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BEAR #1
($2.95,
SLG Publshing,
Jamie Smart)
Review by Rick Bradford
Jamie Smart's
Bear is about a cute little (yep, you guessed it) bear, his human housemate and the human's cat, who is clearly insane and lives to torment Bear. It's cutesy mayhem that really didn't do much for me at first so I read about half of it and set it aside. When I picked it up again a couple days later, I enjoyed it much more. No, I don't know why. I figure either the latter half of the issue is better or the thing just grew on me. Whatever the case, my favorite story is one in which Bear explains why Karl (the human) is unsuccessful with women: "You're straight. To be everything women love in gay men you'd have to be gay. In which case you wouldn't be bothering in the first place." While that logic is slightly flawed, there's still enough truth in there to be both frustrating and amusing. But such philosophizing is rare; mostly
Bear is about a deranged cat entertaining himself in mostly sadistic ways. I'm betting Steve Purcell's
Sam & Max was a big influence on Smart, which may give you some idea of his approach to humor. I'm looking forward to seeing his work develop.
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