BEST OF THE STACK - THE GOON #32

I'm gonna have to say that for the past couple issues (4-ish) during "Goon Year", this series has taken a serious nosedive. The most obvious drop in quality was that he art was getting really sloppy, rushed, and sparse. Backgrounds were mostly white, brushstrokes were overlapping the word balloons, and details were going by the wayside. Perhaps this was just a symptom of fulfilling a full 12 issue run on a creator written/drawn/inked book, producing a full length graphic novel, as well as attending the multitude of cons in a given year. That's a good bit of work and it seems Powell stretched himself too thin. I dunno.

All I do know is that The Goon was starting to suck pretty hard and looked to be slooooowly circling the drain. The story was spinning it's wheels, nothing was funny anymore, the tone got serious, Spider didn't show up as much, girl stuff intruded, and the new monsters were kinda iffy. The attempt at a larger story arc was failing. What endeared me to the goon in the 1st place were the insane villains and one off battles. The newer back and forth battles with the wicker dude just wasn't doing it. I figured Mr. Powell simply burned out. It has been a long run. Perhaps he would go the Mignola route and produce cool covers for stuff. But that thought seemed like sacrilege.

The Goon #32 nukes all these pessimistic thoughts. The art is top notch and full of rich, strange colors once more. Background are back. There's an awesome Hobo King to kick the hell out of. Funny stuff happens. There's a Rape Bear. I can forgive the weird breaking of the barrier with the whole Powell and Morgan Freeman conversation, as he used to do this all the time early on with goofy ads. When this brief bit passes, it's just old tyme Goon action once more. So, here's to hoping it keeps up.

Plus there is a really nice set of sketches by fellow artists and a great retrospective on how The Goon came to be. Some of the early Goon sketches look a whole lot like Bigby Wolf. Like exactly. So, maybe Willingham and Sturges have some explaining to do...

And as for the future, it looks like Mr. Powell is gonna take a swing at drawing goofy fun stuff for kids. A project named "Chimichanga!" is about a bearded girl and her adventures or something. To do this he's reviving the Albatross Exploding Funny Books label. As cool as this is, I hope The Goon will not take a backseat in he quality department.