Customer Reviews

Lucky Cow

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

 

 

Easily my favorite comic right now. I think it ranks with the Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes, but Lucky Cow is rooted in the real world. (The Far Side sucessfully created an alternate universe, and, as insightful as C & H was about childhood, remember Hobbes was a stuffed animal).

These people are all real! You meet them on the street, on the bus, and of course at McD and Burger King. Except they SAY the things we THINK! I mean, THEY think. It's not like I can relate to these people, right? My work ethic is better than Clare's. I never exhibit the misplaced enthusiasm of her father. And I'm definitely not at all like Neil! Definitely! At least, I don't have any zits . . .

The weekday comics tell stories that actually build through the week. The weekend comics are brilliant satire, often concentrating on making fun of our consumer society. In fact, the Saturday comics that are mock ads are among my favorites. Highly, highly recommended.

"Lucky Cow" is set in your average American homogenous fast-food restaurant and focuses on Clare, daughter of the franchise owner. Clare hates her job and does her best to avoid work, complain and provide substandard customer service. Unfortunately, Mark Pett's attempts to skewer the fast-food industry grow stale fairly quickly, and the humor just isn't sustained through an entire collection.

This is not a strip I'd want to see in my local newspaper, and I can't work up any enthusiasm to read another collection of these jokes.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles editor

Lucky Cow is one of my favorite current comic strips. The humor is great in poking fun at fast-food restaurants, which generally I'm not too fond of. Claire is a good example of the apathetic employee that is dragged in off the street to work, not just in restaurants, but in many businesses across America. Add to that the emphasis on meat, raunch fries, and other high-fat foods, along with a lack of fruits and vegetables, it's easy to see how fast-food places are fun targets for humor. Although to be fair, Lucky Cow does exaggerate for humor's sake. One of the strengths of this strip is that it is a lot more consistent than many comic strips in maintaining good quality day after day. A lot of other comic strips often have klunkers, and days that make me think "What the heck does that mean?" but with Lucky Cow I seldom am disappointed. I'm looking forward to reading the second collection!