Writer/Artist/Creator: Jonnie Allan
Publisher: A.K.A. Comics
Stykman creator Jonnie Allan probably needs pills of some description. If brought before the Mental Health Board of Review, no further evidence need be presented than Stykman #1. Mr. Allan's artwork is very competent, if he might not be equally so in the psychiatric arena. Our intrepid, quixotic, and chaotic adventurer Stykman promises to continue in the tradition of Ben Edlund's The Tick. Thankfully, ol' Jonnie boy fails to deliver anything but a zany character that, while admittedly humorous like The Tick, is something wholly unique.
Apparently, Mr. Allan did not want to feature Stykman's face on the cover, or he drew from a photograph of our wooden hero in which his head got cut off (not literally, folks). Stykman has
a uh/head of sorts. Luckily, for those used to seeing heroes-with-heads, Allan treats us to a look at Stykman's uh/head on the inside cover. A bowed stick of wood shaped like an empty dream-catcher with two sticks hanging by a thread makes up the entirety of Stykman's unusual uh/head/face/something. Sticks apparently make up the rest of his unexposed, emaciated body, and definitely his exposed, emaciated body where applicable. His fashionable outfit includes leather boots and a leather belt over purported blue jeans and a blue long-sleeved shirt. To accessorize his uniform, he wears a tan bandana around his neck and gloves around... hey, you know where gloves are worn!
His only sidekick is a diminutive fellow called Al, with large, black, oval-shaped eyes, green skin, and four fingers. He looks a bit like abductee representations of an alien or a lot like recently retired fed. chairman Allan Greenspan. Al is always at Stykman's back when he's in trouble, much like Stykman's enemies are always at his back when he's in trouble. Except Al actually helps Stykman out of *hahaha* "styky" situations.
In his debut comic, Stykman faces off against Jolly Roger, head of the Jolly Roger Candy Corporation. Roger desperately wishes to get his sticky fingers on the Ancient Aztec recipe for The Gumdrop. Stykman is informed of this by consulting secret, coded waves (broadcast television). Throughout the issue, Stykman attempts to confront Jolly Roger to the praise (consternation) of the authorities and the accolades (belittlement) of the general public he protects.
It may take you years to understand Stykman, as it doesn't lend itself to a copious amount of rational understanding. Stykman does make you chortle, laugh, guffaw, rotf, rotfl, rotflyao, and rotflabttwasaysbaraaci ("rolling on the floor laughing and beating the television with a stick as your stomach bursts and reveals an alien creature inside").
If humor is the measure, Stykman does indeed live up to the earlier traditions and recalls The Tick, Ambush Bug, Groo, The Wanderer, etc. Stykman, like his predecessors, is also refreshingly unique in comicdom. That is, of course, unless you can think of another superhero character that is made up entirely of sticks. No, Swamp Thing doesn't count! No, Maria Shriver is not a superhero! If you like keen fashion sense and a
superhero with a stick figure, Stykman is the book to keep you laughing until you think everything is funny again, even Yakoff Smirnov.
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