Matter Summer Special
Posted on July 17, 2004
When the local wacky-backy supply runs dry and the chopped-up grilled skin-of-banana still refuses to smoke right, the world of Cheech & Chongers Whitey White and Sean Brown becomes all hard-edged and distinct. Worse still: their sex-drives are returning! In desperation the duo respond to a small-ad cypher and soon receive the kind of imbibation capable of transporting them through an interdimensional lesion and embroiling them in a covert corporate struggle for monopoly of this transporting/embroiling substance. Add to the joint a Ruskie hitman tamed by love, an out-of-this-world romance and a finale in which a friendship is saved with the aid of diseased skin and a mullet, and readers may find that they have long passed the five leaves left stage!
‘Serious Gear’ (being the title of this Coen-like story) is of course a trip itself. Creator Philip Barrett sheds the frame structure in favour of open panels and a thinking outside the box, adopts doodling-brush to complementary effect, and achieves a breezy, fluid reading experience that floats along with a kind of measured drift - an approach which enhances some inventively surreal sequences. Vaguely resembling a Health Board booklet designed to surreptitiously educate the masses, this little book of blow is a fun, funny read. Passive smoking, gentle reader, has never been safer!
When the local wacky-backy supply runs dry and the chopped-up grilled skin-of-banana still refuses to smoke right, the world of Cheech & Chongers Whitey White and Sean Brown becomes all hard-edged and distinct. Worse still: their sex-drives are returning! In desperation the duo respond to a small-ad cypher and soon receive the kind of imbibation capable of transporting them through an interdimensional lesion and embroiling them in a covert corporate struggle for monopoly of this transporting/embroiling substance. Add to the joint a Ruskie hitman tamed by love, an out-of-this-world romance and a finale in which a friendship is saved with the aid of diseased skin and a mullet, and readers may find that they have long passed the five leaves left stage!
‘Serious Gear’ (being the title of this Coen-like story) is of course a trip itself. Creator Philip Barrett sheds the frame structure in favour of open panels and a thinking outside the box, adopts doodling-brush to complementary effect, and achieves a breezy, fluid reading experience that floats along with a kind of measured drift - an approach which enhances some inventively surreal sequences. Vaguely resembling a Health Board booklet designed to surreptitiously educate the masses, this little book of blow is a fun, funny read. Passive smoking, gentle reader, has never been safer!
80 A6 pages, €3 / £2.50 / $5.00 (postage included) - available from www.blackshapes.com