Bad Ideas 1 (of 2)
Comic review by his parents' bad idea, D.J. Kirkbride

Being a close, personal friend/part-time love slave for comic writer Wayne Chinsang (who hates being called a "comic writer") and artist Dave Crosland, I knew a lil' sumpin' sumpin' about Bad Ideas. It's a book they pitched along with Jim "Grrl Scouts" Mahfood while dick deep in doing the recently released graphic novel Heaven, LLC. I knew it was gonna be fuckin' retarded (in a good way). But I had no idea HOW fuckin' retarded (in a good way).

The book starts with a framing sequence drawn by Mahfood in his cute and cuddly (with an EDGE) style depicting himself, Wayne, and Dave at last year's Chicago Comic Con. They're suffering the indignities of being surround by geeky comic fanboys. Whilst lamenting about the sadness of it all, Wayne has the bright idea for the three of them to do comic about being at a comic con. Yeah, it's way existential.

This gives way to Wayne riffing on all the ridiculous comic trappings he can remember. A sequence illustrated by Crosland is a brutal lampoon of the early '90s Rob Liefeld dreck that came out from Marvel and started Image Comics. Crosland transforms his good, quality cartooning style into the most dead-on Liefeld impression I've seen since Liefeld hired a bunch of hacks to draw just like him while he was doing lines of coke back in his Image heyday. With a steroid freak George W. Bush as the villain, and Robert Smith of the Cure as a superhero vampire, well, it's fuckin' retarded (in a good way).

Back at the con, Crosland and Mahfood wisely poo-poo that idea, so Wayne starts going off on Manga in a sequence about an oh so cute Manga chick named Rock Candy and her little dragon drawn by Mahfood, using a pretty good Manga style to boot. This one has a goddamn flying banana. Again, fuckin' retarded (in a good way).

The insanity continues, but I think the second issue will have a more linear story about soon-to-be famous superhero duo of Comic Kid and Hot Chick. Mahfood and Crosland tag-team the art on this one, and it's fun to see. Comic Kid is not surprisingly an obese loser and Hot Chick is, well, a hot chick. I can't wait to read where they go with this nonsense.

So, if you're looking for a comic book that's actually comical, pick up Bad Ideas at your local comic shop instead of Rob Liefeld's new Youngblood or X-Force or whatever he's not drawing right now because Bad Ideas is fuckin' retarded (in a good way).