Customer Reviews

Grease Monkey

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One would expect a story set in space to be about Humans verses aliens with epic battles and personal loss. Grease Monkey delivers all of that and more, but not in the way one would expect.

There is, of course, the alien threat, but in stead of it being in your face, it is a constant, set in the background leaving one to wonder what would happen should the big battle occur. Imagination for the reader at it's finest. The epic battles are man's classic struggles; man vs authority, finding one's place in the universe, understanding one's self. Themes subconsciously ingrained in all of us, brought to life in what starts innocently, but culminating into moving, emotional events that everyone, of all ages, can relate to. No one dies a heroic or violent death in this collection, but people move on, whether being forcibly removed or leaving to find a better life, each person and their absence affecting us as if our best friend has moved across the country. We know life will never be the same and we can see this effect on the main characters.

The stories are not entirely devoid of cool action and fights though. Well designed Space Fighters engage in trilling dogfights and the occasional punch is thrown because we are dealing with complex, goal driven characters after all. The artwork is top notch, bring us a full spectrum of emotions and swear words are thankfully absent making this a perfect story for everyone.

Grease Monkey is certainly not what you would expect it to be, it's even better.

Tim Eldred began work on the Grease Monkey project in 1992 as a project for an audience of one: himself. Thankfully, he found a publisher with Tor in 2004, and now we can all enjoy this wonderfully written and illustrated graphic novel.

The book follows the first year of a tour of duty by Robin, an assistant mechanic assigned to the Barbarian Squadron on the flagship of Earth's space fleet, the Fist of Earth. When Robin first learns that his boss is an uplifted gorilla named Mac, and that Mac's previous assistant departed under supposedly frightening circumstances, he fears for his life. However, Robin soon finds in Mac a kindred spirit--a fellow man with imagination and heart. What follows is a series of short stories of the two's growing friendship set against the larger picture of life aboard The First of Earth, and slowly revealing the backstory of the attack on Earth by aliens and the rebirth and rebuilding with the assistance of the mysterious Benefactors. Throughout it all, Robin grows and matures, experiencing joy and heartbreak.

The storyline is similar to Busiek's Shockrockets, but where Grease Monkey surpasses that book is in heart. This book is bursting with fun and joy. The content is excellently suited for younger readers, and could easily be gifted to a younger relative as a gateway book into non-superhero comics.

On the art, as the project evolved over a decade, the style slowly changes as well. I found this appropriate to the story. As the protagonist of Robin grew up, so too did the artist.

Overall, a highly recommended book, especially for anyone with pre-teens, but enjoyable to adults as well.

In brief: those who are used to reading old-fashioned text-novel science fiction will find that this has enough plot, character development, and dialog to satisfy, and those who watch sci-fi on TV will find that this is more fun than BSG - imagine a season of BSG, only without the excessive angst and religion.

The plot starts with a written introduction - aliens attack Earth for no good reason (and there are lots of novels, from the grand masters and classics to today, where we never find out the reason, either, so it's not a weakness here); other, more helpful, aliens try to fix things up for us and enlist us in their interstellar wars. Part of the fixing up includes bringing gorillas to full sentience and equal-to-human intelligence. And, as it seems to be, equal to human in sense of humor, especially practical jokes. The old banana peels take on a whole new meaning...

Although many of our characters, including our human protagonist, are teenagers, this is not just for young adults to read. I, as someone who grew up reading Asimov and Heinlein in the 60's, enjoyed every page of this. The drawing style is accessible even to those who don't normally read graphic novels - it's pretty linear; no manga panels scattered haphazardly, no dark and scratchy hard-to-decipher noir images.

I would have trouble listing my favorite parts, because they are all good. I think I liked Beer Night (Apes Only) the best - but certainly Mac's mother's visit is a hoot, any scene where Admiral Stettler appears is great, and I enjoyed the brief appearances of Reg's pet hamster, Dewey.

And for the librarians among you, wondering whether to add this to your collection - if you don't normally read SF or graphic novels yourself, you might still want to read this one, along with acquiring it - because Robin's attempts to sneak books INTO the library are a pivotal point. The view of librarianship as a career is a bit cynical (the head librarian is Ms. Ann Thrope), but Eldred makes sure we all know that libraries, and books in general, are important.

Family reading alert: safe for all ages - only veiled hints at sexuality, no excessive bad language - the only reason the younger teenagers might not enjoy it as much is that possibly they won't get the political allusions or nods to history, not to mention nods to older SF themes. Best for people old enough to at least have heard of Dian Fossey.

In short: a humorous coming-of-age tale enjoyable by anyone who likes SF.

I'd been a fan of Tim Eldred's work since his comic book adaptations of Japanese mecha properties and games of the Eighties and Nineties (Emeraldas; Robotech: Invid War; Lensman; Battletech: Fallout; VOTOMS) and his own self-published stories (Chaser Platoon; the unfinished Cybersuit Arkadyne and Broid) to his ongoing webcomic version of Star Blazers. I even own the instructional book MECHA MANIA, which was written by Christopher Hart but features a great deal of material from Eldred's Doodle File.

But simply put, Grease Monkey is his best work yet, combining all his strengths as an artist and storyteller, plus giving full flight to his imagination and sense of humor. It's a fun read, with adorable characters, believable situations but screwy twists at every angle, real emotions (both human and not-so-human) and a galactic, epic scope in spite of its overall intimacy.

The cover of this album is awful. It reminds me of a childrens book. However don't be misled; it's the content that counts.
If you like battlestar galactica (the new serie), then you'll probably also like this book. Somehow it has aspects of Ender's game (squadron fighting + ranking) and battlestar (Human's have to survive after an alien attack).

From out of the blue --or the black -- an independent artist creates a clever and engrossing story for teens (and older, truly). We can only hope our introduction to the galaxy will not be this traumatic. But I hope we would respond the same way.

The set-up for this episodic graphic novel is that, a very few years from now, a horde of alien spaceships will sweep into our solar system, bent on Earth's destruction. We're never told what their motivation is for the attack, but only forty percent of the population survives, vast amounts of the world's infrastructure is destroyed, and it's a near thing whether the species can survive. Then the other aliens -- the Benefactors -- stroll in and offer to help the earth restore itself by enhancing the intelligence and general intellect of other of the planet's species to replace the dead human population. (No, this really isn't like David Brin's "uplift" process.) The dolphins turn down the deal, but the gorillas are more than ready. Cut to another few decades in the future. A humongous space station-slash-battleship orbits Earth as a sentinel and first defense against the possible return of the alien invaders. It's inhabited by a number of fighter squadrons and all the associated bureaucracy and support personnel, and to keep everyone sharp (and to develop new dogfight tactics) each squadron is regularly pitted against the others. Barbara Brand's Barbarians have been on top in the scores almost forever, and what keeps them there is Mac Gimbensky, gorilla and ace fighter mechanic. (As his tee-shirt attests, he don't take no crap.) Robin Plotnik, a young cadet sent to the battleship for a one-year tour, ends up as Mac's assistant and displays considerable mechanical talent himself. The chapters follow Mac and Robin through their interactions with other squadrons, friction with the gamblers who want inside info on the dogfight competitions, visits by their parents, struggles with the bureaucracy, and the love lives of both of them. Robin learns something about how humans and gorilla live together and gradually transforms into something approaching adulthood. The stories are pretty good (except for being way too cute), but the artwork is surprising bland and generic. Also, since the destruction on Earth was pretty generally distributed, why are all the inhabitants of the battleship apparently English-speaking Americans? And I kept waiting for the return of the invaders, when all the drills either pay off or not -- but it never happens. At the end of the book, the external situation is exactly what it was in the beginning. Either Eldred missed a bet here, of he's keeping it back until the sequel comes out. But since this book first began to appear as a series of comics in 1992, it make take awhile.

Tim Eldred, Grease Monkey (Tor, 2006)

After fourteen years and a number of deals that fell through, Tor has finally brought the first collection of Tim Eldred's legendary underground comic Grease Monkey to light, and we at Goat Central are pleased indeed. For those of you unaware of it, this is a sci-fi comic about a big space station. 60% of Earth's population was destroyed during an alien invasion; a more benevolent alien race came afterwards to help humanity out of the mess it had been thrown into, and part of that was imparting gorillas with human intelligence. So now gorillas and humans live and work alongside one another. The series focuses on the relationship between Robin Plotnik, a mechanic second class, and his boss, Mac Gimbensky (human and gorilla, respectively), the mechanics for the Barbarian Squadron, one of Earth's first lines of defense if the aggressive aliens come back. As is to be expected with a comic written over a fourteen-year period, yeah, it's episodic, but that doesn't make it any less fun to read. Eldred's got some interesting ideas, but he lets them flow through the story instead of sitting us down and telling us about them. (At times, in fact, he slips some in while having characters trying to sit each other down and say the exact opposite, which is great.) Eldred never lets any social consciousness (and it is writ large in the liner notes if you don't pick up on it) get in the way of telling a good story, and that, ultimately, is what any piece of writing should do. Recommended. ****

Mac is a big gorilla who's in charge of maintaining a fleet of rockets in "Barbarian Squadron," the members of which are all young, strong, buxom women in tight uniforms. Robin Plotnik is a teenage earthling sent out on a yearlong mission into space who has the misfortune to be assigned to Mac's command. The previous employee Mac ate, or so the scuttlebutt has it. Robin is a likeable little fellow who wears his feelings on his sleeve, and he's gullible, so all the old hands on the "Fist of Earth" make him the butt of their practical jokes. But over time, Robin proves his worth, and Mac begins to have strange, comradely feelings for this human boy. They are constantly thrown together, both at work, and at play. Though one is an ape, the other a young man, they share similar interests (of the female variety) and work ethic. As we discover they both had the same kind of overpowering, loudmouth Dads kids cringe from.

Robin falls in love with an attractive young librarian, Kara, but he can't seem to get it together when he's talking with her. Every time he wants to ask her out, he winds up talking about something boring, and this turns her off. If she wanted a dull evening, she might just as well have stayed at home. More to her taste is the black master chef, Jeff Simons, who at least has the sense to give a girl a good time.

Little by little we learn the back story of how apes came to share the intelligence of humans, after a catastrophic alien invasion left only a tenth of the human population alive. A patch of starlight grew into a vision of "Benefactors," higher creatures who guide humans into the next step in their evolution, and they decide to ask the dolphins if they want to get smart too. The dolphins wisely decline. All of this is very thought-provoking and I'm not sure that the cutesy rocketship stuff and the comic love affairs on board aren't overshadowed by this heavy duty, in fact grim plus, exposition always flaring up in the background.

I guess it's for kids because there's no swearing in it. When cursing is indicated, it's done with a zigzag graffiti scrawl that resembles the letter "N" written five or six times. Otherwise Tim Eldred is a master of dialogue and can really do no wrong scriptwise.

I have rarely read good science fiction in graphic novel format, and this definitely qualifies; a must-have for anyone interested in this medium.

The story revolves around a young gent doing maintinance on space-fighters. The characters are well drawn and the plots gripping.

On the other hand, the author fails to draw out the female characters as fully as I would like; while I found the drama between the lead and his paramours believable, the women lacked evidence of rich inner lives.

I will certainly pick up the next book, if there is one; given the production schedule so far, I would be surprised if Mr. Eldred gets it out before another decade passes.