place. The dog also causes him lots of trouble too, but Stardust being a good guy, can't help but love his cute affectionet puppy and does what it takes to keep the two of them together. The story is silent so it's a quick read, but don't let that scare you away. I'm not sure how long George can keep up doing great silent stories, but he's off to a good start here. Stardust ends up battling a number of problems ranging from villains to cleaning up his mistakes. But this is not your typical superhero story by any means. I quite enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to reading more. Next feature is called the Fire Breathing Pope and is done by Chris Yambar. We open up with two stories, showing how the Fire Breathing Pope became the Pope. Then we get an old joke retold in a comicbook version. Then finally we get the main story. The main story is silent and jumps around quite a bit. It goes from early morning humor, to him escaping from his duties, to finding a boy and spending some time playing with him, to getting 'recaptured' and then letting the boy know he loves him. Make of that what you will. The second story titled "Hotter than Hell" has an unauthorized KISS appearance. The Fire Breathing Pope and Gene Simmons get into a fire blowing competition, and at the end of it, Ace Freeley causes Gene to bite off his world famous 7 inch tounge. The Pope then helps KISS out by performing with them. Definite oddball story, I'm sure Scott Shaw! would like to own this one. It's a very quick story first because of the the silent treatment, secondly because of the big panels and splash pages. I think the art is okay for the Fire Breathin Pope. It's cartoony in an appealing way, although everybody has 3 fingers and a thumb. My main quibble with it is that the stories are either easy and obvious with jokes and parodies and those that weren't didn't do much for me. Here's hoping the writing improves. The 4th feature is called Forty Winks: The Periles of Pandora. Chapter 1: Froggies Went A'Courtin'. Story by Jeal Patterson & John Peters and art by John Peters. Ahh.. script. I was beginning to miss them. The main character is called Pandora and she lives in a world surrounded by talking animals. In this story she goes into a place called Cop O'Dreams Tea House looking all depressed, she tells her story to a couple of people about how she was put on trial by the Council of Frogs. The Council are thinly disguised real politicians (named Pond Thurmond, Orrin Skink and Toady Kennedy). They go over all the bad things she's recently done but the story ends there with a to be continued. Next we get some pin ups. I wasn't all that thrilled with the story as I felt there was too little to keep me interested. The artwork was a mixed bag for me. Pandora sometimes looks like she was influenced by the typical Manga female but in other places she's moves away from that. Everything else doesn't really have any effect on me positive or negative. Next feature is called Boy and Dog. It has extrmely simple artwork that is fun to read. But it's very short. This is made worse by only doing two panels a page. The story is a nice one, has a bit of dirty humor but nothing that would freak out parents. Only tiny quibble I have is some of the figures could have a bit more detail to them. This particular story has a boy that looks half finished. The other two characters are fine. Both this and the next feature called A Bug Nut are done by Jamie Cosley. A Bug Nut is a one page, six panel gag that wasn't very funny, which is too bad as this too was very fun to look at. Better luck next time for Jamie as I think he is definitely on the right track for creating a great all ages comic. Next up is Captain Camel and the Space Chicken, done by Art Baltazar. The story starts telling us a bit about the last story appearing in some other comic. The main characters go into a pizza bar where they get into fights and recieve their next mission. Meaning the story is continued elsewhere. The fight is done in a cartoonish manner. For some reason the art was just not my style. It's very cluttered as everything looks big on the page, especially the word balloons. So it wasn't for me, maybe others will like it more than I. Dick and Jane is done by Levi Krause and Chirs Yambar. This story is about two young kids who fight all the time. Lots of weird stuff happen to them like getting kidnapped by Aliens and ending up in the middle of a war, but the story ends on a funny note. I really enjoyed Levi's art, it looks as good as many comic strips, very fun to look at. I hope to see much more of this in future issues. Krause + Yambar also do a one page Ninja Dog vs. Monsters which are one panel gags against different famous monsters, with the exception of Martin Nodell. Mr. Beat has three stories in here. The first is a two pager by Chris Yambar, the second one has ElfQuest in it which is done by Yambar, Broaderick Jr. and Krause. Last one is a 3 page story by Yambar again. Mr. Beat is a artist type that is into coffee and music. The first story has him joining friends for some musical get together only to see them get hit by a car. The driver offers Beat a contract with lots of money attached, he thinks about it, the rest I won't give away. One particular joke showing his face on the cover of the Rolling Stones, +5 for his Mom is a dated reference to the song 'Cover of the Rolling Stones' by Dr. Hook (great song!), but I'm afraid much of today's generation wouldn't get that. The ElfQuest story is funny, Mr. Beat falls into Elfquest world and after some confusion, they exchange their respective drinks. Beat has some 'Dreamberry Juice' and goes on an acid trip. Some Elfquest characters have some coffee and I'll stop here. It's a funny little story. The last Mr. Beat story is a rant told in panels with pictures around it. It's about the Freedom of Speech. It's an interesting little talk that tries to find some middle ground between the extremes of those that involved in the issue. Mr. Beat has grown on me. He didn't appeal to me at first, but he won me over. I hope to see more stories because these weren't too bad. Overall, I give this book a 4 out of 5 stars. I found more I liked than I didn't like. There are parts in here that some parents might object to, particularly in the Mr. Beat stories, hopefully they realize this and tone out the rough parts for future issues.

Regards, Jamie Coville

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Copyright © 2001 Jamie Coville

jcoville@adan.kingston.net

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