Showing posts with label scott shaw!. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scott shaw!. Show all posts

Monday, 16 April 2018

Captain Carrot & His Amazing Zoo Crew



Captain Carrot And His Amazing Zoo Crew! is a weird one, being half a kid's comic, chock full of awful puns, and half a grizzled old comic fan's book, poking razor sharp jabs at well worn comic tropes.


Writer Roy Thomas, of course, was an old lag at this kind of thing, having written every Marvel team ever, as well as being the world's biggest JSA fan, and at times, there's really not that much difference between The Zoo Crew and, say, an average issue of The Avengers. In fact, Roy's clearly having a blast looking askance at the kind of scripts he'd spent the previous 20 years pumping out, as in: Hey, you should see what this stuff looks like from over here!
 As well as Cap, who's...well, Cap, you've got Rubberduck ( Mr. Fantastic / Plastic Man ), Fastback ( Flash / Quicksilver ), Alley Cat Abra ( Doc Strange/ Doc Fate / Zatanna ), Pig Iron ( Ben Grimm ) and Yankee Poodle ( God knows... )


Maybe a couple too many characters there, and the book does feel crowded sometimes, occasionally lacking the lightness of touch this kind of thing needs.
But really, I'm nitpicking. I think we'd all agree, when Roy The Boy's on form, he's really on form, and often the satire hits the target perfectly, like in issue #7, where he takes the opportunity to take out the Cimmerian he spent a large chunk of his career scribing.


Plus, Rascally does have a secret weapon in artist Scott Shaw! ( yep, he spells his name with an exclamation point ) whose Disney through a looking glass style art is friendly, fun and beautiful all at the same time. And, of course, Shaw! did get to bring back his creation from Mike Friedrich's adult funny animal book Quack! gonzo journalist Pointer X. Toxin...


I'm gonna get me a business card that says: Star of Stage, Screen & Underground Comix. I think that's something to aspire to.
Here's the crew taking on every Marvel cosmic bad guy ever, in the form of The Bunny From Beyond!