Toonedelic Times #5

Posted: Tuesday, March 28, 2006
By: Steve Saville

Cover of Toonedelic Times #5 Creator(s): Darren Worrow
Publishers: Toonedelic (Self Published)
From: UK
Price: £2pds, 3E, $4 US(UK)

Toonedelic Times is a humerous comic centred on contemporary drug culture. The concept of the "waster" dominates many of the stories on offer here. This anthology style comic is crammed full of comics, some long, some short, some political some paranoid, some are very good and others less so.

The "adult" nature of the subject matter is matched by the earthy language that is used throughout. Toonedelic Times has an R18 rating and strives to live up to that classification.

Inevitable comparisons must be made with other edgy British comics such as Viz and in many ways Toonedelic Times is reminiscent of very early editions of Viz. One of the most obvious similarities is that like early editions of Viz a combination of concentrated print and poor reproduction means many of the strips presented here are a real effort to read. The art -work is often quite raw and again poor reproduction does little to lift the art. In places it blurs the comic into obscurity.

The most effective strip from a visual sense is the martial art inspired tale Enter The Slab. This wordless comic looks great but the storyline is fairly tame in comparison. It is, in reality, an extended fight scene, but hey I guess it worked in Kill Bill.

Another highlight is the single frame Death comics based on humerous interpretations of phrases that are concerned with death.

This edition is again dominated by the longest story Rat Arsed and Shit Faced. Nine pages cataloguing a wasted characters pathetic attempt at going out for a night clubbing. It trundles along nicely but I found the ending a little too predictable.

The problem with many of the comics is that they verge on the clichéd partly because the whole drug culture world being parodied often verges on the clichéd.

The other comics range form the almost psychedelic Helen and the Hunchbacked Hobgoblin to Presidents in Love based on a lovers tiff between Bush and Blair.

It is a varied collection but overall it is aimed at a niche market, primarily those who have yet to get over Cheech and Chong humour. If spiff smoking, bearded snails wearing Rasta hats are your cup of tea then this comic is for you, that’s if you can be bothered dragging yourself off the couch to track down a copy•man.

In a Word: Spiffing.



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