Being a fan of the graphic novel, I was at least a little interested until I got a look at what I was supposed to be critiquing. To say that these are low budget would be a 3x understatement. They’re printed out on standard office paper which is folded and stapled. This stuff is the essence of home brew. I don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings unnecessarily but these things kind of suck, unless they were written, inked, and drawn by elementary school kids. In that case they aren’t bad.

We’ve got the Spookyman series and E.Race. Spookyman looks like what Jhonen Vazquez would come up with if he were 13 again. The themes and humor are very simplistic, the artwork is poor at best, and the text is practically unreadable. If creator Tedd Miller develops his skills considerably I’m sure he could put out some decent content. Spookyman should only be viewed as the very rough draft of a successful series.

E. Race simply has no hope. This is a forced grouping of possibly the most generic superhero elements against drawings that are straight out of a 4th grade art class. I’m having a hard time willing my brain to remember the rest of it but I’ll try. The absolutely useless story is summed up with what has to be less than 100 words. That’s 100 words from front to back of issue #1. I mean…ow. This thing actually made my brain hurt.

Like a vehicle starting off in 5th gear, Spookyman may take a while to go anywhere. Maybe it’ll take off in a number of years, maybe not. One thing I do know is that E. Race is never going anywhere. Ever. Whatever the case, Spookyman really isn’t worth your attention with quality work like JTHM out there. E. Race just has no worth.

-Baron has been a writer for Shakefire.com since 2006.

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