“This head ain’t talking’! SPEAK!”
“Maybe I should poke it with the stick again.”
What do you get when you put zombies, hard-boiled crime, mutant monsters, film noir, voodoo priests, mad scientists, absurd humor, dizzy dames, and hard drinkin’ mooks into a blender and push “Mutilate?” You get The Goon, by Eric Powell.
The Goon is a hulking thug who works as an enforcer/bagman/hitman for Labrazio, the shadowy mob boss who runs this lousy zombie-ridden town (or does he…?). His best friend, Franky (who looks a little bit like Little Orphan Annie’s balding older uncle and is under the delusion that he’s God’s gift to the ladies of Lonely Street) is his right-hand-man, drinking buddy, and partner-in-crime.
This comic is nuts. Just bonkers. It veers riotously from deadpan humor of the blackest sort, to vicious sudden violence, to non-sequitur page breaks that feature fake ads for things like the “Billy Lobotomy Kit,” a lovely little home surgery package for kids to practice their brain pithing skills, the breathless ad copy of which reassures parents that “all heads [are] taken from convicts and soulless heathens!”
Eric Powell has been writing and drawing The Goon for over 15 years now, and as he has grown and matured as a storyteller, so have his characters grown and matured in their own way. His artwork is terrific, with strong lines and incredible detail crammed into every frame. Some of the story arcs over the past decade and a half have been tales of such heavy sadness that they threatened to overwhelm the lighter and breezier tones established in previous issues, but Powell’s juggling act is ultimately successful, allowing real emotion to compliment the shenanigans. I felt tremendous empathy for Goon as I read about his younger days, about the woman who wounded him (in every sense of that word), and about the villains who more than deserve his vengeance.
Besides Goon and Franky, there’s The Buzzard, an old (very old) gunslinger who does not appear to be able to die, no matter how hard he tries. Also lurking about is the Zombie Priest, who attempts to take over the city via his zombie horde, and regularly gets his ass handed to him. And then there’s Labrazio, the kingpin of crime who–THAT’S ENOUGH ABOUT LABRAZIO!! THIS ARTICLE AIN’T ABOUT HIM!!
Ahem.
Various other quirky and unsavory characters waltz in and out of the goings-on regularly, offering a little comic relief here, a little opportunity for violence there. Wise-smacking street urchins, sexy sirens and femme fatales (sometimes both in the same body), erudite bog monsters, giant Spanish-speaking lizards, psychic seals (ark! ark!) and more await you in the pages of The Goon. I love these ancillary characters; they provide a colorful, odd, crazy supporting cast for the first-string players to rely on and mess with.
One very cool footnote: Eric Powell set up a Kickstarter in order to make an animated Goon movie–and it’s been fully funded! Blur Studio is still working hard on it at the moment, but you can watch the trailer right now!
Uncle Mike sez: KNIFE TO THE EYE!
And save a seat for me at Norton’s Pub.
