Mondo #3

by Ted McKeever

If there's one thing in comics that you can always count on, it's that Ted McKeever's work, post-Metropol, just keeps getting stranger and more obtuse.

This issue finishes the three-part Mondo series with all the various characters and plot elements coming together at Venice Beach.  A gigantic squid is threatening the Beach, and Catfish, our irradiated Hulked-out main character, shows up to fight it.  As does the mayor.  The girl on roller-skates rolls by too, and the crashing satellite also puts in an appearance.  So do three naked Teletubby-like children, who are apparently monks who protect the giant squid.

I really don't know what McKeever was trying to say with this series.  His recent META 4 at least seemed structured around some kind of internal logic, but this series has read as one long, strange acid trip of a story, and I think in the end, I'm a little bored of it.

On the positive side, McKeever draws like no one else in the business.  His completely unique style works well for this type of story, but it also makes me think that he just wanted to write a story about a 'roided up freak, a giant squid, and a hot girl, and this is what he came up with.

The back cover advertises the upcoming McKeever series Blacktop Apocalypse as 'a transcendental road-trip through the zombie wasteland'.  Even though I'm a little tired of this type of thing, I predict I'll end up buying this as well.  I just hope it's a little more focused.