Knuckles #30 [Nov 1999] NOTE: This review is rated TV-PG, with a LANGUAGE advisory. Reader discretion is advised. [Seated around a coffee table, on which rests a copy of Knuckles #30, are three individuals. One is a casually-dressed dingo wearing slacks and a zip-up jacket, his soft billed cap pulled down close to his eyes. This is Harry, the cab driver from the "Chaotix Caper" arc [K13-15]. Another is a hyena wearing black denim slacks with a length of chain for a belt, an open black leather vest, engineer boots, and a peaked leather biker's cap. This is Gearbox, former member of the Nasty Hyenas and a character from the fanfic "Runaway." Seated between them is a hulking, fearsome figure. He also wears biker clothes, but he's a blue-skinned humanoid with red eyes and unruly black hair. He takes the cigar from between his teeth:] OK, listen up all you feebs and dweebs! The Main Man is taking over. Don't ask me where the college geek is who usually does these fraggin' reviews. He's probably all bent outta shape because the book got canceled. HARRY: He's not the only one. What're the chances I'LL ever get work again? LOBO: Anyway, I asked a couple locals to come in and bring you up to speed. So wadda we got here? HARRY: Ok, first we got the Galan/Penders/Moore/Heroic Age cover: Knuckles and two other guys. LOBO: What's with the eye thing on the dweeb to the left? GEARBOX: How the yiff should I know? It looks like some kind of Star Trek thing. HARRY: Star Trek? GEARBOX: Yeah, either some kind of Borg implant, or else it's on there permanent like the marks on Whatsisname from Voyager. HARRY: Chakotay? GEARBOX: Whatever. Then we got the credits: "King of the Hill, Part 1. Ken Penders, Harvey Mercadoocasio, Frank Gagliardo, Vickie Williams, J. F. Gabrie, Victor Gorelick..." LOBO: "Gore-lick." Kinda catchy. GEARBOX: "Richard Goldwater." LOBO: "Born to the most noble..." GEARBOX: Forget that, man, check out the next paragraph. LOBO: "One of the hardest facts of life to deal with is that there is always someone bigger, tougher, braver and smarter than you are. We all experience the pain of this particular learning process." GEARBOX: Can you BELIEVE that spraint? LOBO: What's yer point? GEARBOX: OK, Ken Penders is going to go into how Knuckles was pushed around by a bully when he was younger, right? But the bullies I knew weren't necessarily bigger or tougher or braver than me. And as far as being smarter, most of them had spraint for brains, anyway. HARRY: Yeah, so? GEARBOX: So being a bully isn't about being bigger and smarter and all that. Hey, a kid knows his own parents are all those things already, right? And kids grow up TRUSTING these bigger and smarter people. But you want to know what a "hard fact of life" is? A hard fact of life is that there are clowns out there who think that kicking your ass in is a good time! THAT'S a hard yiffin' fact of life! LOBO: You got that right, bro. [LOBO and GEARBOX high-five each other] You ever get kicked around like that? GEARBOX: Never by the same guy twice. LOBO: I hear ya. [High-five] HARRY: What makes guys do that, anyway? GEARBOX: Near as I can figure, they give other kids spraint because they're getting it at home. So they pass it on. LOBO: Hey let's get back to the comic book, huh? It's startin' to sound like a fraggin' Oprah show in here. HARRY: OK, we got a two page spread here.... LOBO: Hey, wait a minute! Who left out the words? HARRY: There AIN'T no words. LOBO: On purpose!? No wonder they pulled the plug on the book. HARRY: Let's just turn the page... LOBO: HOLY FRAGAROLI!! GEARBOX: I did NOT need to see THAT! HARRY: Guys, this is the Monk character, the one who used to beat up on Knuckles. LOBO: A purple gorilla wearing a fraggin' sumo diaper? GEARBOX: Now I know why he became a bully. He must REALLY have gotten the spraint kicked out of him when he was a kid goin' around looking like THAT! LOBO: OK, so the Grape Ape here lassoes the island, climbs to the surface and what happens? He does a James Cagney imitation. HARRY: James Cagney? GEARBOX: Yeah, from "White Heat." Cagney yells "Top of the world, Ma!" while he's standing on top of a burning oil tank just before it blows his ass off at the end of the movie. LOBO: OK, so the big deal hero, Knuckles, is reading a book.... HARRY: Yeah, warming up for being unemployed! LOBO: And what's with Penders and the fraggin' movie references? Now we got "2001." HARRY: At least they gave Arthur Clarke credit for writing the book. LOBO: But why "2001"? GEARBOX: Do the math, bro. It takes like six months between the time a cartoonist starts on a comic book and the time it gets printed. And Stanley Kubrick kacked like six months ago. So this is what they call an "homage." HARRY: As opposed to "Eyes Wide Shut," which was a "gar-bage." LOBO: Good one, dude! [High five] HARRY: Anyway, Catweazel tells Knuckles that his girlfriend just got wasted, so Knuckles goes looking for the guy and finds this Monk character instead. LOBO: Hey, what...? HARRY: It's supposed to look that way, too. It's a flashback so they color everything brown. So's the stuff on page 12, only it's got more color. LOBO: Lesee if I got this straight: Knuckles is supposed to be this hot-shot Guardian-type with all kinda powers, but he gets pushed around by this fraggin' Monk character. HARRY: Hey, he was only ten years old at the time. He doesn't know what he can do yet, and he'd been abandoned by his father the year before. LOBO: My heart bleeds. GEARBOX: So he's got no backup. Pretty yiffin' charming. LOBO: So who are the monks with the Monk? HARRY: Knuckles's dad, granddad, and some of his other relatives. They're retired Guardians. GEARBOX: So they come out of retirement to get even with Monk for beating on Knuckles by throwing his ass off the yiffin' island. What's their family name, Corleone? LOBO: Yeah, and what's with the outfits? HARRY: To tell you the truth, I couldn't figure that out myself. Those robes make them look like Dark Legionnaires. GEARBOX: Or frat guys hazing somebody. LOBO and HARRY: [unison] "THANK YOU, SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER!" GEARBOX: Yeah, that was a great...Holy spraint! Now WE'RE making movie references! LOBO: Let's skip over a couple pages. GEARBOX: Yeah, it's just Knuckles and Monk trying to kick each other's ass. HARRY: At least Knuckles lands the first blow. GEARBOX: Now THAT'S how I remember a bully: most of them could dish it out but they couldn't take it. LOBO: And I suppose... HARRY: [Wearily] Yeah, yeah, the blur is on purpose, too. LOBO: So how does this end? They're both gonna get shot next issue? HARRY: Nah, the story's got two more issues to run. It's too soon to put the book out of its misery. Listen, either of you figure out what kind of rating to give this? GEARBOX: Who gives a spraint about a yiffing rating? A rating would only help the book if it were still in production and the publishers and everybody took it seriously. The comic's gonna yiffin' DIE in two months! LOBO: Yeah, well, I kinda liked the artwork, though. HARRY: [Bitterly] Yeah, right. LOBO: What's YOUR problem? HARRY: We shoulda seen it coming, right? I mean, Monk is the closest thing to a human Ken's drawn so far while still drawing animals. And you see more of HIM in this story than you do Knuckles! GEARBOX: Yeah, and I've checked out Ken Penders's Web site. He's got Lost Ones art all over the place the way he had Star Trek art all over the place before that. LOBO: So what's your point? GEARBOX: The problem is, you're a human yourself. Sort of. You can count furry books out there on the fingers of one hand, even a toon hand. And one of those fingers is gonna get yiffin' chopped off! LOBO: Hey, bein' human don't guarantee nothin'. I oughta know! HARRY: We should stop kidding ourselves. Furry books are dead. LOBO: Save it for the funeral, ya whining bastiches. What else we got here? HARRY: Looks like an Espio the Chameleon story, letters, fan art, pro-art and....and you guys don't care, right? LOBO: Does it look like I give a flying frag? "It's all right, guys. I'll take it from here." LOBO: About fraggin' time! GEARBOX: Yeah, let's beat it. HARRY: [Mumbles something unintelligible as the three leave the room] Sorry for the delay. Let me take care of the legal stuff: Lobo appears courtesy of DC Comics, and as for Gearbox's vocabulary, Tom Wolfe explained it in "The Right Stuff" when he wrote about the language called "Army Creole." In one respect the guys are right: knowing that the Knuckles comics will cease publication after this story arc is over HAS turned this review into a depressing and pointless exercise. But let's get it over with: "Espio the Chameleon: "Hiding in Plain Sight" Story: Ken Penders; Art: Colleen Doran [debut]; Ink: Andrew Pepoy; Color: Barry Grossman; Lettering and Editorial: Who cares? Julie-Su would probably serve me a three-course meal of boot to the head for saying this, but Colleen Doran's drawings of her make her look...cute! There, I said it. Doran works the same magic on Espio, Mighty and Ray, making the book seem like it's aimed at a younger audience than it's actually reaching. And as pointless as it is, a pasha makes a farewell appearance in the story as Julie-Su's mode of transportation. Like so much else in the book (especially Knuckles's relationship with his parents) it remained underutilized until it was too late. Julie-Su can't find Knuckles anywhere but she does manage to flatten out Ray's stutter by her very presence. Espio accompanies Julie-Su until they come across Barney, who looks like a chameleon version of Uncle Chuck. After some incoherent babbling he passes out and Julie-Su takes him to get medical help. Once she's out of the way, we discover that the place is crawling with chameleons, one of whom is names Liza. She escorts Espio to...well, the roboticized lizard is identified as Valdez, but last I saw he was still keeping company with Geoffrey St. John. I suppose the title of the next installment is "What Gives?" HEAD: I like that Ken tried widening the Floating Island with a tease of the chameleon population. Granted he won't have the chance to expand on it the way he did with the bee kingdom in the Chaotix Caper arc, especially since he's only got 12 more pages to finish this back story. The ending, however, reminded me too much of the introduction of Fiona in the first part of the Mighty story arc, "Friend In Need,"(K26). Is that some kind of comic book narrative device, or is Ken getting in a rut? Head Score: 5. EYE: Colleen Doran's debut is impressive; her style is clean, a little cartooney in a good way, and her Julie-Su looks WAY better than Chris Allan's. Too bad that this assignment gives her the distinction of being one of the last people to scramble on board the Titanic before it set sail. Eye Score: 8. HEART: Frankly, I don't have the heart to finish this review. Fistful of Letters: To update the Freditorial, the two issues of Knuckles that would have been part of the upcoming Sonic Adventure arc have been taken over by Sonic so that SIX Sonic issues and one special will deal with the story. That means that we'll have to put up with Sega's marketing of its game (in place of a plotline) for half a year. Oh, goody. Which is not to say that Knuckles himself will disappear. Ken's let it be known that some of his Knuckles stories will be incorporated into the Sonic book, though Knuckles himself is definitely going to suffer the indignity of being demoted to a bit player. Blurbs, Find Your Name Before It Disappears, and Pro-Am Art pages. Why bother? Justin Gabrie's offhand remark in answering one of the letters sums up the whole dreary situation: "Hey, you never know...."