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SMEARY SOAPBOX PRESS-ENTS #2
(35¢ + a stamp from Dale Martin / Smeary Soapbox Press / PO Box 442612 / Lawrence, KS / 66044 USA. Web:
http://home.swbell.net/grizmart)
Review by Steve Keeter
The star of this zany Dale Martin mini-comic is the Human Spring, a guy who, having been caught in the machinery which twists steel rods into coiled springs, suddenly finds himself endowed with the strength and flexibility of a spring! He happily springs from place to place and eventually unwittingly bounces onto just the right street, at just the right moment – that a crime is about to be commited! There’s some zany dialogue (“Look! Up in the sky” “It’s a FLYING NOODLE!”), but what is interesting is that the Spring’s own dialogue is pretty much written straight – he’s not Inspector Clouseau, he’s more like Stan Lee’s Spider-Man... even as the world succumbs to madness all around him. A curious note on something that was, I’m certain, totally unintended. Dale Martin’s art style here is very similar to that of Steve Shipley in his more cartoony moments. I coulda sworn that Shipley had illustrated some of this! Just coincidence, of course, and perhaps only of interest to those of us who knew Steve when he was involved in small press. Well, whatever. But this is a fun mini-comic, and definitely recommended.
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