Review by Frank Plowright
Lobo is an updated Warner Brothers cartoon character, combining the smarts of Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam’s love of violence and the sheer off the wall nihilism and mayhem of the Tasmanian Devil. Violence is his first resort, and because he’s tough enough to go head to head with Superman, he indulges himself frequently.
This is nowhere better represented than in the opening selection, first published in paperback as The Last Czarnian. The plot and breakdowns are Keith Giffen’s work, while Simon Bisley adds artistic excess and Alan Grant the dialogue so perfectly capturing a personality. Lobo is tasked with delivering someone alive, not realising that it’s old teacher, now an unbearable even older woman. Various unsavoury groups are on Lobo’s trail and it doesn’t end well for any of them.
Separating that from the sequel (Lobo’s Back’s Back in paperback) and absent from previous default collection Portrait of a Bastich, the same creative team supply a Christmas special in which Lobo takes on Santa. Bisley revels in the violence, Lobo’s bulldog is introduced and the sheer amount of dead elves will surely still offend.
The amusement continues into the opening chapter of the final Giffen/Bisley/Grant collaboration, but thereafter the wheels come off. Inspiration is lacking on Giffen’s part, Bisley bails before the final chapter, and Christian Alamy can’t adequately substitute.
Denys Cowan takes on the art for ‘Blazing Chain of Love’, in which Lobo is sent to abduct a prostitute with a price on her head. Some aspects will transmit as being in poorer taste now than in the 1990s, but a dictionary definition of misogyny is supplied, and Lobo always uses a condom. Cowan’s art is a revelation, unlike anything he’s produced before or since. Taking his lead from Bisley, he’s gloriously unrestrained. Giffen’s plot runs out of a steam a little before the end, but accept Lobo as nothing more than a cartoon not to be taken seriously, and it’s still funny.
Not as funny, though, as Lobo attending a comic convention as drawn by Kevin O’Neill, although that comes with the caveat that you have to be familiar with what goes on at a convention, and the 1993 in-jokes will no longer transmit. What will is the sheer effort O’Neill puts into every panel, adding to the entire experience with all kinds of visual asides and annotations extensively raising the laughs and quality. The visual density is such that it’s possible to spend several minutes studying a page and still not pick up all the references. Just when you’ve decided the portfolio review page is the apex you’ll turn to the hilarious selection of award trophies and find it’s even more packed.
This starts and finishes with a massive bang, and only a little of what’s between disappoints, so soil yourself with a thorough immersion. Or an even more thorough immersion in Big Fraggin Compendium, which reprints all this content along with a whole lot more.
Rather than switching to Lobo’s ongoing series, Volume 2 collects another batch of short run miniseries by Giffen and Grant, these never previously available in book form.
