Word: comic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Moreover, the design of the comic is very film-like--the panel designs often resemble "storyboards," or the way in which the action of animated films is laid out, more than they do conventional comics. The story itself, along with its universe of pop-culture causality, features characters who are archetypes straight out of genre films: mobsters, samurai, sexy female assassins. And each "episode" of "Scud" is dedicated to a director in whose style the issue is cast: from Quentin Tarantino to Jim Henson to "the memory of Orson Welles...
Schrab is a highly gifted visual artist, and his fluid, hyper-kinetic black-and-white illustrations give the comic a definitely "cartoony" feel which contrasts quite effectively with the startling violence which periodically erupts in it. Ben Edlund's popular humor comic "The Tick" is a visible influence in the early adventures of Scud (for example, in the characters like the nefarious "Voodoo Ben" Franklin, a villain suspiciously resembling a founding father who animates his zombie armies using his electrified kite...
...comic moves away from those influences as it progresses; in fact, the "Scud" universe is now large enough to have generated two spin-offs. Almost as violent and twice as profane as "Scud" is "La Cosa Nostroid." Illustrated by one Edvis (whose goofy, facile style is as reminiscent of Phil Foglio as it is of Schrab), the book somehow manages to make immature, violent, half-cyborg mafiosi extraordinarily lovable. And Scud's silent sidekick Drywall--a little creature whose zippered skin leads into a infinitely large inner warehouse where he can store anything he needs--has for some reason become...
...attitude. Scud himself realizes this in one of his profounder moments. Meditating that he's one robot protagonist who's never wanted to be a human being, he comes to the conclusion that he should enjoy being what he is. Summing up the central aesthetic of the comic, Scud proclaims, "It's cool to be a robot...
Unmatched in the entire production, however, is the delicious comic relief found between Kadmos (Alvin Epstein) and Tiresias (Will LeBow) at the start of the play. One cannot help but love the funny old men as they prepare to dance in the mountains near the Bacchae, particularly Kadmos in his dress straight out of "Prom Night Horror." When they have to, however, both can instantly become powerful leaders on the brink of destruction. LeBow's Tiresias sends chills through the audience with his dark fore-shadowings to the giggling Maenads. Likewise, the perpetually-talented Epstein manages to make his bitter...