The Amazing Joy Buzzards Vol. 1
In which I lament not knowing about this book sooner
The Amazing Joy Buzzards Vol. 1
July 15th, 2008 - Okay, wait a minute. What the hell is going on? When did this comic come around and why wasn’t I notified?!?!?! I thought I had people for this. I’m supposed to be the one in the know. The Amazing Joy Buzzards? The first word that comes to mind is “fun”. Actually it’s more like “FUN”. I could devote this whole review to just the first six pages. Which are the credit pages. Yes, those pages that tell you the title of the book you’re reading and who made it. When you have a book that makes reading the title of the book fun, you know you’re in for a treat.
At one point in the story, as our heroes are lounging about in their top secret lair hidden in Mount Rushmore, our narrator asks, “So who are the Amazing Joy Buzzards?” Good question. Gabe the drummer offers up, “Man, how does that Mr. Ed do it? He’s like the equin DeNiro. Bravo my boobtube stallion, bravo.” And there you have your answer Mr. Narrator. The Amazing Joy Buzzards are equal parts nonsensical crazy and whippersnapper funny. A teenage rock sensation that moonlight as paranormal adventurers who have traded in the typical “1, 2, 3, 4” count off before songs for “5, 6, 7, 12”. And a lot of this book is just that, trading in the typical for the a-typical. And that is a good thing.
This is a book that moves fast. You remember when Mark Millar was talking about writing Ultimate Fantastic Four? You don’t?! Okay, well I’ll fill you in. He talked about the old glory days of Lee/Kirby, how it was jam packed with so much fun and craziness and about how he was trying to match that and throw out as many insane ideas as he could. If you think about that run it was indeed chock full of crazy ideas all smashed into a relatively short space. And it gave the book an energy that was infectious. Amazing Joy Buzzards is like that in its own way. It moves fast, and there are a million crazy, goofy and downright fun ideas smashed into each and every page. It’s a mix of Hellboy with the Fantastic Four (at their best) and Josie and the Pussycats. Or maybe Scooby Doo. If Scooby was written by Grant Morrison. Not really a mix I would have ever thought would be conceived of, never mind attempted. But oh, am I glad to see this mix here.
You can always tell when a creator is enjoying their work. It just feels different. There’s an added level of oomph from that love. They can’t stop drawing the page, they’re having such a good time doing it. There’s oomph all over this book. Just check out the car race (yes this book has King Kong references, vampires, zombie hoards AND a car race). Not only is it filled to the brim with oomph, but at one point it does so for 16 gloriously rendered pages with no dialogue. Okay, so there’s an editor’s note in there, but aside from that, its all race. Of course there’s a bad guy (girl actually) trying to kill our hero mid race. Which should be cliché, but here it’s not at all. I mean, the “no dialogue” action sequence caps off with killer vampire robots and Stevo (our racing hero) brandishing a sword! My point here is that these guys fight what should be tired old ideas will absolute insane genius. Over and over and over throughout the whole book.
A big part of bringing that craziness to life is spectacular artwork by Daniel Hipp. This is a real treat right here. Opening up the book you’re treated to some of those intense blacks, shadows that stretch over the pages forming silhouettes and contrast, like Mignola or Risso. I know, the comparisons are steep. Then he adds just a touch of feathering here and there. And I’m in love. Those artists unafraid of laying down some serious amounts of ink always grab my heart. And then every once in a while I get thrown a curve ball. Ink washes. Gray tones. And my heart leaps again. I would have thought the sudden shifts in style would throw me off, but no, they are gems.
Oh, and let’s not forget Stevo, the bassist. Not so much the character as what the character says. Stevo doesn’t speak in words, he speaks in pictures. The word balloon elegantly pops up (okay maybe that’s stretching it) and inside are little drawings, a lightbulb, a shark fin, the Fonz, a Jackson Pollack painting, whatever best expresses his thoughts and feelings. Think about it, in no other medium could you do this. Maybe an animated movie, but when you have one character “speaking” with a word balloon filled with words, and the response by the other character is another balloon, but this one is filled with pictures, there is such a direct contrast that is immediate and visceral and it makes you shout out, “COOL!” Your results may vary on that last bit. Maybe you just think it. I mean, even I didn’t actually shout “COOL!”, I was reading with other people around me and that just would have been awkward.
So look. This is a great book. There’s no overarching storyline, there’s no great turn of character at the end of the story, but it doesn’t need that. That is not what you read this book for. Reading the Amazing Joy Buzzards is like going to an amusement park. You don’t expect your life to be changed by the experience, you just go and eat hot dogs and go on the roller coaster and have a damn good time doing so. And then at the end of the day, you sit there with a suprememly satisfied grin on your face and look forward to the next time you get to go on the tilt-a-whirl. And if all that didn’t convince you Gabe, the drummer, also says “Gallopin’ grasshoppers! Killer vampire robots!” And the girl next to him, who he is trying to woo, calls him on the ridiculousness of galloping grasshoppers.
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