Customer Reviews

Planet Of Beer

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

 

 

I found the book to be entertaining, only because I was expecting it to be funny, and the jokes just never came. If you are looking for a laugh, I would recommend The Internet is a Playground By David Thorne.

I agree with the previous review. This is no where close to being as funny as David Thorne's "The Internet is a Playground". Now that is one awesome book

...and I mean queer in the old fashioned sense and not in some homosexually perverse sense. Humour is a universal language but it seems I am some what extra terrestrial to these kinds of strips. They have no point to make, no slap stick or comic effect, no cadence or flow, no meaning or structure, no curiosity or brilliance, no marvel or insight but most of all, no language. There is an art to them and for what they are, they are well drawn but they lack depth to rise above their 2-d surface. I was left feeling I'd been staring at coloured toilet paper - post wipe. Were it the case the in-joke was Kaufman genius. I'm also not one to be pedantic but being the Scot I am, the 'Loch Ness Monster' resides in a 'Loch'(as it's name suggests) and not in a 'Lake' as is the common, stereotypical misconception - it belongs to us so our rules, ok!?

Though I could imagine reading this cover to cover in my stoner days, probably in the bathroom, getting to the end and then spending the next few hours wondering what it was all about. Message? Parallels? Metaphor? Commentary on society? Or is this the published, self-indulgent hobby of something which is just not very good at being a comic? The polarised ratings say it all really but at least it doesn't promote indifference. Check it out for yourself.

I was hoping this would be more funny, say like David Thorne's "The Internet is a Playground". But instead it was simplistic and gimmicky, lacking in actual wit or insight. I am disappointed.

I used to love to read the Smell of Steve comics pages in our local Seattle Newspaper, and now I found this treasure book with its beautiful collection of over-sized strips, most in amazing color, full of the adventures of Sammy Hagar, Black Aquaman, Bigfoot, Aliens, Presidents and so much more. This book really tickles my absurd funny bone and makes me smile with glee. I cannot wait to share it with my friends who missed out on this strip. And it is quite a sizable book for such a reasonable price (a little more than $10 here on Amazon). What a find, thanks Dark Horse.

But I can tell from the cover that it's probably pretty funny. That's good enough for me, which means it should be good enough for you. Or my name isn't Colonel Pickles.

[BOOKLIST, May 1, 2009:]
What if Johnny Ryan (Angry Youth Comix, Blecky Yuckerella) toned down the scatology, made his characters grown-ups, and put them in outer space, full- and part-time? You'd have something a lot like Sendelbach's strip Smell of Steve. What if loutish Canadian stereotypes Bob and Doug McKenzie of SCTV fame starred in the next Star Trek flick? You'd have something a lot like Smell of Steve. What if Carter was still in the White House, goofing around with a big-eared, green alien named Kenny? You'd have--but enough. Smell of Steve exists and, as represented in this wide-screen-format book, is inspiredly silly. Sendelbach's big-headed, dumpy, mostly male figures stagger about the universe, trying to find a world made of brew; cavort in the Oval Office, nuking cities far and near; mess around with magic (the stock-in-trade of the mysterious, bandage-swathed, cigar-chomping, star-wand-waving Bougle Gluce); and otherwise act out Sendelbach's grandiose but pointless imaginings. Occasionally, the strip says it is satirizing inane popular entertainment, and it is, but it cumulates into its own ludicrous raison d'ętre.
-- Ray Olson