American Mythology Productions 2020
Written by Todd Livingston & Nick Capetanakis
Illustrated & Lettered by Brendon & Brian Fraim
Coloured by James Couts
Hollywood's 306th best actress is scream queen Sonya Devereaux, whose career consists entirely of ultra-low budget, straight to DVD horror movies - the kind you find in the bargain bin at the grocery store or playing at 2am on cable TV. In this issue: "Spider-Shark vs Snake-Bear" - a hilarious 30-page horror/sci-fi/action parody filled with ridiculous monsters, beautiful babes and outrageous comedy! When an archaeologist goes missing in Africa while investigating the myth of the Spider-Shark, Dr. Haley Lord (Sonya Devereaux) is released from a government psychiatric ward to lead a rag-tag team of operatives into the jungle to find her. Also in the "cast" are genre favorite actors Damion Poitier and Magda Apanowicz, adult star Caroline Pierce - and a special appearance by horror hostess Ivonna Cadaver of Macabre Theatre!
So this the fourth in a series of one-shots and I have to say that it reminds me of the old USA Up All-Night movies, with Made for SyFy sensibility, that I used to shake my head at as my father loved them. I mean men love titties after all. So going in with that kind of mind-set it is so easy to fall in love with this book. There are these wonderful tongue-in-cheek moments throughout that just reinforce this for me. The story & plot development reads very much like a made for SyFy film and how we see the sequence of events unfold as well how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. The character development is about what you’d expect to see and it certainly does not disappoint in the slightest. The pacing here is fantastic and as we see it take us through the pages we can see how well the book is structured as well as how everything works together to create the books ebb & flow.
While I personally am not a fan of mindless humour there is something about this that is more like nostalgia for me so that I connect with it more. Simply put this is just genuine fun in the most absurd way possible and it needs to find its way into your world. It is high time we started putting the fun back in funny books, as my grandmother used to call them.
The interiors look like an all-ages cartoon affair with not so kid friendly imagery. So while it has the cartoonish styling don’t let that fool you because in all reality it’s exactly what this title really needs. It adds the levity of the idea of Sonya and it’s brilliantly handled by the Fraim brothers. Would like i like to see some more attention to detail, sure but what we see shows a nice understanding of how to utilise linework and its varying weights. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a nice strong eye for storytelling. The colour work is nice to see as well. I appreciate how we see the camo effect as well the hues and tones within the trees being utilised. There is some beautiful use of the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work we see as well, plus those eggs man that’s some killer marbled shit.
This is fun people, I have a great time reading these stories and seeing the crazy stuff that Sonya gets into. Though I will say if she’s going to remark about her cleavage, Ivonna Cadaver (great drag name by the way), then she needs to be stacked better than Elvira not less so. If you want something fun to read to forget about this crazy Covid-19 world then treat yourself to the world of Sonya Devereaux!