I'd imagine it takes a lot of courage to put out a comic/magazine/whatever called Crap: if it's even nearly bad, critics won't hesitate to pick the obvious one-line summary. That J.R.Williams should do so, is a testament to his courage; that it's nevertheless crap, shall be a great burden to him for some time, or at least until he chagnes the title.
This is the "Kinky Pain & Pleasure Issue", and J.R. celebrates this with a 21 page story called "Chains of Love", and an entirely unkinky four page story called "Smiley". Chains of Love charts the relationship between Mike and Angela, starting with him waking up next to her, after The Party. Mike soon learns that Angela is into Spanking and Dominance, and plays along, until he decides that he's uncomfortable, and stops. That's pretty much it - 21 pages of him angsting and getting turned-on. It's fairly funny in parts, particularly the talking-dick jokes, but it's spread thin. The art doesn't help - everybody is viewed from the same angle, and the faces are identikit: there's eye open/eye closed, mouth open/teeth closed/lips closed ... The art for the backup story's worse, since it's the gimmick of the title character that he doesn't close his lips, or open his eyes. So there's Smiley's face, Smiley's face again, Smiley's face reflected in a mirror, and so on. The story's fairly amusing, but, I'm afraid, not enough to redeem the book.
Art: 2
Writing: 3
Andrew
I can't decide whether to like this or not. It's well drawn, it's pretty funny and I like Milt and Claire. It's just that the story isn't very original. It's almost a modern standard, person discovers new partner is into some strange stuff (whether drugs or S&M) and finally has to choose between sex and sanity (not a difficult one that). Even the talking dick joke is here and the final few frames are just too damned obvious.
That said, Williams has a nicely uncluttered caricaturist style (check those nipples) and the second strip ``Smiley'' is really good. Excellent sugar lumps.
Overall this is good rather than great. Worth the money until the next issue comes out.