I have nothing clever to say about this book that the book does not say for itself. Seek it out. You will not be disappointed.

Tom Pappalardo and a slew of artists working in conjunction with Standard Design have created what is quite simply a masterpiece. In the first of what is tellingly called Book One of Four, Maybe, Pappalardo introduces his readers to Cowboy, Spaceman, Vampire, Maggie, and Myron, five almost archetypal heroes whose adventure dances the edges of reality like Fred Astaire on crack. But fair warning, this is NOT a comic book. It is the first in a series of four illustrated novellas that will leave you literally salivating for more.

I first saw Pappalardo's work a few months back when I reviewed the surreal and entertaining Famous Fighters. In that comic Pappalardo, along with his intrepid collaborator, Matt Smith, introduced readers to Cowboy as well as a slew of other characters loosely connected by a twisted definition of heroism that simultaneously parodied and paid homage to some great comic book, fantasy, and sci-fi motifs. It was a funny, entertaining, and excellent little independent comic. But compared to Broken Lines it was weak.

With clever dialogue, present tense, conversational narration, and asides that will make you laugh out loud if you are, say . . . sitting in the dentist's office waiting room quietly leafing through your copy, Broken Lines offers something few novellas do these days. It is intelligent, entertaining, and in a word, freaking awesome.

The story begins when a waitress, Maggie, meets two strange customers on a cold winter's day in a Colorado diner. One is a stoic cowboy called Cowboy, the other is a childlike spaceman called Spaceman. Their personalities mix as if they are our culture's answer to Oscar and Felix—and if you don't know who they are, go to the theatre—they bounce off each other and balance each other out with a comedic flair that makes their story hard to put down. Later Firemen (not firefighters, firemen—demons whose job is to kill and destroy) burn down Maggie's trailer park and because Cowboy "had a feeling" something bad would happen, Maggie is saved and swooped away on a twisted adventure involving a rehabilitating vampire, demons who talk like stoners, vampire hunters who are far less noble than one would think their career choice indicates, and a hapless nerd and his dog working at a gas station in the middle of nowhere.

These clever words are balanced by the art. As mentioned above, this book is NOT a comic book, graphic novel, collected volume or anything like that. Rather, it is an illustrated novella. With periodic panel-to-panel art done by Pappalardo and various other independent and amazing artists, this book fires ahead where others would bog you down. There is a mixture of illustration, Photoshoppery, and collage filling the pages between the prose and continuing the story along with a finesse that belies and benefits the oddity of the actual tale being told.

And what an odd tale it is; odd, fun, well written and with likable, intriguing characters, a plot that never stops, intersections of panel-to-panel art, and a quote from William Blake for the cherry. Do yourself a favor and buy this book, seek out future issues, and become a fan. You will NOT be sorry.

- Aaron Stueve, broken frontier

I'm not sure what I expected when I began to read Broken Lines: Book One of Four, Maybe but it surpassed whatever thought I might have had. It is so unlike everything else that I have ever read that I hate to make any sort of comparisons.

Cowboy, Spaceman, Vampire, and a waitress by the name of Maggie are the good guys. You know the kind of good guys I'm talking about right? Yep, the kind that fight evil. When firemen show up at the trailer park Maggie is living in and start to set fire to things, she can't imagine why. She asks the two who show up on her doorstep and they are kind enough to fill her in:

'Oh, no, ma'am. You're confusing us with firefighters,' the second fireman explains through the door, "They put out fires and save people."
'They're America's Heroes,' the first fireman chimes in.
'Yeah. We're firemen. We're basically evil. We're here to burn and kill.

But since we know, well at least we guessed, that Maggie is one of our heroes, this can't be the end of her. That is when Cowboy and Spaceman show up. With the help of Vampire they rescue the lady in distress and hightail it out of there. 

What follows is a slightly peculiar journey to... well, we aren't exactly sure. They travel around in a rental van, which, by the way, is more than it appears, with Vampire hanging out in the back. Where they are from and who they are - those are questions that are never really answered. They simply are. Believe me, it is more than enough.

Coffee imbibing and all-night stints stocking-up at a grocery store also figure in Broken Lines, adding to its unique quality. There are some illustrations, a few traditional comic book boxes, but for the most part it is comprised of words - very funny words I might add. The characters are simply brilliant and the dialog is smart and entertaining.

Broken Lines is unusual. It starts out with a character washing his hands and ends with someone asking where the microwavable chalupas are. Completely irresistible once you start reading, you will not stop until you have reached the last page. Once there you will immediately start looking for volume two.

- Katie, McNeill - blogcritics magazine & GPB

Katie also interviewed Standard Design about Broken Lines. Read it here.

The world does not need more superhero comics. It also doesn't need weird little illustrated novellas halfway between The Poor Man's Almanac and an old volume of Edgar Allan Poe poems with captioned picture plates. But I'd much rather more of have the latter than the former, which is why I was so pleased to read Tom Pappalardo's Broken Lines: Book One. It's the story of a waitress who hooks up with a spaceman and a cowboy to transport a vampire across the country in a rented moving truck. If you're either confused or irritated by the concept thus far, reading the book in its entirety will alleviate neither condition.

So, it's a good thing that Pappalardo's humor strikes such a chord with me. It probably won't with some people, primarily the type that buys Friends on DVD and goes to Adam Sandler movies on opening day, but those that prefer a more literary type of humor will find something to appreciate in Broken Lines. That's not to suggest that the book relies on high-brow pretension; quite the opposite is true. While Pappalardo clearly appreciates the finer points in humor specific to the written word, and has steeped Broken Lines in various literary traditions that suggest he's at least walked by a library or two, the sense of humor is truly absurd, and references to modern culture both high and low pepper the pages. At a hefty 70-plus pages, that's a lot of pepper.

But what's most arresting about this independently published book is its design. Not only has Pappalardo apparently read a few books, he's also paid quite a bit of attention to their layout and design. From the dry edition notes on the back of the title page to the chapter breaks, every element of the book has a unified sense of style, best described as ‘olde thyme', so detailed it belies the independent nature of the book. The illustrations are varied but consistent, alternating between diagrams, comic pages that bridge gaps in the prose, and illustrations with captions so absurdly chosen ("About halfway through Yojimbo" being my personal favorite) they complement the book's sense of humor perfectly. The spaceman is cute, the cowboy, who we've met before in Pappalardo and Matt Smith's excellent Famous Fighters, is suitably gruff, and the waitress character is almost as baffled as the reader is. The only real downside to the book is its rather abrupt end, which stops short as if a filmstrip caught fire halfway through the final reel. Broken Lines is ostensibly book one of four, but the build up doesn't work, because we're not left teetering on the edge of a cliffhanger, but rather thinking a few pages got left out at the printers. But though the end is confusingly sudden, the reader is still left wanting more, so while the world may not need any more superhero comics, it may need at least one more illustrated novella. - Rating: 9 on 10

- Al Kratina, comic book bin

Well, this isn't a comic exactly, and it's not a short story exactly either. It's mostly a short story with comical interludes thrown in, but what a story it is. I can't remember the last time I was this impressed by a story where I had no real idea what's going on. It starts innocently enough in an all-night diner with a cowboy and a man in a spacesuit eating dinner. Their waitress can't work up the enthusiasm to be too curious about them, and things proceed slowly for a bit until Maggie ends up having to get a ride home from these two. After they part ways, Maggie meets a group of demons from hell dressed as firemen (firemen make fires and kill people, firefighters are the ones who put them out, you see) before eventually ending up back with Cowboy and Spaceman and their silent friend, Vampire. She joins them on their journey across the country, trying to make enough money to survive along the way, while being chased by... well, we're not sure what. Nor do we know where they're going or why they're going there. None of that matters even a little bit, as an engaging cast of characters (I haven't even mentioned Myron or the Vampire Hunters because why not leave a few surprises for you?) and a constantly funny dialogue keep things moving even when they're stuck doing inventory in a grocery store to make a few bucks. Spaceman is possibly a small retarded child judging by his actions, Cowboy is the stereotypical cowboy except with a clumsy streak, and I don't have the slightest idea what Vampire is yet, except that he seems to have given up drinking blood. What can I say, I was mesmerized and damned sad to see the last page of this book. It's projected to be the first of four issues, so at least there's plenty more to go. I can't recommend this enough for those of you who don't mind a lot of really wonderful text thrown in with the pretty pictures. Oh, and Thomas did most of the drawing himself, except for a page each by Mister Reusch, Jason Goad and Matt Smith. $9.95 - Optical Sloth, June 2007

A couple of years ago, I reviewed a self-published comic called FAILURE, INCOMPETENCE by Tom Pappalardo [link - tom], and gave it a pretty heavy panning. The biggest problem was that Pappalardo was just not a very accomplished artist as far as comics went. Now, many times when you lay out an indy creator in a review, you'll never hear from them again; I say that, because I tend to have a healthy respect for those with the stones to come back for more. So I tip my cap to Pappalardo for standing up and taking another swing.

BROKEN LINES, to his credit, is something completely different. It is actually a prose work, with some illustrations spread throughout the book. But while the illustrations come across weakly on the whole (there hasn't been a lot of artistic growth here), the prose part is absolutely terrific fun. Pappalardo's true gift kicks into gear when he puts the pencil down and starts typing.

Maggie is a waitress working at a highway diner when her life takes a bizarre turn; one of her morning tables is comprised of a cowboy in full-regalia and a man in a spacesuit. But that isn't the weirdest part of her day; when she gets home, her home is attacked by demons called "firemen" whose job is to burn property and kill the owners, sending them straight to Hell. Fortunately, Maggie has a chance to survive when the cowboy and spaceman show up to save the day and rescue her… along with the help of their other friend, a vampire.

Swerving between quirky and flat-out strange, BROKEN LINES is a very amusing little tale. It's completely unpredictable, and not once do you ever feel like you know where it's headed. That's a nice feeling to have, and even though you're only a fourth of the way into the full story, you still walk away from this first part feeling satisfied. The story is also told in the present tense, which is rare these days, making it an even more unique read. Congrats all the way around to Pappalardo on delivering a solidly creative effort.

- Mark Mason, comics waiting room

This unusual comic is a compendium of nearly 10 years worth of goofy comics initially drawn by two friends just to amuse themselves, but now published to hopefully amuse others as well. Their single most successful creation is the Conan the Barbarian parody called "Barbarian Lord" . One-page "Barbarian Lord" episodes recur periodically throughout this issue, giving the reader sufficient time to adjust to its comedic weirdness. Each episode finds Barbarian Lord typically confronted by some blustery foe whose bravado is unmercifully dispatched by Barbarian Lord's fist, sword, or battleaxe. Each slaying is then followed by a single-panel feature entitled "Poetry of Barbarian Lord", wherein BL offers a tersely worded, haiku-like account of some past atrocity. Though all of the comics are highly stylized and perfectly rendered (the two creators work in illustration and graphic design), most of the other stories tend to overstay their welcome. One longer feature that mostly works, however, is an epic poem involving a protagonist's Pong battle with Satan, which features inventive rhyming accompanied by wonderfully detailed illustrations of the cloven-hoofed Beelzebub. - Ari Charney, punk planet Jan/Feb 2007

My copy of Matt Smith and Tom Pappalardo’s Famous Fighters arrived alongside perhaps the most unassuming press release I have ever read, addressed to “Dear Comic Book Reviewer/Blogger/Columnist/Ham Radio Operator/Innocent Bystander” and ending with the following plea: “Please review Famous Fighters for your publication/pseudo-publication/karaoke night.” Between this friendly introduction and the premiere issue’s title ("Situation: Armageddalypse!"), I was about halfway in love with Famous Fighters before I had even opened it.

Having since read Famous Fighters cover to cover, I would like to make two important notes before proceeding with my review. First, despite some uneven moments, Famous Fighters is a wickedly absurd and delightfully entertaining romp which more than proved worthy of my initial affection. Second, I have no idea why Smith and Pappalardo bothered to print it.

I have noted before that American culture, and particularly American youth culture, has in recent years taken a turn toward the surreal and the nonsensical. The young prefer their humor, especially, to be random and bizarre. But young America’s increasing taste for the odd seems to be directly proportionate to its decreasing attention span, which is no doubt why the Random movement came to prominence during the ever-growing influence of the internet. Indeed, at times it seems that the internet is composed entirely of barely comprehensible, blink-and-you-miss-it disposable memes and videos. One wonders what a future civilization might make of the early twenty-first century based only on briefly ubiquitous phrases like “All your base are belong to us” and “teh w1n.”

Meanwhile, despite my having not seen it for myself, I was frankly taken aback at the largely lukewarm and occasionally hostile reviews Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters received during its theatrical run. However, those harsh reviews probably stem from the fact that Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a product of and for the internet age; it is almost violently odd, and for viewers with a strong appreciation for the strange, it is quite charming, but only, perhaps, in small doses. Indeed, Aqua Teen Hunger Force would have arguably made more sense as an internet broadcast than a cable program, which brings us back to Famous Fighters, a quirky and often fall-down funny comic that should have never seen print, because the internet represents its best hope of finding a loyal audience. I love Famous Fighters, but it should be a webcomic.

Famous Fighters runs 54 pages, and few of its tales run more than one page. Most of them (also the best of them) concern a barbarian lord called, well, Barbarian Lord, who does away with villains like Skull-Master and then writes poems to honor his victory ("Greedy monk / Hoarding sheep / Fat and sleeping / Your time has come.") The charm of these goofy gags is difficult to justify in a review. Suffice to say, I laughed aloud several times while reading Famous Fighters, and any pressure I feel to justify my love is lessened somewhat by its obscure Iron Maiden gags and its competing samurai battle cries ("Walrus scratched flabby bum!” “I am fat wet bum of receding hairline school!")

We each have our own tastes and opinions, and generally speaking, I am willing to concede that each person’s opinion is as valid as the next. But when it comes to such verses as “The fallen man leaves sword and gold / It is good my arms are two”, you either love it, or you are wrong. - Monte Williams, PopMatters, June 2007

Zombies, barbarians, ninjas, cowboys, Star Wars references, and the Devil-what more could you want?

Matt Smith and Tom Pappalardo have combined a manic mix of pop culture mayhem with spastic art and melodramatic satire to create one of the most original books available. The stories, ranging from the adventures of a ninja-egg-guy to a murderous barbarian, mock everything we love about comic book culture while simultaneously putting it on a pedestal. Zombie freaks, kung fu fanatics, Star Wars geeks, and anyone who remembers Thundarr the Barbarian will get a laugh out of this comic.

The writing, by Matt Smith and Tom Pappalardo, is heavy with references to zombie movies, kung fu films, and any other piece of comic book culture you can think of. Naturally, this appeals to readers who have been living in this culture for the better part of their lives. Though some of the stories are a bit esoteric and apparently meaningless, see "Eclipso," they appeal to the thing in all of us that thinks everyone else is dumb. Then, the one-page "Barbarian Lord" stories running throughout the book are viciously violent with poetic endings you can't help but enjoy while you read. But perhaps the crown jewel in storytelling is "Midnight at the Crossroads, Alec Dear vs. Satan: Best Two out of Three." This story is a poetic meeting between our hero, a masked avenger with a smart mouth who looks like DC's Golden Age Sandman playing Pong with Satan. The winner takes all.

The art in this book has it all. Matt Smith is a virtuoso. In some stories the work looks like it was taken from a mainstream Marvel book-no small feat for an independent artist in the comic book world. Other times, his work looks like it belongs in a museum somewhere, the heavy shading and clear distinct line marks giving the appearance of some recently discovered art issued with the original printing of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In that, the art goes with the writing. It is spastic-sharp in one story, loose in another. Nothing makes sense. Nothing looks the same. But everything is fun.

Essentially, that is what this comic book is supposed to be. There is no message in the story about aging headbangers who hook up with zombies to form a rock band. "Barbarian Lord" doesn't give us any insight into the world or ourselves. Not everything is supposed to, some things are just fun. Famous Fighters, with its bubbling cauldron of stories, is just that. - Aaron Stueve, broken frontier, Sept 2006

You have to have a sense of humor if you like comic books. The name of the media itself suggests that if you take them too seriously, you'll spend entirely too much time arguing about whether Superman could beat up the Hulk and not enough remembering to close your mouth when you breath. Sadly, a good sense of humor is not always par for the course, since I think I was supposed to laugh at the new Alpha Flight series, but every once in a while a book hits the right note and strikes a chord in the comics community. Such was the case with Dork Tower, and I hope the same will be true for Famous Fighters.

Famous Fighters consists of a series of short stories, loosely connected by themes of intense nerdiness. Exploring kung fu, Dungeons and Dragons, and all the orc-infested lands in-between, the black and white book comes across like a Demons & Wizards album that's intentionally funny, instead of sounding like it's been creeping around Pro-Tools with a battle axe. The stories are not interconnected, but many of the 1-pages stories revolve around Barbarian Lord, a character not unlike Conan the Barbarian if Schwartzenegger spoke better English. With clean, crisp, simple line art, and a sense of humor so dry you can barely tell that writer/artist Matt Smith is kidding and not stupid, the Barbarian Lord stories are the highlight of the book. That's not to say that the rest suffers. It's just that the Barbarian Lord tales move at a pace similar to those animated 30 Second Bunny shorts and contain poetry about broadswords. The first Barbarian Lord story is followed by a forgettable but diverting story about a boy with a solar eclipse for a head, drawn in a messy style that looks like Calvin and Hobbes having a nightmare. Also, it has robots, or at least a guy in a robot suit. Then comes the artistic highlight of the book, a 14-page story drawn by Matt Smith and written by Tom Pappalardo, which appears to involve the Golden Age Sandman playing Pong with the devil from that Tenacious D video at a midnight crossroads, accompanied by verse. The poetry may be a little juvenile, using the word ‘bum' entirely too often (once) for my sophisticated taste, but the art evokes medieval etchings and is quite striking. Then there's some more Barbarian Lord, a Sergio Leone-inspired short that features the undeniable stink of Fubar around it, a few more appearances by Barbarian Lord that start too feel a little bit too much like a Strongbad internet short, then a lengthy, semi-coherent Kung Fu parody that manages to make about as much sense as most Shaw Brothers movies. The book ends with an all-too-brief Shawn of the Dead meets Heavy Metal Parking Lot zombie story before coming to an end after an all too quick 52 pages. The book is hilarious, but in a very strange way, relying on an odd mix of subtlety and insanity to get its laughs.

There's already a lot on the market that taps into this particular nerd-comedy niche, what with Knights of the Dinner Table, PvP, and the aforementioned Dork Tower, and while the strangely-textured humor of Famous Fighters may not be broad enough to break through to the mainstream, it certainly has its own cohesive sense of style, and one that certainly appeals to my particular sense of humor. The differing artistic styles evident in the book help keep things varied, while the uniform comedic style help glue the book together. It may not be as funny as Alpha Flight, but that's a really, really good thing.  RATING: 8 out of 10 -  Al Kratina, comic book bin, October 2006

FAMOUS FIGHTERS is a collection of parodies and satirical stories that unfortunately don't really amount to much in the way of laughs. The creators stuff forty-eight pages [52 - ed] pretty tight, whether with a recurring gag about a barbarian who kills everyone in sight or a bizarre parody that mashes together a western, a Hong Kong action flick, and RETURN OF THE JEDI. But quantity is never a sure sign of quality, and that holds true here.

The key to creating a workable parody is always in having a solid direction for the story to work in. Consider a film like AIRPLANE; while it's stuffed to the gills with jokes, there's always an actual arc lying below the surface still being serviced. Ted has to land the plane and regain his confidence. But FAMOUS FIGHTERS' stories don't go anywhere; there's one that involves an evil character named Eclipso who's head blocks out the sun. So that means he kills any flowers or solar-powered heroes who cross his path. The payoff? There isn't one. Instead, the story goes into a flashback to explain why Eclipso looks the way he does. It's as if the creators sat around playing "Wouldn't it be cool?", rather than figuring out how to make the ideas work on paper.

There is one story in the book that works, and no coincidence, it's the one that seems like it took the most effort to figure out. It involves a character named Alec playing Satan at "Pong" for the right to rule Hell. It's not only illustrated well, but it's written in rhyming couplets. Plus, it has an ending that delivers on the promise of the story. Sadly, however, with only that one satisfying effort, I cannot recommend this indy. - Marc Mason, comics waiting room

God bless Matt and Tom, and I mean that as nothing but completely sincere. So many people who do comics are happiest when it's one big chaotic fight scene, so they decided to take most of the story out of it and we're left with one big pile of fights. Which, if you're feeling particularly cerebral today, might not be your thing, and more power to you. I rarely if ever sample the first page of a book, and that's all I needed to know I was going to like this one. Barbarian Lord is a character who's confined to single page stories, usually ending in decapitations, and always ending in a poem. Nothing but fun to be had there, and these are sprinkled throughout the book.  There's a Pong contest between a man and Satan, done entirely in verse. You also have Eclipso (a fat-headed kid who kills flowers), a zombie metal band and an extended kung-fu parody, also hilarious if you've seen more than one kung-fu movie in your life.  Really, there's not a single thing here to complain about.  Tom (between this and the issue listed above) [referring to Failure, Incompetence] looks to me to be a giant among comics men, assuming he has more like these last two in him, and Matt was able to do plenty of this issue in verse (which I usually hate) and make it a wonderful thing to behold. Buy it and laugh, as there are few enough things around that'll allow you to do that without trying to teach you some sort of a message. None of that nonsense here, just an awful lot of decapitations! - Whitey, optical sloth, Sept 2006

"here's my review: buy FF NOW! it doth ruleth. fer real." - Doug R.

Ten things I learned from Famous Fighters #1:

1. Apparently, everyone wants to be Jim Mahfood.

2. Remember the Open Head Wound Guy from Saturday Night Live? Me neither. Giving Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name a hurdy gurdy and a monkey and dropping him into the middle of a six-page Hong Kong martial-arts movie parody isn't funny if you forget to write any good jokes to go along with it. The concept alone isn't enough.

3. If your first six-page Hong Kong martial-arts movie parody isn't funny, following it up with a second thirteen-page Hong Kong martial-arts movie parody probably isn't a good idea.

4. If I see one more lame-ass Conan the Barbarian parody, I swear I'm going Postal.

5. You can draw really pretty pictures with lots of crosshatching and still not know what you're doing.

6. Parodies of children's-book cadences and cliches are actually harder to successfully create than Conan the Barbarian parodies. If you can't do the former, don't attempt the latter.

7. Star Wars parodies aren't memorable just because they're Star Wars parodies. No, really, the concept alone won't carry it if you forget to add jokes.

8. Zombie parodies can be funny if you're Simon Pegg.

9. Matt Smith and Tom Pappalardo are no Simon Pegg.

10. Matt Smith and Tom Pappalardo definitely aren't Jim Mahfood. Hell, Jim Mahfood is no Jim Mahfood half the time.

Better luck next time, guys. - Dirk Deppey, the comics journal - September 2006

"[their] stupid new comic bookie thing is like... um. great." - Dave M.

This may be the best comic I've ever seen that I never want to see another issue of. With pretty sharp artwork, Smith and Pappalardo rip through a several pop hero cliches - Conan, the Man With No Name, Chinese historical kung fu dramas - and a few original creations, like a kid whose head blocks out the sun, with the unfortunate name of Eclipso, and a ridiculously simple but effective bit about a death metal band hooking up with zombies. It's very funny (if a bit conceptual) and often surrealistic, but it shares a potential problem with most satirical comics: once you get the joke, you get the joke. Not that it's a problem with a single issue, though the initially amusing "Barbarian Lord" starts feeling a bit tired by its final appearance, but while this is worth picking up (if for no other reason that to see how good a self-published comic can and should look) a #2 isn't really called for. - Steven Grant, comic book resources - Sept 2006

"...my hard earned $5 was more than redoubled in entertainment." - Allison G.

I know that some, if not all, of you out there watch the Sunday night lineup on Adult Swim. You know who you are! Well, if you're into such shows as 12oz Mouse, Aqua Teen Hunger Force (my favorite), or, in particular, the new series Korgoth of Barbaria, you'll find a lot to like about Famous Fighters #1. The various comic vignettes that Matt Smith and Tom Pappalardo have included in this first issue have the same approach and mentality as the aforementioned Adult Swim programs: the dictum of "Keep It Stupid, Simple." That being said, I liked most of what I read in issue #1, though the entire comedic effort was forced and lacked aesthetic appeal (with some particularly poor artwork for certain tales). Still, you can't fault Smith and Pappalardo for the direction they took with this anthology. They knew the tone they wanted to capture in this issue, and they didn't let anything like good taste or common storylines get in their way. Mostly, my lackluster rating is indicative of occasionally distracting illustrations and the narrow fan base this comic is trying to reach. For the masses? I think not!

As the title indicates, these "Famous Fighters" are pop culture stereotypes known for their fighting or maiming prowess, with a definite concentration on barbarian fiction. Throughout the first issue, we encounter The Barbarian Lord, a Conan-like character whose sole mission in life is to kill in as humorously gruesome a manner as possible. Most of the time, Barbarian Lord's humor is of a supremely stupid nature, with little in the way of wittiness to make it endearing. It's hack-and-slash comedy that truly goes for the jugular, but has too few laughs to recommend it. "Eclipso" is not a tale starring the old Green Lantern foe, but rather a kid with an extremely large head that blocks out the sun. It's a cute tale that has some heart, but unfortunately features some very crude artwork. For the most part, Famous Fighters doesn't have an amateur or mini-comic feel to it, which is a great accomplishment. But "Eclipso" is one story that does have an amateurish execution, which may have been aided somewhat by better printing. "Midnight at the Crossroads" can best be described as a fairy tale children's story with two potty-mouthed characters: Satan and Alec Dear, who is clearly modeled after the Golden Age Shadow. Retaining the status-quo intellectual level, this is a stupid rhyming poem that features some funny images, but some groan-inducing rhymes as well. "Once Upon A Time in China in America" is one of my favorite shorts, as I'm a huge fan of both The Man With No Name and Star Wars (Trust me, the two are mixed here for possibly the first time!). Fanboys will find the homages funny, as well as the dialogue from the heavy metal dorks at the end. "Mysterious Dojo" is a cross between an old Saturday morning kung fu movie (complete with craptastic faux-dramatic dialogue) and Perfect Hair Forever (Adult Swim again! Zounds!). Once again, the crude art and the lackluster printing are a distraction for an otherwise decent short tale. "Zombie Uprising" is the gem of the issue. Not only are the heavy metal references priceless (can you use "metal" and "priceless" in the same sentence?), but the silliness factor is appropriately calibrated, and there are some genuine moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity. Garry and Jaysun, the two aging headbangers of the story, are so similar to people I know in my own life, it's scary. As the two try to form a "zombie band," they analyze a possible guitarist. Garry says to the undead gentleman, "Powerchords! Downpick! You gotta go wicked fast like James Hetfield!" Jaysun's response to the zombie's lack of musical talent is, "I'm not sure this dude has the metal militia vibe we're goin' for." Great stuff!

Overall, this was an entertaining way to pass fifteen to twenty minutes of free time. There's plenty of various material here (52 pages of sequential stories), but not a lot of derring-do. I think Famous Fighters would have been more appropriate as a web comic, which may sound like an insult, but is not meant to be malicious in the least. With its pricetag of $5, most fans either won't take the chance on this or, if they do, they'll probably feel that they paid too much. But, if you have some excess comic money burning a hole in your pocket, you could do a lot worse than Famous Fighters. - Robert Murray, silver bullet comics, Sept 2006

"i ain't reviewing shit." - Rob T.

Tom refers to this as "a collection/retrospective of the last ten wasted years of my artistic life (ha)." Well, he's full of wilderness muffin mix, for rather it's a collection of zany gag cartoons and longer pieces, all in a booklet that's strangely reassuring to hold.

Several pages show the influence of Chris Ware's jolly despair, mostly in the bits featuring a sad sack who looks like a cross between Sluggo and Ware's gloomy potato man. Recommended: four pages adapting the audio drama at the end of the long version of Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City". Hopefully, Tom will have something else for us to groove upon before another decade passes.

- Mark Campos, POOPSHEET Oct 18, 2005

"I have only laughed out loud while reading this thing. And I only do that once or twice a year."

- K. Stream

Want to make your book critic-proof? Or at least for wishy-washy critics like me? Here's a quote from the brief (but hilarious and insightful) intro: "I hope that you find the jokes-to-dollars-spent ratio to be within acceptable parameters." That's it, I'm shut down completely. $5 is a bit much for a comic, granted, or at least it is in my fantasy 1997 world where that sort of thing was still rare. But all you have to do is pick this thing up and you can tell by sheer weight that you're getting a lot of pages. And he's right, there are jokes packed all over the pages, so even if you don't like two or three of them, well, there's still 5 more right there iether on that page or the page next to it to make you laugh. The only complaint that I have about this is that, as this is my first impression of the guy, I could have done with a slightly smaller book that didn't have some of the dumber strips in here. But then, as humor is mostly subjective, who's to say what that is? At least this way you get to see the bad with the good. So what's actually in here, as I seem to be skirting around that? Well, it's mostly because there's no chance for me to tell you everything in here without this being the longest review ever, so I'll just stick to a (relative) few of them. Australians, outer space adventures, voodoo, fat rats, superhero school, and when he was a headbanger. That's probably about 1/100 of the book right there. He also has a few text pieces that I really loved, including the best blanket apology that I've ever seen...

- OPTICAL SLOTH / Whitey, Sept 13, 05

"Going for gags by the pound, the author seems to have cleared out his comic closet hoping some of these jokes would hit the mark, gags, strips, stories, you name it."

- QUIMBY'S

I finally read failure/incompetence, and I can't decide whether who's more lame, you for writing it, or me for finding it funny.

- AUBRIE

Creator Pappalardo refers to this book as a retrospective of the last ten wasted years of his artistic life. While he's being a bit facetious, I do wish he'd have been a bit more judicious about presenting the best of his material, rather than seemingly all of it. The inconsistency here is enough to drive you insane, and it exposes his weakest ability, which is finding a solid ending to a story or gag. It's like watching an episode of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE made up solely of material presented in the last 30 minutes of the show. There's talent here; they key is for the artist to mine through his stuff and find 20-22 pages to put out a really solid comic.

- COMICS WAITING ROOM, June 20, 05

[Man, 60 pages WAS the edited version.... - Tom]

"This collection is incredibly smart, sad, and funny. i'm a comic geek, believe me - neither Failure nor Incompetence have ever been better."

- A. Glancey

...Lastly, I turn my attention to Failure, Incompetence, a 60-page black & white collection of cartoons, drawings, and text bits by Tom Pappalardo. At 5 bucks, this gives a pretty good per-pound value for the money. Tom's pretty blunt and honest about this book, presenting it as what it is: a collection of miscellaneous stuff that is often not particularly amazing. The closest thing I can think of to this is a book of assorted bits that Mark Crilley (Akiko) put out a while back - no single item is compelling enough to publish, but as a collection it gives you an insight into the way this person's creative mind works. Slice-of-life vignettes, absurd single panel gags, bits that you just sit there and say "huh" over. Very "alternative" cartooning. I didn't laugh, but I did grin a few times, and considering the author's notes, I guess that was the point.

Aside from that, I rather liked the design of the cover - very stylish, though I suspect the drawing on the cover is an enlarged bit of clip art and not the work of the author.

- SHOCK TRAUMA STUDIOS

[Oh, it was all me baby. Yeah. - Tom]

"Ok, so I've read through the comic book like 8 times now... I NEED MORE TOM STANDARD."

- M. Guams

"This book is a laugh riot. Everybody should have their own copy, heck, everybody should have two copies. One to keep on them and one to keep in their nuclear fallout shelter. Because you know, once you're stuck in there, you ain't coming out. Heck, you'll probably be drinking your own urine at some point, so, you're going to need a good laugh to keep your spirits up!"

- J Boyd

"I bought one and it's done absolutely nothing for me."

- J. LaChance

If misfortune happens to pass this comic your way, flip to the page with the one-panel comic surrounded by dotted lines before you pass it over. The one with the picture of the guy looking at his fridge, saying "Hey. You ever notice you've got alot (sic) of crap taped to your refrigerator?" and at the bottom it says "Tape this to your refrigerator." It's clever in an "I know I'm not but look at me anyways!" fashion, complete with a spelling or grammatical faux pas for that final punt of embarrassment. And thus is the philosophy of the Tom Pappalardo humor.

Or I presume so. This may not be representative of Pappalardo's normal work; Failure, Incompetence is a collection of unpublished comic strips, a self-proclaimed wastebasket of a creative mind (and, my God, does it ever show). Failure... assumes an air of smug, detached irony, as a lot indie comics are wont to do. And it could've been forgivable had the material actually been good, which the front cover almost promises. Colored in a tacky, 70s-upholstrey green, the cover has a bespectacled business man, all laughs and giggles, dropping his suitcase and doing a jig. The drawing's cartoony, yet understated and attractive. Where did he come from? Won't you let him back into the limelight, please? Alas, he's never seen again.

Instead we're treated to losers and slackers in panels overstuffed with thick marker lines and detail, as though these suburban wanderers biggest adversary isn't boredom but a little white space. You can call it art brut, but it honestly comes off more like frantic busywork. And Pappalardo makes no apologies about it. In his introduction, he acknowledges the "bad puns," "illegible lettering," "inconsistent artwork," and "recycled ideas." But he's sick of his "self-deprecating-apology schtick" and doesn't want to do it anymore. Well, thank you salesmanship.

After prohibiting us to enjoy the book at face value, and shedding the kvetching routine, Pappalardo resorts to the worst thing of all: a forced vociferousness ("So screw you. I rule," reads the next paragraph) that we know is phony. And he knows that we know. So to stay ahead of the audience he takes the last resort of pumping up the volume and cramming as much as he can together, each page becoming a collision of doodles and dialogue. They're mostly passe potshots at obvious subjects like Starbucks ("Filtered through the asscrack of an old homeless man"), rock stars ("The next song is about how alienated I feel" the singer addresses to his stadium audience), and the comic industry (with Spawn hat flying off his head, a kid exclaims "Holy moly! A first edition die-cut foil-wrapped special insert pull-out-poster-included limited signed numbered rare first issue of Cloth-Man!).

Two comics do hint at what Pappalardo might be capable of with a more serious attitude. The first runs eleven pages, the longest story in the collection by a large margin. It revolves around another retail slave that populates Failure..., John, working at a tacky dollar shop. A larger mall had recently been built next to the mall John works in and is slowly sucking the life and money from John's mall. It's a clever unique perception of suburban America (the mall John works in opens "their doors to mom-and-pop stores similar to the ones [it] helped displace less than a decade before"), but before any polemics are set up or even before John takes any actions, the story shrinks back to its usual self and ends with a joke about public bathroom masturbation.

The other good comic is a six panel stretch about a clown who drops a 200 pound weight on his head, break dances, and does Nixon impressions to the elated laughter of an audience. After the gig, he loses the grin but the sound of laughter remains even as he waits for a bus alone. And lying in bed that night, he stares at the ha ha has still hanging over him. The sad clown's been done to death, but it's always been the sad-on-the-inside routine. Here, the laughter itself, the lifeblood of the clown that begins to sear like acid. It's a crisp, precise cogitation on the fine line between being laughed at and being laughed with, something all too fitting for a comic that toes that line with the grace of Bozo in size 50 shoes.

- Alex Vo, PopMatters, Jan 25, 2006