Customer Reviews

Lobo: Portrait of a Bastich

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

No other Lobo story produced holds a candle to Lobo: The Last Czarnian. Keith Giffen and Alan Grant's dialog is inspired as well as laugh out loud hilarious. Simon Bisley's artwork is amazing. It's truly his best art, and some of the best art ever published by DC.

The story is deceptively simple. Lobo must transport Mz. Tribb- his 4th grade teacher and author of his scathing unauthorized biography- to Vril Dox. Lobo has promised to deliver Mz. Tribb alive, and Logo never breaks a promise. The worst news is Lobo would like nothing more than to kill his former schoolteacher. He vents his homicidal rage in a series of hilarious adventures. Four comic books are reprinted in this volume and by the end of book 2, Lobo is being hunted by

The Legion of Decency- psychotic, tea-sipping grannies out for blood
A convoy of space truckers -their leader is an Elvis impersonator
The Sons of Lobo- biker Lobo wannabes
Oneida Police Swat Team- who want to kill Lobo after he kills their police chief
Storm Troupers of the Pan-Galactic Demolition Dance Company- desperate to pay Lobo back for upstaging them during their chainsaw ballet.

During his adventures Lobo also runs afoul of the Orthography Commandos, a group of hooded literacy loonies that hold lethal spelling bees.

This story was far ahead of it's time. Originally published back in 1990, it's every bit as relevant, irreverent, and hilarious today as the day it was published.

---Also, a must have for Garth Ennis fans!---

With dialogue by Alan Grant (Batman:Anarky, No Mans Land, etc) and art by Simon Bisley (Slaine), this comic is bound to be a success.

Lobo is a lunatic bountyhunter (more like bountyslayer) who has killed everyone on his birthplanet, just to be unique! The problem is that his old schoolteacher has survived and he has to protect her. The story is set in the DC Universe paralell to the Legion of Superheroes. Parts of the plot includes chainsaw ballet and a murderous spelling contest.

This is a good comic book and is recommendet to those who have read "Hitman" and such comics. Try this one instead, the original.

This book collects two LOBO miniseries published in the nineties, THE LAST CZARNIAN and LOBO'S BACK, both long out of print. Written by seminal scribes Keith Giffen (52) and Alan Grant (Judge Dredd) with pencils by Simon Bisley (Slaine), this collection is filled with the carnage and planetary destruction one comes to expect from an intergalactic bounty hunter who managed to kill every living being on his home planet as a science project before he graduated from high school. For those who take comics very seriously, LOBO: Portrait of a Bastich might not be as enjoyable as this review makes it out to be, but I have always tempered serious sequential art with a bit of humor and that is exactly what I find so appealing about LOBO. The jokes are funny, the humor slightly twisted, the body postures and anatomy exaggerated (as intended by artist Bisley, I am sure) while the action is non-stop and completely over the top. In the first tale Lobo is sent by L.E.G.I.O.N leader Vril Dox to extradite a prisoner and deliver her alive to intergalactic police headquarters. Unfortunately said prisoner happens to be Lobo's fourth grade teacher Miss Tribb, the last Czarnian (other than Lobo), and the author of Lobo's unauthorized biography, making her the one being in all creation our beloved anti-hero wants to kill more than anyone else. Unfortunately for 'Bo, he isn't the only one desiring Miss T's death, and a galaxy wide manhunt ensues. The second tale tells of how Lobo entered both Heaven and Hell and the resulting chaos caused by the presence of the Main Man on the spiritual plane. Both of these tales made me laugh out loud at times (most notably the scene where Lobo converses with some gnomish bounty hunters with a penchant for infectious rhymes). For those readers who wish to experience the lighter side of comics, buy this collection. It doesn't warrant five stars, since essentially LOBO is all about gore-drenched action scenes and macho banter...but what the hey, I loved it.

I have never understood why comics are considered a distraction for teenage boys, and not real art. Maybe the commercialization and infantilisation of the art form by Disney has something to do with it? There are lots of artistically brilliant and radical comics around. The sexually charged and often absurdist underground comics from Robert Crumb, Robert Williams and friends are one line of this, "Lobo" is another one.

Simon Bisley, who is one of my favorite visual artists, is responsible for the drawings, and Giffen and Grant wrote the dialog. There are two stories presented here, one where Lobo has to deliver his old, hated, primary school teacher, the only other living Csarnian, in a prisoner transfer. In the other story, Lobo gets killed (!) on a bounty hunt by an equally menacing character named "Loo", but does not exactly make friends in the afterlife. These stories are filled from start to finish with cynical humor, swear-word neologisms, and Bisley's unbelievable illustrations of futuristic vehicles, fantastic aliens, hand-to hand and weapon-inflicted violence and unreal bulging muscles. Especially the muscular bodies of Lobo and his adversaries (almost everyone else; short life-expactancy), anatomically realistic while at the same time grossly extragerated, are a testament to Bisley's artistic genius. While Paolo E. Serpieri is the supreme master of drawing a beautiful woman's curvy behind, Bisley takes the title for a ripped man's punching arm.

What makes "Lobo" stand out against many other superhero comics is that there is no tiring simplistic moralistic message here, and no tragical hero. This is a celebration of the speed, power, wicked humor, cool space-motorcycles and bad behavior of a cosmic wacko, in a phenomenally drawn graphic novel.

If you are looking for some fun reading while spending a Saturday afternoon listening to some loud heavy metall on your couch, get this.

No other Lobo story produced holds a candle to Lobo: The Last Czarnian. Keith Giffen and Alan Grant's dialog is inspired as well as laugh out loud hilarious. Simon Bisley's artwork is amazing. It's truly his best art, and some of the best art ever published by DC.

The story is deceptively simple. Lobo must transport Mz. Tribb- his 4th grade teacher and author of his scathing unauthorized biography- to Vril Dox. Lobo has promised to deliver Mz. Tribb alive, and Logo never breaks a promise. The worst news is Lobo would like nothing more than to kill his former schoolteacher. He vents his homicidal rage in a series of hilarious adventures. Four comic books are reprinted in this volume and by the end of book 2, Lobo is being hunted by

The Legion of Decency- psychotic, tea-sipping grannies out for blood
A convoy of space truckers -their leader is an Elvis impersonator
The Sons of Lobo- biker Lobo wannabes
Oneida Police Swat Team- who want to kill Lobo after he kills their police chief
Storm Troupers of the Pan-Galactic Demolition Dance Company- desperate to pay Lobo back for upstaging them during their chainsaw ballet.

During his adventures Lobo also runs afoul of the Orthography Commandos, a group of hooded literacy loonies that hold lethal spelling bees.

This story was far ahead of it's time. Originally published back in 1990, it's every bit as relevant, irreverent, and hilarious today as the day it was published.

---Also, a must have for Garth Ennis fans!---

After looking up Lobo and being a fan of Marvel's character "Deadpool", I decided to give this a shot since it seemed somewhat in the same vein as Deadpool (Although Deadpool seems to be more connected in the Marvel-Universe than Lobo is.) It has a crazy plotline to it. The first mini-series in this "The Last Czarnian" is a pretty fun read, with that awesome 80's comic book artwork style. Portrait of a Bastich also includes "Lobo's Back" which is way more over the top in violence than "The Last Czarnian", but it's definitely a lot more funny. The artwork is definitely the best in Lobo's Back, in my opinion.

I would strongly suggest looking over this if you're thinking about buying this for your kid. Theirs some nudity (old naked ladies... yeah, topless... just yeah, nuff said, right? It's not very detailed, but I'd still like to let people know before buying this.) Also when Lobo is turned into a female, he's wearing a thong throughout all of it. Yes, it's funny. (: Actually, Lobo is naked throughout most of that mini-series. (Never shows anything, always darkened when running around in the nude.)

If you "get" this sort of graphic novel, it's worth checking out for sure. My favorite part is when he talks to these little blue creatures... I won't spoil it, but it's hilarious.

Bought this for the b/f last Xmas. He loved it since it reminded him of his comic collection when he was a little kid.

I absolutely LOVED this book! Lobo is such a bad ass and it is great. The only down fall is the '90s style art (Lobo looks much cooler in the comic series 52). This book is worth every penny. Not only is it a good story, it's funny and has a lot of action

Nothing but good, dirty, Czarnian fun. If you're a fan you know what you're getting into; if not, go ahead and buy it and you soon will be.

If you're just going to get one book about the Main Man, be sure to get this one -- the Last Czarnian. It contains mind-blowing art by the quintessential Lobo artist, Simon Bisley and laugh-out loud words from Batman scribe Alan Grant. The situations are off-the-scale riot. Lobo, feared intergalactic bounty hunter must bring in his school teacher to Vril Dox, along the way they meet all sorts of crazy characters. In the end, we'll know why the book is titled the Last Czarnian.

Lobo was originally meant as a send-up/spoof to all those Marvel/Image grim and gritty characters like Cable, Wolverine and Punisher, but he the joke was lost to the fanboys back in the '90s and they (including me) lapped up his murderous, over-the-top antics. Just like the Main Man himself, this book kicks ass!