I read a fair amount of comics these days, and a fair amount of humor comics fall into that mix. However, it really doesn't come much funnier than Scurvy Dogs, which is like finding a really good treasure map hidden in a pirate's sunken boat only when you get to the X on the map there isn't treasure, there's a really funny comic about pirates. Scurvy Dogs is one of my favorite new series of the year, and each issue thus far has provided me with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and more slightly surreal pop-cultural references than you can find in your average Dennis Miller routine (before he went all right-wing on us.) This issue provides readers with the secret origins of the Scurvy Dogs, twisted tales that involve Menudo, shotgun battles, a horrible juicer accident, the sweet science of Stooges and a book report by little Shirley Johansen. Oh, and laughs. Many, many laughs.
I'm not sure, but I think it possible that Boyd and Yount might have been a little tipsy when they were coming up with some of the concepts for Scurvy Dogs. Or at the very least, whacked out on some kind of really good painkillers. Because the connections made here, from the king of the hobos to Menudo to the Three Stooges to a bizarre hand-crafted lie detector machine, are not the kind of things that sane, sober men come up with. They are the ravings of drunken lunatics, and God bless them for it. Though this issue centers around the pirates being captured and interrogated (and if anyone calls that a spoiler, I swear I'll keelhaul you), it's really a series of sketch gags that riff on forgotten and bizarre pop culture.
The central joke, of course, is that these guys are meant to be pirates. Mean, nasty, cutthroats. Instead, they're like your average band of drinking buddies, albeit with more hook hands and eye patches and some of the more unusual back stories you're likely to find anywhere. I love that Boyd and Yount have given these characters a similar personality in that they're all just a bit off-kilter, but they also all have a distinctive personality trait to call their own. The Terry Gilliam in Holy Grail-like rantings of one-handed Jack (I don't know if that's his name, but it's a good proud pirate name) are very different from the megalomaniacal rantings of the Captain or the sad tale of Irish Pete Rose.
In addition to the humor to be found in the bizarre pop-culture references and the unusual behavior of the characters, Boyd and Yount just have great comic timing in general. The line "Well, now that we are about to die, I would like to say that this sucks and you're all jerks" had me rolling, and the outrage that the king of the hobos feels when he realizes the caliber of his opponents is also hilarious. Yount also continues to grow on the art front, and his visual gags are a lot of fun, from the "Thug Life" parody on the cover to the wacky menace of the hobos.
If there's a better comic about pirates being besieged by angry hobos, I haven't found it. Scurvy Dogs remains one of the absolute funniest comics in the industry, and every issue is a comedic treasure to be savored. And then, preferably, buried and a treasure map drawn to it that can be put into a bottle and cast into the ocean. Or maybe that last part is just me.
