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Column:
The Whirling Spinner Rack
Review: Chumble Spuzz: Kill the Devil
By Kevin Agot
Published: 2008-03-12
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![](/images/cover_chumblespuzz_1.jpg")
“Chumble Spuzz” is the ridiculously funny, hell-spawn
from the mind of creator Ethan Nicolle. Any book that sports Satan on
the cover looking like your dad’s accountant of 35 years has got to be
worth checking out. The book transports you from a carnival to a
Christian tent revival to hell and back. All this was done for the
sake of a pig. If you can wrap your mind around that concept…
‘Nuff said, True Believer!
“If you
like wild romps and your feelings don’t get hurt too easily, then
this book is for you.”
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The book Chumble Spuzz launches at a maniacally frenzied
pace with just enough control by creator Ethan Nicolle to steer the
book from one plane of existence to another. It's much like being at
the wheel of a Porsche and making a tight, hairpin turn and flooring
it with five slightly, obese people on cell phones crammed in the
two-seater coupe. You wonder where all this energy is coming from
that’s carrying you and you also wonder if
you’re going to make it back in one piece.
The humor comes at you with so much rapid, machine-gun patter that
if you’re not ready to receive it, you may miss much of the smartly
placed visuals as well as the cleverly crude jokes filling up the word
balloons. The humor is a mad mix that ranges from expertly executed
to grotesquely vile to hopelessly juvenile. It’s the kind of
free-flowing humor that pops into the head of an actor at an improv
and he just goes for it, not particularly minding the audiences’
temperance or tastes. Nicolle captures this spirit in spades.
Sometimes the humor elicits a guffaw while other times it draws out a
questioning groan but at all times it is done in fun. At times I read
through the book with the same awed fascination that I had watching
the gore-fest in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. You chuckle and wonder out
loud, “What the…?rdquo;
Nicolle’s artwork is strongly reminiscent of The Maxx’s Sam Keith
albeit with a twisted, cartoonier slant. His cartoon artwork is
funny, finely tuned and bold. This is one of the strongest visuals
for a humor book that I’ve seen in some time. No concept, it seems is
so “out there” that he can’t capture it on pen and paper. This is a
testament to Ethan Nicolle’s sick talent and wild imagination. If you
like wild romps through carnivals, tent meetings and hell all for the
sake of a pig (and your feelings don’t get hurt too easily), then
this book is for you. This is a great read!
In the words of the eloquently prolific Gunther and the righteous
Reverend MoFo towards the end of the book:
“It’s raining fried chicken!”
“Hallelujah!”
Heh.
—CCdC— Read all of ComicCritique.Com’s columns, old and new,
at our columns archive!
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