Madman: All-New Giant-Size Super Ginchy Special

Immediate warning: the Allred content here is one 18-page story. The rest is stories by other creators, plus loads of pin-ups.

That Allred story is of course a real pleasure, especially the extended sequence of Madman falling through some strange largely space, which is constantly surprising and delightfully inventive. Allred is always a joy to look at, with his apparently effortless cartoony style with the ragged edges, full of charm and warmth. In writing, he strikes me as a decent successor to the always wonderful Bob Burden (where is he now?).

The extra stories are varied: a cute if lightweight short Madman story by Emi Lenox; a rambling road tale (well, space-road tale) of someone who knows Madman, roughly illustrated; and a story by Tonci Zonjic, who I already liked a lot from Who Is Jake Ellis? The ten pages of this are absolutely gorgeous, again reminding me a lot of Alex Toth (Zonjic’s signature is a clear nod to this) and Darwyn Cooke. There’s not so much to the story (Madman has unusual surgery), but the design, drawing and composition are wonderful – this guy is a major talent.

I could have lived without over 20 pages of pin-ups, but some are rather good. Biggest names are Gilbert Hernandez, Dave Sim and Darwyn Cooke, but most are worth a look.

I wasn’t sure if this was worth it when I saw how little of it was by Allred, but I guess the equally terrific Zonjic story was enough of a bonus to make it worthwhile, and it’s not as if the rest is poor.