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.

Yeah Dude Comics 2014 Subscription #3 Laura Knetzger's Find Me, Look For Me: Deep Psychological Troubles Camouflaged as Cute Aliens

Cutesy Melancholy

The third issue of the 2014 Yeah Dude Comics is absolutely stunning. A phenomenal foray into depression and despair camouflaged as an adorable alien story.

Laura Knetzger's Find me, Look for me, is the story of a young woman who finds a strange little alien in her backyard after a meteorite crashes nearby. She doesn't know where he comes from, but he looks pretty cute and defenseless. He looks a bit troubled and in need of support. She decides to adopt him and nurture him. She feeds him, teaches him and cares for him like you would a child or a pet. Although she sometimes wishes to leave everything behind and go away, she likes having this little alien around and will care for him for as long as it takes. This is the clear and obvious story, but there is also a terrible sub-text of loss, loneliness and quiet desperation. 

Distracted from her loneliness and desperation by the appearance of an adorable alien

The main character lives alone in the mountains. She has lost her brother at some point in the past and is now not only lonely, but deeply troubled. This loss has made life unbearable. She also doesn't feel the house is hers anymore, yet she can't bring herself to leave. Adopting the alien and caring for him fills a void and brings her some sort of redemption. We never know what happened to her brother, nor is it necessary to understand the trauma she has experienced. What we see is the agony and sorrow of this woman. Depression and sadness run deep underneath the cloak of cutesy alien.

The use of colour also emphasizes this dual notion of despair and adorableness. Grey and Blue are the only colours used in the book. The protagonists has "the blues". Blue signifies depression, tranquility, peace, calm and ice. She is frozen in those feelings, unable to escape them and come to accept those feelings as her existence. 

This book is short, but is dense and deep. At first glance, one could quickly dismiss it, but it would be a grave mistake. Laura Knetzger created an insightful voyage into depression within a really short page count. It is a creative look at sadness and despair. A brilliant short story that haunts this reader, in particular. 

Yeah Dude Comics 2014 Subscription: #1, Pat Aulisio's Stoner Alein: One-note, One-joke

It is what it is

A few months ago, I helped to kickstart Pat Aulisio's project on Kickstarter to fund the 2014 project for his "Yeah Dude Comics(YDC)" anthology. I took a six issue subscription and I intend to review the books as they come in until the end of the subscription. Each book is created by a different artist. I have also received 3 other comics from them that are not part of the subscription, but from previous YDC efforts that I will also review once I have some time on my hands. Let's take a look at the first issue by Pat Aulisio.

Aulisio's Stoner Alien is as blunt as its title suggests. It's about an alien (the little green men kind) and his buddy, a teenage mutant ninja turtle. They basically just hang out together smoking and getting stoned. They both have a mundane existence working in a grocery store. The story here is irrelevant; it is coherent in the sense that we see one day in the life of those `dudes`, but it isn`t the point of the issue. It is a cipher for a comedy and a way to make stoner jokes. One of the jokes happens to strike a cord, but the other just fall flat. I guess comedy is subjective and a matter of opinion in the end... Maybe some of you will find it hilarious, though I doubt it. The book itself is short and spends 4 of it's 16 pages on the actual consumption of drugs and not exploring the more comedic aspects of it, as one would expect.

I did some research and discovered that this happened to be an old internet meme that you can find on tumblr. Poorly drawn and coloured, its filled with jokes; some great, some not so much. The big punchline being mostly"Wait...What?", representing a marijuana-filled brain unable to comprehend complex events. I think it's a bit lacklustre in effort and just doesn't translate well here. I don't know, maybe the concept had some kind of deeper meaning for Pat Aulisio. He certainly seems to excel in stoner comedy. His entire concept behind Bowman and it's sequels (Bowman 2016 and Bowman Earthbound) are stoner comedies. Bowman, however, is excellent. Aulisio channels Stanley Kubrick by way of Jack Kirby and throws in a smattering of Cheech and Chong. There are clever page designs, introspection and character development. It's amazing. In comparison, Stoner Alien has one joke about gravity being light. This series is nowhere near as interesting as Aulisio`s other comics and it's a damn shame. 

The Hijman body? Wait...What?

I'll also nitpick on this one panel where no one bothered to correct the lettering. It just seems unfinished. A work in progress. I expected more from Pat Aulisio. Meant to whet my appetite for more, this first glimpse of YDC just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I am still looking forward to the other books of the subscription. In the meantime, I'll go read Xeno Kaiju and remenisce on how good Bowman was.