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DEXTER'S LABORATORY #25
"Stubble Trouble"
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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DC Comics
Writers: Genndy Tartakovsky & Paul Rudish
Pencils: Genndy Tartakovsky
Inks: Bill Wray
Colors: Zylonol
Letters: Jenna Garcia
Editor: Joan Hilty
Price: $0.50 US/$0.85 CAN |
DC is making great strides in "outreach comics," and while I think there's still a problem of how to get these cheap comics to the new audiences they are intended to reach, I can't help but praise them for ideas like a Rucka/Burchett 10-cent Batman comic, or this, a 50-cent story of Dexter's Laboratory co-written and pencilled by his creator. Whether you're a fan of Dexter's Laboratory or not, you owe it to yourself to
pick up this issue for the low cost of two quarters. Every one of us knows
someone younger, whether it's a niece or nephew or just the son or daughter of
friends, and putting this book in their hands almost guarantees an interest in
comics.
Tartakovsky is the man behind Dexter as well as my current cartoon addiction Samurai Jack, and he's proven his storytelling skills time and again with animation. He's not quite flawless as a comics storyteller, using narration where his artwork would have been a more effective tool, but this is a fun story that anyone can get into, whether they know Dexter or not. It hits on the mixture that makes Dexter's Laboratory such fun, a combination of boyhood
troubles and the unusual world that Dexter inhabits, with the notion of
role-models and hero worship combining with the strange plot of a kidnapped
beard of power.
Anyone who has seen Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls or Samurai Jack knows that the style involved in those
cartoons features a lot of quick cuts and zooms, accompanied by sound effects.
It takes full advantage of being animated, and I'm quite impressed that
Tartakovsky and Rudish managed to emulate it in a silent and fairly static
medium like comics. By using big splashy panels and judicious page placement,
Tartakovsky simulates the quick cuts and sudden reveals very well, and provides
the same energy that keeps the story moving throughout. In addition, when he
needs to slow the story down, as with Dexter's realization about his hero or
Hank's melancholy recounting of his loss, he manages that as well. The amount of
control he shows over the pacing is incredible.
There are times when Tartakovsky and Rudish
seem a little overly concerned with laying things out for the reader, as even
the dimmest or youngest reader would have seen the solution to Hank's beard
problem coming in the cell, and to have Dexter outline it in narration really
took away from the big splash of Hank and Dexter, freed from their cell and
confronting the villain for the climax. Actually, it was difficult to reconcile
much of Dexter's narration with the character as he has been presented, and I
would have wished that we had stayed out of his head, as we do in the cartoon.
At any rate, even if you're wary of projects that translate from one media to another, you'd be well-advised to put aside that bias on this issue and pick it up. For less than a buck, you get an original episode of Dexter's Laboratory by his
creator, and you don't even need a TV to see it.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review. |
