|
Goodbye! It am with little displeasure that me
not talk about this book to you.
Seriously speaking, this book is a sequel of sorts
to the Bizarro Comics hardcover released a few
years back; a collection of short humorous
parodies of DC characters by alternate comics
writers and artists.
I'll describe the book this way: Imagine you're
at a chocolate festival where every booth lets you
sample just a taste of their wares. Some
chocolate will taste good. Some will be too
sweet. Some will be bland and leave you with an
empty feeling. And while it's nice overall, you
don't want to spend the entire day with it and
overindulge.
Such is the case with Bizarro World. There's some
nice smiles, but there are some misses as well. I
do like that DC does poke fun at themselves and
it's not something that I think they do with
enough frequency. (Anybody remember the '70s DC
comic book, "Plop!"?)
Batman seems to be the favorite character subject
for the book, moreso than even Superman.
Fortunely, these chapters are the most effective
in my opinion. Aaron Bergeron and John Kerschbaum
team up for "The Power of Positive Batman," where
the caped crusader visits a pyschiatrist and
decides to retire. "Batman Upgrade 5.0" (Peter
Murrieta/Dean Haglund and Don Simpson) shows us
what happens when Batman tries to install new
hardware to his Batcomputer. There's "The Batman
Operetta" (Paul Grist and Hunt Emerson). But my
favorite Batman pieces was Kyle Baker's strip of
Alfred in "Personal Shopper" and Batman getting a
new monkey sidekick in "Monkey, the Monkey Wonder"
by Evan Dorkin and M. Wartella. Luckily, for the
reader, Dorkin doesn't limit himself to one
contribution to the book. Dorkin's writing is
outstanding. I hadn't been familiar with
Wartella's artwork before. The style was very
clean and reminded me of Bill Elder's artwork in
'50s MAD comics.
Too much Batman? Well, there's "The Wonder of it
All" (Mo Willems and Ellen Forney) in which a teen
Wonder Woman uses her magic lasso in ways I think
a teen girl actually would -- using it on her
friends and asking them if they really like her or
using it on her crushes and asking if they think
she is cute.
However, some chapters left me with no impression
and seemed to make no point and merely took up
space. "Where's Proty?" (Abe Foreau and James
Kochalka) is an aimless Legion of Super-Heroes
story where Proty gets lost. This seemed much
more appropriate in a children's book. Harvey
Pekar wrote a disappointing pointless piece called
"Bizarro, Shmizarro" that absolutely went no where
and ended abruptly.
The disappointing chapters make you cringe a bit
more if you remind yourself that this is a $30.
book. With all the talent assembled, it's hard to
imagine anything could be bad here. But, there is
some stuff that just shouldn't have made it. I
will say the book is packaged well and all of the
colors are sharp and seperated well. No doubt
this book will eventually be released in trade
paperback form, which is a bit easier to swallow.
Hello!
|