Every day this month I'll be reviewing a different independent comic book, based on submissions from the creators of the comic books themselves.
The month continues with Walter Oslie's adaptation of his old Cubicles web-comic as an epic (and humorous) science fiction graphic novel, Cubicles: The Movie!: The Graphic Novel
Cubicles is the story of two, well, cubicle workers at a intergalactic company (it is not completely clear what they do, except they do do interplanetary deliveries). The hero, Wally, is in love with the daughter of the head of the company, so he is dismayed when he learns that she is engaged to marry someone else.
I liked the way that Ostlie introduced characters with their name badges.
Anyhow, Wally's best friend (and co-worker) Ost tries to snap Wally out of his funk with some fun and games in the office...
The pencil fight gag is a clever one that becomes important later on.
Eventually, Wally and Ost uncover a conspiracy to take over the company by space pirates. This leads to a series of outlandish adventures in outer space, fighting against space pirates and, of course, a giant space squid.
Ostlie had a good sense of humor and his comic delivery is strong - there are a number of clever asides (think the guy on the TV show Scrubs), like Wally imagining he is forced to fight zombies with office supplies. He does a very good job of playing with the expectations people have with the genre, as well.
He has an impressive art style, although at times some pages look a bit rushed (his introduction did note that he drew a ton of pages in not a lot of time, so I guess that is to be expected).
In the back of the book, Ostlie noted two pages as his "favorite two pages," so here they are (they are from different points in the book)...
He does do a nice little job of working with perspectives there.
All in all, this is roughly seven dozen pages of over-the-top futuristic fun, and it is a good value at $15 for the full volume (a total of 92 pages, including supplemental material). You can order a copy here.