Written by: Matt Miner & Matt Maguire
Art by: Jonathan Brandon Sawyer, Matt Maguire, & Marissa Louise
Published by: Dynamite Comics
I’m no stranger to GWAR, though my knowledge of the…concept only goes as far as their cover of “Carry on my Wayward Son,” a skimming of their TVTropes page, and the Comedy Button question of, “What bands do you think would play Jabba the Hutt’s palace?” I am, however, listening to random samplings of their music as I write this review.
I don’t think that’s worth anything though.
See, I view GWAR like I view most shows on Adult Swim. It’s funny because it exists, not because it’s funny. I like the concept sure, and I found their Kansas cover pretty hilarious and well executed, so I approached GWAR ORGASMAGEDDON #1 with an open mind. I wanted to enjoy this because orc space aliens in a rock band is funny. For the first five or six pages, it even manages to deliver on funny.
But like your typical Adult Swim show, the joke runs thin rather too soon, and the kaleidoscope of acid-trip humor turns into a chore to follow.
There are just too many damn characters! I don’t know who any of them are going in because I’m not exactly familiar with the band’s lore, and since they all exist around the same one-note joke and sound the same to boot, they blur together into a sea of colors and vulgar quips. Normally I’d be fine with that (see I Hate Fairyland), but there’s nothing to latch onto here. It’s just a mess of monsters, violence, blood, more people, more violence, and more blood.
That the plot involves time travel doesn’t help it (though I like that their car thing is a big ol’ penis).
I will give the artwork its due, though. It’s fun and vibrant, and it reminds me of old-school metal magazines that I’ve never actually seen but vaguely understand thanks to that one episode of South Park. It in no way handles the business, but it makes do with what it has, and it makes the cartoon-levels of violence work pretty well. Hell, it even saves some of the jokes.
Most of the jokes, however, aren’t worth saving. The first five or so pages of this book are genuinely funny in an absurdist, vulgar way, but like I said, it gets old fast. By the middle of the book, it’s breaking the fourth wall in what feels like a desperate attempt to save what it’s trying to do, but it can’t manage to be smart about it. Having the two women characters pass the Bechdel Test by talking about it is scraping the bottom of the barrel and getting splinters.
I’m sure in the right mindset and context, all of this would work, but I’m not nearly drunk enough to appreciate it.
I wanted to like this. I wanted to appreciate the joke. But I can’t. There’s too much going on, too many people with too many jumping set pieces, and the jokes never vary. It goes vulgar => blood; vulgar => blood; fourth-wall break, and then vulgar => blood again. Once you’ve read the first three pages, you’ve basically read the next 20.
