Flaming Carrot Omnibus Volume 1 by Bob BurdenMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Flaming Carrot Comics Omnibus #1 collects Flaming Carrot 1-2, 4-11, and 25-27.
Untold eons ago, shortly after the oceans drank Atlantis, I found an issue of The Flaming Carrot at the flea market for a quarter. It was crazy shit but the Flaming Carrot is not an easy super hero to pin down. Once I saw this was in the works, I immediately pre-ordered it.
The Flaming Carrot is a nutjob who wears a giant carrot on his head and fights crime. In this particular volume, he takes on a vast communist conspiracy, a scientist who makes bombs out of extracted cellulite, the League of Umpires, zombies, the still animated disembodied head of Frankenstein's Monster, and teams up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles.
The series evolves quite a bit over the course of the volume. The stories feel like loosely linked Monty Python sketches after first and gradually change into something more coherent, more cohesively linked.
The Carrot feels like a low key Deadpool most of the time, subtly joking his way through adventures. '80s pop culture references abound, making the book feel dated, although still fun. Bob Burden's artwork comes a long way during this volume, feeling amateurish at first but feeling quite a bit more polished toward the end. It feels like a loveletter to 60s and 70s comics at times but also feels like a parody. I think Bob Burden probably had a lot of conflicting feels about super hero comics and The Flaming Carrot is his way of expressing them.
While Flaming Carrot Comics Omnibus #1 isn't my favorite '80s indie comic omnibus, it feels like the spiritual ancestor of both The Tick and Deadpool at times. I'm on board for future Flaming Carrot omnibuses if Dark Horse chooses to publish them. 3 out of 5 heads of Frankenstein.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment