Jack and Lucky #2

Posted: Tuesday, November 9, 2004
By: Darren Schroeder

Creator: Anthony Hon
Publisher: Montenai Comics (Self Published)
Address: 245 2nd Ave #2, San Fancisco, CA, 94118, USA.
Price: $2.00(US)

When you share a flat with a 6 foot tall talking cat you'd think that you could turn that to your advantage some how; perhaps sell tickets for the neighbours to come and look at it, or find a biology department somewhere who want something unique to dissect. But the first law of situation comedy always gets in the way, 'cause it states that any strange animal/powers/empowered spouse will only attract other strange events, unwanted scrutiny and unfortunate coincidences. For the Jack of the title, this manifests itself in the appearance of beautiful women wanting a date and the eventual fight scene.

So far in this series Jack comes across as a bit of a dork who is at the mercy of the slapstick comedy gods. He trips over things, upsets his boss, hates his job, lusts after women but can't construct a coherent sentence in there presence. There's a certain amount of enjoyment to be had at his expense, but a lot of it is just cringe worthy cliché. The missed-hit Billiard ball that causes a fist fight isn't that original and seems rather pointless. Jack is such a dork that readers could quickly start to lose patience with him.

From a design aspect there is much to recommend in this book. Anthony displays some bold and elegant illustrations with very clean lines. All the characters are very 'animated', with the mysterious female being especially attractive without crossing the line into cheesecake.

Lucky, the giant cat, takes a back seat in this issue, not really doing anything more or less that acting as any normal room-mate would. There is a hit of impeding problems in some of the details of this issue: just what doe that demonic tattoo on one character signify? I hope it spells big trouble, 'cause the books needs some sparks. The goings on at Jack's workplace (a computer gaming company) seem a bit of a dead end for Jack and the readers. Jack needs a good kick in the pants so the comic can get going.

In a Word: Holding

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