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[Stephen Day]

Who said anything about your psych problems? I was gonna start with hygiene, actually.

But since you mentioned it, I guess you can add "homoerotic fantasies about Victorian Squid and Hitler" to your list of psychological issues.

Who said you with the chocolate and Hitler picture was my fantasy? Nobody said that was my fantasy!

I mean...

...why would I fantasize about that?

Uhmmm....

...that makes no sense.

[Victorian Squid]

And add to that the fact that chocolate even in small amounts gives me explosive diarrhea. Put that into your fantasy and smoke it, pal!

[Victorian Squid]

Reset #1 (Dark Horse)

Much rejoicing over here for a new series by master cartoonist Peter Bagge, whose work I've been following for a long, long time. Buddy Bradley and Hate got me through a lot of long Chicago winters (thanks Quimby's, I miss you!). Since then I've enjoyed pretty much everything he's done in print, most recently his collected Reason autobiographical strips and OGN Other Lives.

[embarrassing personal anecdote redacted]

Unlike the long-form character-driven adventures of Buddy Bradley, which chronicle the life of the same character from childhood to adulthood, Reset is a 4-issue miniseries that picks up with washed-up comedian Guy Krause in mid-life decline. Although this first issue of the mini is all set-up, it hints at something more shadowy going on behind the scenes of the virtual reality experiment of Guy reliving his life from one point on. It's interesting that both Reset and Other Lives both have a central theme of virtual reality and the way a person defines themselves inside it in a game or experiment (largely the same thing).

The pacing of the story is sure and steady, but the reset button in play in the story necessarily stalls things a bit. This is reflected in story by the scientists' frustration with the button and the lack of progression caused by Guy pushing it several times in quick succession, they even talk of disabling the button. (Part of me says, "YES, DO IT!") So I can't fault the story here for being the story, if you know what I mean. It makes sense for the reader to feel a little of that same frustration with Guy.

Love the paper. Love the printing. Love Bagge's gray tones and line work. Bagge's characters do a lot of talking, often arguing back and forth in the same panel, but there's plenty of room left to admire the cartooning style he's perfected over the years. These characters could have stepped out of the pages of any of Bagge's other books, with his signature noses and eyes, eyeglasses, etc. I could even imagine Buddy himself in Guy's DUI class somewhere in the back of the room.

9

[Stephen Day]

And add to that the fact that chocolate even in small amounts gives me explosive diarrhea. Put that into your fantasy and smoke it, pal!

[Victorian Squid]

That too, actually.

[******]

Reset #1

I count Peter Bagge's Hate among my most very favorite comics ever so right off the bat I was predisposed to liking Reset. There's a sense of familiar to the characters and interactions that for me was fun and comfortable. Guy is an appropriately flawed character for a story of this nature, would you really want to read a comic about a nice guy reliving his life? Bagge did a nice job with this first issue setting up the rules of the VR game and gets the obligatory 'can it be used for porn' question/gag out of the way. My one complaint would be that the issue ends a big abruptly. While I personally love Bagge's cartooning, I can understand how it might be something of an acquired taste.

Story: 8
Art: 10
Overall: 9

[******]

The Goon #39
Eric Powell (W/A/Cover) and Dave Stewart (C)

In order to try to compete with the gimmicks and rehashes of the Big Two superhero companies, Eric Powell has decided to completely sell out and relaunch the Goon in this super-epic, brand new, first-ever first edition of the 39th issue of The Goon! Not only do the Goon and Franky get new costumes, but we also discover there are different-colored versions of the Goon! Green Goon! Red Goon! Blue Goon! Purple Goon! WHAT A PLOT!

[******]

Bought my copy. My LCS only had two on the rack so I'm glad I went in at opening.

Though not only will I be reading this somepoint the next few days

After reading a wide sampling of Bagge's work this evening, I gave Reset another read and found to be a lot more enjoyable.

Time to slack is over fellas, it's Tuesday! As my "review" proves, deep thoughts are optional.

[BlueStreak]

As I stated last week, it took me a bit of time to get into Bagge's work. Luckily, Squid provided me a thorough sampling of his work throughout the years, which gave me an appreciation of Bagge's work. Was Reset his best work? Nope, but it's still pretty good.

Bagge's work is pretty unflinching in how it looks at human nature. It's pretty uncompromising and is almost brutally honest. The main character of Reset, Guy, is no exception. He's rude, he's unlikeable and he's a bit of an idiot. However, there's facets of Guy in more than a few people I know, which made reading about his tribulations even more fascinating to read. Anyways, Guy is given the option to test out a virtual reality system that forces a person to relive their past life and gain insight on how or why people acted the way they did in the past. Bagge throws a lot of explanation in there, but it makes sense, and Guy's just stupid enough that the thorough explanation feels necessary and easily fits in the plot.

All in all, I enjoyed the book and am glad that the Review Group exposed me to Bagge's work. If you liked Reset, give Other Lives (my favorite Bagge work so far) a read. It helps put Reset in perspective and gives the book a counterweight of sorts.

8.5

[Victorian Squid]

And of course, Reset still has 3 more issues to really be a complete work like OL.

High hopes here.

[doombug]

I'll go short but sweet on this one:

While I'm not big on Bagge's artwork at all (my first exposure to him being the recent Hulk/Deadpool stories he did for marvel) I found the man's writing to be incredibly real. The down on his luck protoganist feels like an actual real person, someone that you'd easily see or encounter in every day life.

The concept of the book while not completely fresh (a few movies from the last decade come to mind with a very similar premise, with a few tweeks here and there) is fun and interesting to read.

I really enjoyed seeing Krause's reactions to reliving events from his past and I honestly will be reading at least the next issue to see where things go from here.

Score: 8.5

[S.F. Jude Terror]

Looks like I will be reviewing this as a double feature with next weeks book after I get paid, as the Dark Horse store doesn't take paypal and I'm flat broke otherwise.