Highway 62

First of all, those Big Macs will kill you. Not at once, of course, but over years and years, the greasy residue will… Oh, right. The Goon. Well, The Goon doesn’t gunk up your arteries, that’s for sure. Though I understand that reading The Goon triples your chance of being accosted by immolating orangutans (apparently they have something of a sixth sense when it comes to Goon readers. Just avoid the clouds of burning primate hair and you should be okay. Except for the smell.)

The Goon is one of the funniest books out there right now. And really, I don’t read too many humor books these days (mostly because they’re about as rare as hen’s teeth). This is sophisticated humor folks, involving everything from the aforementioned exploding orangutans to Santa’s misshapen helpers eating children on Christmas eve to the gut-busting samitarianship of Dr. Alloy.

Okay. It’s lowbrow and often absurdist humor. You’re right. But you say that like it’s a bad thing. We could use a little more of this, really. Particularly in comics. A little light-heartedness goes a long way these days, and it’s something that is often in short supply (yeah, I said that already.) Sure, we get dry wit like it’s going out of style (hmmm) but very rarely do we get unrestrained, unrepentant humor. Not so with The Goon. Harold Lloyd-like slapstick seems to be a specialty, and it’s very much appreciated, at least from this part of the peanut gallery.

Not enough, you say? You get enough laughs from Hellboy you say?

How about if I regaled you with the wonders of Mr. Powell’s artwork? Perhaps if I conjured with the names Wrightson and Smith (Jeff, not Clark Ashton or Paul) I could get more of your attention. Eric Powell is truly an unsung master of dynamic layouts AND subtle pacing AND beautiful inks. Every page is a real delight and worthy of careful study (assuming you’re geek enough to carefully study the artwork in your funnybooks, and I’m unashamed to say that I am.) Not only that, but the world he’s conjured up is incredibly vivid, but not because he’s cramming in detail on every single panel, but because he knows how much can be conveyed by simplicity.

And his painting is really astonishing as well. For someone that enjoys horror and humor as much as Mr. Powell must, it’s surprising to see the subtlety that he uses in some of his painted work (check out his site at www.thegoon.com to see some of that). You can also see his work gracing the covers of the current Arkham Asylum miniseries.

And did I mention that The Goon is really a horror book? Must’ve slipped my mind. But yeah, horror’s still hip, right? It isn’t? Oh. Well, I don’t think that Mr. Powell cares particularly. I get the feeling that he’d be doing this even if he was just a guy slaving over his drawing board to little or no recognition outside his cult of hillbilly zombie hoboes. But yeah, The Goon is ostensibly a horror book (since it’s in the Dark Horse Horror line, that must be true, right?). Sure, there’s zombie witchdoctors and bowler-wearing talking spiders who can fill an inside straight with uncanny regularity and enough ghosts and creepies to fill a whole Subdivision of Mystery. Just don’t expect it to be all reverent horror. Because Mr. Powell understands that chills go great with laughs to break things up.

Or he just thinks that driving a Buick through zombies frozen to the road is quality entertainment. I don’t think I can argue that point, either.

Eric Powell has cooked up a tasty stew of everything from carny life to crime syndicates to giant robot henchmen to a demented tavern full of all kinds of things that go bump in the night, all to an imagined soundtrack of Tom Waits, The Cramps and the Reverend Horton Heat. If you’re a fan of the off-beat and want a little something new to sink your teeth into, you could do far worse than taking a bite out of The Goon.

Just watch out for those exploding orangutans.