Fleen Book Corner: TCOTMC
Okay, it’s not really a “book”, per se, but the fine men and women of the Postal Service placed a copy of the digest-sized The Case of the Missile Crisis by Jeff Rowland in my mailbox sometime yesterday forenoon. It came packed with stickers, a sketch of a wholly disinterested-looking Topato (which, one would imagine, is his natural reaction to woefully inadequate beings such as you and me), ads both real and fake, and 24 full pages of Wigu goodness. That’s more fulfilling than most indy comics that I read.
It’s been a long time since we’ve had any Wigu installments, so any adventure with the Tinkle family is welcome — no surprises there. Also not surprising is what readers of the earlier Wigu books know — as good as Wigu is in daily doses (it’s made of a 50/50 mix of pixels and heroin), it’s even better in larger amounts. While Rowland is an ascended master of putting a solid punchline on the screen every day, it’s sometimes easy to forget that he knows how to pace a story over multiple pages.
Given the room to focus on a story designed to be read at one sitting (and not having to have a specific laugh line on each page), he’s free to let Wigu, Paisley, Quincy and Romy express themselves in ways that we haven’t necessarily seen before. Add to the mix Quincy’s genius brother, conspiracies straight out of late-night AM radio, and a stray ICBM, there’s only one place left to take the story: Atlantis! (Is it just me that hears Ike Willis as Thing-Fish every time the word Atlantis! appears?) Thus, a cliffhanger, and a promise from Jeff to get the next issue out as quickly as possible. On a scale of one to awesome, TCOTMC scores 9.5, with bonus points for the Snakes Flying A Plane stickers.
You already got your copy?? No fair!! And I live in Massachusetts. What’s up with that, Mr. Rowland? Favoring the reviewers?
(whine whine whine whine)
By Llamarama on 04.18.06 1:59 pm
My book is basically the best thing you will ever buy in your whole life.
By jeffrey on 04.19.06 1:27 am
Re: Ike Willis, no, it’s not just you.
By Scott M on 04.19.06 8:25 am
Oooh, you got snakes on a plane stickers? I got Topato saying I am Made of Poison stickers.
By Ted on 04.20.06 9:54 am
I got mine! it rocks! the fake ads are teh kewl.
By jasonic on 04.20.06 9:54 am
This is a very nice book. I came home from work and found it in my mailbox and had a lot of fun reading it. The little notes in the margins are a great value-added feature, because you can go back and read through them and it is as though you are being re-entertained all over again! I like how the artwork translates into black-and-white comic book form.
By Clake on 04.20.06 10:37 am
Why does everyone keep saying there are fake ads?
By jeffrey on 04.20.06 1:45 pm
The above comments are owned by whoever posted them. The staff of Fleen are not responsible for them in any way.