Written by Shane Houghton
Illustrated by Chris Houghton“WEREWOLF WOES!”
The bear-riding cowboy loses all of Starla’s money buying a nifty new pair of boots. In order to make that money back, Reed plans to collect the bounty on a rowdy cowboy who strolls into town once a month to spread terror as a werewolf! A done-in-one adventure!
It’s an all-ages comic featuring a cowboy who rides a bear.
Wait, I need to tell you more than that in order to convince you to buy this? Oh, fine. After the cut you go!
The current comic market needs all-ages titles. These days, it seems like the pickings are slim – sure, you can usually find a handful of decent all-ages comics, but the ratio of good all-ages comics to good “mature” comics is sorely imbalanced. As such, when a truly great all-ages comic does come around, it deserves to be celebrated.
Good news: Reed Gunther is a truly great all-ages comic.
One of the key things that makes Reed Gunther great lies in the term “all-ages” itself. There’s a massive difference between media that is meant for kids and something that’s meant for all-ages – as Shane and Chris Houghton clearly understand. As Reed himself claims, his comic is no “kiddie book.” It doesn’t rely on any kind of juvenile humor that is easily outgrown, like many kinds of kids’ media; there’s an intelligence to the humor, a wit that can be understood and enjoyed regardless of age or “maturity” – unless by being mature you mean being no fun. Great humor transcends age, and this comic is chock full of it. Not a single joke falls flat, and the majority of them will elicit an audible chuckle. For me, at least, that can be hard to accomplish, but the Houghton’s make it seem so easy.
It isn’t just that this is a funny book, though. The interesting thing about comedies is that the best ones tend to have more inventive plots than the majority of the stories you’ll regularly encounter. Once you start straying into the absurd, it opens up a bunch of plot opportunities that certainly couldn’t be present if the story was “serious.” Poor serious media. This issue of Reed Gunther is able to capitalize on this by presenting two plot twists that take the reader by surprise without seeming like they come out of nowhere. In fact, they’re right in your face in more than a few instances, but the Houghtons do a great job with misdirection that would make any magician jealous. It’s a funny book, with quite a few great jokes, but the story is quite clever in and of itself.
One of the things that really sells the book is the art of Chris Houghton. Just flip through the issue. There isn’t a single panel that looks dull or static. Every character looks alive and energetic, even when they’re standing still. Chris’s handle on panel-to-panel motion is superb, and keeps that sense of momentum in his panels present in the page as a whole. But let’s be honest: If Kevin Maguire has taught us anything, it’s that a humor comic is made or broken by its facial expressions. Don’t worry, Chris has those down to a science. With such a simplified, stylized look, you would think that he would be prone to repeating the same expressions, but nearly every character in every panel has a new look on his or her face. Yes, even the bear. Especially the bear.
I had literally one concern about the comic. Upon finding out that killing a werewolf means he might have to kill a man, Reed remarks that “We’re not murders!” rather than “murderers.” Yeah, it’s a minor problem that doesn’t really affect the quality of the comic as a whole, but come on, I had to say something negative about it! And who knows, maybe I just don’t know much about old west parlance, and it’s wholly acceptable considering the context. Even if it isn’t, though, it’s a minor irritation at worst, and almost unnoticeable at best. Not bad for the main problem with the book.
Reed Gunther is a delight. There’s no other way to put it. I guarantee that if you pick up this comic, you’ll be smiling from the first page to the last. But what’s that you say? You haven’t read the first few issues? Neither had I, but that’s okay, because this issue is completely accessible for new readers. If you like it – and you will – be sure to grab the first trade paperback!
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Biscuits and gravy!
