Pox #3

Posted: Tuesday, October 23, 2001
By: Darren Schroeder

Cover of Pox #3 Creator(s): Carol Wood & Susan Butcher
Publishers: Unsafe Products (1999)
From: Australia
Price: $2:50 (AU)

The glorious retro Sci-Fi style of the cover looks grand. In side the style is continued in a book that ridicules but also glorifies the foibles of Australian culture as remembered from the childhoods of the two creators. They imagine a fantastical flight to the moon by a whimsical space craft, Skippy 11, that looks like a kangaroo with the landing pod a baby kangaroo that rests in the mother ship's pouch. We also get a 50's styled world exhibition populated with satirical attractions such as The House of Australian Cheeses, a Beerisphere and Fosters Fountain.

A tale such as Amazing Astounding Fantastic Voyage mixes together all the daft Science Fiction cliches that they can remember into a funny story of a cyborg forced to take part in a shrunken voyage to a geniuses brain while trapped on a strange planet on the run from the anti robot police....The ideas are in good supply here, though this particular story suffers from some rather rough art work.

The alternative cover on the back will only make sense to those of you who have been exposed to that strange icon of Aussie life from the 60's & 70's, the Australian Post. I remember a copy from childhood and it was just as portrayed here, with a pin-up girl in old-fashioned bikini on the cover and a weird opening stories about nothing really. There are laughs a plenty, the art has its ups and downs but it's a fair dinkum read.

In a Word: Jolly.



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