Scud's a good comic, no doubt about it. It's a true post-modern comic, it is a collection of absurd and creative situations. For example, Scud is hired to kill a female creature named Jeff who wears a sweater with no pants, he has mouths on his knees, hands for feet, mouse traps for hands, an electrical plug for a head and a squid belted to her chest. Oh and the creature only speaks in quotes from pop culture. This mish-mash represents the true flavor of the comic. It's an action book with chunks of insane humor (although a good argument could be made that it's an insane humor book with chunks of action). This schizophrenic attitude is the book's greatest strength and its biggest weakness. It has a robot assasin, the mafia, giant robots (manga style), a religion devoted to a man named Hank Gritt, zombies, dinosaurs and even Benjamin Franklin as a villian called Voodoo Ben. The book is good and its twists and turns keep you guessing but it's so all over the place that it just feels mashed together. What the book lacks is a really strong narrative drive.
An intriguing part of the trade is that each issue is dedicated to someone (like Quentin Tarintino, Mark Hamill or Sam Raimi for instance). They also give a list of for their "voice talents" for each of the characters, it was great to finally know how a character should sound (just so you know, Scud apparently sounds like John Malkovich). The trade itself is okay, it has a few helpful and enjoyable things but it doesn't do anything great (other than the voice talents list but for all I know that was included in the original issues). All in all, it's a good read. I have hope though that future trades will be even better.
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