Toxic Comics #1

Posted: Tuesday, October 29, 2002
By: Darren Schroeder

Cover of Toxic Comics #1 Creator(s): Barry Southworth
Publishers:
From: USA
Price: $1.25

A collection of short stories and strips that for the most part manage to keep your brain active. There's a diverting one to start with, with what looks to be a naff female Ninja in skimpy costume violence feast which transforms in the crafty final panel.

We then get a couple of one page strips that range from attractive, barely clothed female in a variety of cheese cake poses to a humorous cheesecake view of a barely clothed and pot bellied guy. The longer Panic Planet follows a female fast food worker through a day in which her boss has to deal with a crooked official from city hall. The dialogue in this is stilted which means the story doesn't quite flow. The anthology is rounded off by a couple of amusing strips.

Barry's drawing have a hesitant quality to them. At first glance they don't look that good, but closer examination reveals that the layouts and character work are quite well done. It may be that the use of thin pens and lots of ruled lines is making the finished pages look weaker than they actually are. He also seems to have a thing for cute girls with bad hair, why else would you give a main character a mullet cut?

Don't be fooled by the title, this comic is in fact quite safe for human consumption.

In a Word: Healthy.



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