Monkeys Might Puke #3 The Romance Issue

Posted: Wednesday, March 14, 2007
By: Steve Saville

Cover of Monkeys Might Puke #3 The Romance Issue Creator(s): Dan Lester
Publishers: A Vomiting Simian Publication
From: Kingdom
Price: £ 1 (UK)

Another volume from the prolific [if bizarre] Mr Lester. He certainly can crank out the stuff, the problem is that it is starting to get a ‘sameness’ feel about it. It is good getting regular doses of his irregular humour but it is also nice to see a development and I fear that there is not much of that in this latest collection.

As always when he does hit the mark then there are laughs a plenty, Bob Dylan in bra and panties working as a pole dancer for example, now that is funny. That alone is worth the one pound cover price. Elsewhere I am not so sure, at times it as if Dan has got this funny joke going on in his [quite possibly deranged] mind that the rest of us haven’t been let in on, the cheese headed characters being an example of this. The gags are all there but the hit rate is falling a little. The poo throwing one pager set at the zoo for example just seems to lose impact; it feels like a good opportunity wasted.

This collection is made up of short four frame strips, one pagers and another episode in the ongoing storyline ‘Junkies in Space’ where our hardy space travellers are captured by jelly fish headed aliens and as you would expect romantic complexities follow [naturally!].

We do get the introduction of a new character the Danish Guy who taunts Einstein in the one pager featured here.

The art work is as always basic and unsophisticated, the humour raw and weird and the presentation rudimentary but all of that suits Lester’s purpose, he just wants to have a laugh and if we share it, all well and good and if we don’t well, so what. As the man himself says “its more fun than beating a weasel to death.” Now I really wouldn’t know about that but somehow I think Dan might so I will take his word for it.

The world of small press comics exists for comics such as this. They are not earth shatteringly profound or important but they are works of creativity and even if they are sometimes well off the mark so what. I do believe that a consideration of quality over quantity could be worthwhile at this point but other than that I hope Mr. Lester continues to confuse, amuse and irritate us for some time to come.

In a Word: Harried.



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