Man-eating Cow 9

The Collected Paul the Samurai

Yet another black and white comic playfully deconstructing superhero comic stereotypes from some bunch of lame-ass, smart-aleck Massachusetts college boys - yes, it's a sick cliche that only escapes futility through being extremely funny. Okay, so a Crisis on Infinite Earths piss-take is not necessarily all that topical, but I guess it's excusable on the grounds that it's also a parody of the manner in which near every NEC title is a Tick spin-off. There's something quintessentially nineties about the wallowing in the junk culture of the entire century that characterises NEC titles, and the manner in which the techniques of absurdist theatre have become so commonplace as to be almost passe in the comics. Witness the policeman discussing Petrarchian sonnets in mid gun battle, the adoption of giant lizards monsters as an object of national pride in Japan and the subversion of time honoured narrative techniques of these two books. The Collected Paul the Samurai has the edge, perhaps because of the more direct involvement of Ben Edlund, perhaps because it's three times as long as Man Eating Cow #9. I love NEC comics and so does Jean Baudrillard.