Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Book Review: Schlock Mercenary - Resident Mad Scientist

I may have gushed about Schlock Mercenary here before. [link]
Really? Only with one previous book? Then I've done it a disservice.

"Schlock Mercenary - Resident Mad Scientist" [order here] is the sixth Schlock Mercenary collection. It's also not a bad place to start reading.

"Schlock Mercenary" is a daily web comic that reads like a graphic novel. Howard Taylor, the author and artist, manages to successfully pull off the gag-a-day format people look for in a comic strip AND tell well crafted stories. While reading this bound collection I found myself drawn into the stories. It was driven home how much I was getting into the stories when I had to stop and laugh every four panels or so.

It's the 31st century. Mankind has spanned the galaxy. So have hundreds of other species. We all need heavy air support from time to time. A personal goon squad impresses others, but it's expensive to keep up. For these and a million other reasons, there is value in renting a military. That's what this comic is about - a company of mercenaries.

While reading this book I handed Yummy book 1. If you're not already a reader you might not want to start there.

Here's the first strip.

Here's today's strip.

In the ten years that this strip has been running his art has matured just a bit. That's why he released book three first and then went back to release books one and two. The early stuff is still good, but just not drawn well.

If you want to sample the goods before investing in a book Howard suggests that you start here. Go back to the beginning of the series later.

In this book, "Resident Mad Scientist", our heroes are off to try to end a war. One person is key. He wants his throne back and he knows all the cells. Our heroes need to extract him and find out what he knows. But, one thing leads to another, there's a galaxy consuming explosion, time travel, double and triple crosses, and a trans galactic war that's been going on since before we fell out of the trees. The bonus story has shrooms and killer lawn gnomes.

Buy it now. [order here]

No comments: