Yeah Dude Comics 2014 Subscription #4 Josh Burggraf & Victor Kerlow's Future Masterpiece: Wasted Potential

Wasted opportunities

The worst I can say about the Yeah Dude Comics 2014 Subscription is that it's inconsistent. Some titles were fantastic (Find Me, Look for Me, New Physics), some were not so fantastic (Stoner Alien) and some were starting to show greatness (Iron Skull). This new release is unfortunately in the bottom tier. It's a real shame that it coincides with the release of Box Brown's New Physics (the 5th Yeah Dude Comics this year). New Physics is so vastly superior, it doesn't even seem to play in the same league. Let's take a look at Josh Burggraf & Victor Kerlow's Future Masterpiece. 

Where do I even begin with the story? The 15 year-old girl from The Jetsons is dating Bullwinkle. She is pregnant and they have a baby together. It turns out that the baby is none other than Stoner Alien and this is supposed to act as an origin story of sorts. He basically comes out of the womb and starts smoking cosmic pot. Oh, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shows up to say `Cowabunga`. That's pretty much it. 

I guess it is the second part of a Stoner Alien Saga. It unfortunately exploits the same joke as the previous installment with diminishing returns. Using the joke "Wait...what?" to represent the alien's marijuana-filled baby`s brain unable to comprehend what is happening was fun when used in the previous issue, but here it is used so clumsily, it is embarrassing. I wonder what the goal of this exercise was. It feels like a lot of effort for what seems like a joke a couple of drunken (or stoned) guys made one night. 

The art is raw, even rough in places. The artists are trying to emulate the classic Hanna-Barbera style (flat characters, thick outlines). They are unfortunately having a really hard time maintaining consistency. Mainly, the horns of Bullwinkle and how they are connected to his head changes in almost every panel. 

As I said when I talked about Stoner Alien, maybe the Stoner Alien concept has a deeper meaning for those involved, but as a reader, I felt excluded from the jokes. The story is too thin, it feels like a writer's ego trip and the only jokes are references (and they only reference themselves). Better luck next time.