Review:
Picks of the Week: Mesmo Delivery Service and Hit Monkey!

While this week's new releases were amazingly small, there were two outstanding books this week and they couldn't be more opposite. First up is Mesmo Delivery Service Vol 1--

If Paul Pope and Frank Quietly had a baby that grew up to have a baby with Geoff Darrow who then grew up to have a baby with Dave Cooper, you'd get Rafael Grampa. His style is all my favorite artists rolled into one, but still with it's own unique look. Grampa's art is stunning. It's striking and fluid, surreal and creepy-- it's more like animation than drawing. Like the artists mentioned above, Grampa does more than just draw, he puts style right onto the paper, not only does the art tell a story but the page as a whole looks like a solitary piece of art itself.

Sangrecco, veteran employee of the Mesmo Delivery Service (and Elvis lover) and new driver ex-boxer Rufo are transporting a mysterious cargo. What starts as a pit stop becomes an bloody, eyeball popping, decapitating orchestra of ultra-violence. Never has ultra-violence looked so beautiful. Seriously, so much thought put into violence here, the point of view of some of these shots are breathtaking and made me chuckle with evil glee.

We also get a fun introduction by Brian Azzarello, pin-ups by Mike Allred, Eduardo Risso, Craig Thompson and Fabio Moon, and a wonderful sketch section by Grampa that shows the evolution of his characters and story. I really enjoy these kind of sketchbooks, to see where he started with his characters and the design of his pages as well as his thought process on each piece of art.

This nice little ultra-violent romp from Dark Horse Comics comes in at 80 pages for $9.99 and I really can’t recommend this book more. It's fun, sick and beautiful--who doesn't want to see a beer opened with someone’s eye socket?

And now we have the Hit Monkey one-shot from Marvel Comics. Now I'll be honest, I picked this book up because of how stupid I thought it was going to be. Don't get me wrong, it was stupid--but awesomely stupid! This book made me laugh all the way through. It was so much fun. An injured hitman flees into the mountains to be found by a group of white monkeys. They accept him into their society as one of their own, except for one monkey who sees the assassin for what he is. However, that monkey also learns the way of fighting from the assassin. When the assassin's enemies come looking for him, Hit Monkey is born! Who doesn't like monkeys and guns mixed together? Who doesn't want to see a monkey shoot someone in the face? Well I'll tell you my readers, this guy here wants to see all of that. Pick up Hit Monkey, you won't be disappointed. Plus for those of you Deadpool fans out there, Hit Monkey is Deadpool's new villain!