Broken Frontier

I’ll tell you exactly what they were thinking: we’re going to make a classic comics remix into one of the silliest, laugh-out-loud funny books you’ll read all year.

I’m in the camp that finds the majority of old, "classic" comic books to be so corny and/or ridiculous that they’re difficult to get through. This is especially true for classic science fiction and horror comics. So, what this one-shot does is takes some of those old, mostly forgotten stories and places new dialogue with the original artwork. A few websites like the notorious somethingawful.com do this on a regular basis to books like Action Comics or Amazing Spider-Man. These are often funny because of the level of familiarity that the reader is likely to have with the characters. The writers of What Were They Thinking?! are forced to come up with something witty and original that fits the page and makes the reader laugh while at the same time wondering what in the hell the original piece could have possibly been about.

The first story, titled Barry’s Secret Shame, is re-written by Joe Casey on art originally supplied by comic legend, Steve Ditko. By just looking at the art, one might think that it is about a deep sea diver recounting the time he was saved by a pair of strange sea people. Casey, however, turns it into an oddly amusing inter-species love memoir narrated by a sentimental meth addict. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Probably my favorite of all is the Johanna Stokes penned monster tale, Hats Off. Therein, a pair of rival hunters trade jabs about head gear, facial hair, women and Tom Selleck, all while tenting it up in the jungle. When word comes down from the mountain that a monster resides in the area, they go their separate ways in a race to gain fortune and fame. What they end up finding, however, is honesty, respect and dark hilarity.

With exception to one story drawn by Rocco Mastroserio, each of the remaining yarns was illustrated by unknown artists, herein given fake monikers like, Sineyer Work Pleez, Kudnot Tellya and Dint Leavaname. The original stories that the art was done for is never credited.

This might be the funniest book I’ve read this year. Like art, humor is a subjective form of entertainment, but if you read this book without guffawing, giggling, chuckling or at least sniggering a tiny bit just once, I submit that you have no soul.

Just kidding…a little.