There is a secret and sexy origin to Mooby the Golden Calf and Kevin Smith is here to drop the details in the ever expanding Askewniverse!
Cover by Ahmed RaafatWritten by Kevin Smith
Illustrated by Ahmed Raafat
Lettered by Andrew ThomasBetrayal and lies disrupt Nancy Goldruff’s marriage and book deal just as Lyndsey Montigrave double crosses the young writer. These events set in motion a terrible string of events with dire consequences!
Nancy continues her tale of lust, mistrust, and burgeoning fame. As Smith delves deeper into the origins of everyone’s favorite fast food mascot, he continues to take this story in a darker and nastier direction. Nancy’s tale of sex, drugs, booze, corporate greed and betrayal gets weirder and more uncomfortable with every turn of the page. I find a comic like this difficult to review in one direction or another. As it stands, it is a pretty dark sexual thriller that has a few moments of humor, but nothing that overtly feels like it belongs in Kevin Smith’s Askewniverse. Even the darkest moments in films like Dogma or even the emotionally hardened Clerks III have the signature Smith and Co. humor all the way through them. Nothing about this comic says to me it is part of that franchise, other than the artwork, superbly crafted by Raafat, which mostly aligns with the style of the animated Clerks t.v. series. Even going as far as to have the comics drawn in black and white to tie it back to the original Clerks film says to me that Smith really wants to feel tied in, but it never fully gets there.
Although there are a few moments of levity sprinkled throughout this issue, it does little to balance how bleak the overall story is up to this point. I suppose there hasn’t really been any guidelines saying Smith can’t take this universe in this direction, but it does feel out of place. And being a big fan of some of the films, and to a lesser extent, others, I am definitely no prude when it comes to sexual situations and blue humor, but this comic feels like Smith is trying to play out some dark fantasy that he couldn’t justify dabbling in within the expanded Jay & Silent Bob flicks. There isn’t anything outright wrong with this comic in a broad sense, it’s a mildly interesting story with twists and turns. The script is familiar in a sleazy kind of way, but it is also mean-spirited to a point that it was hard to have fun reading the issue.
Finding myself trying to justify its existence is probably the most damning critique I have of it, and maybe if it existed outside of Smith’s most beloved storytelling universe, I would feel much different about it, but as it stands, it is an OK comic that just feels out of sorts from top to bottom. Whether I love or hate a comic, it should not be this hard for me to pull a more thorough argument for one or the other from my brain when it comes to reviewing one, and it is my indifference overall that is making me like the issue less and less the more I write about it.
So, the positives: Ahmed Raafat’s artwork does capture the style of the animated series and the stark black and white and stylized action does add a perfect tone of an erotic thriller or crime noir. It’s a good looking, minimalist comic. Smith’s script isn’t bad, it’s doing a lot and even when certain paths are obvious he does throw in some intriguing and even shocking details. I just wish I could have connected with it in a more enjoyable way.
Final Verdict: 4.0, A nasty little sex thriller that is OK at best and unnecessary at worst. Nothing about this feels like it belongs in the Askewniverse, other than its odd build-up to Mooby’s origins.
