All-Ages Reviews - Rascal Raccoon's Raging Revenge!
For a bit of a change of pace we have a comic about cartoons in Rascal Raccoon’s Raging Revenge!
So, most of you have probably watched some of the Loony Tunes cartoons in your life, and if you have then you’ve probably seen some involving Wile E. Coyote. If you’re anything like me and most of the people who ever watched it and the people who created it, you probably felt more sympathy for the coyote than the road runner. Well, so did Brendan Hay (writer) and Justin Wagner (artist) as it’s the basic premise of their comic Rascal Raccoon’s Raging Revenge!
The comic features the cast of a series of cartoons called Toonie Treats living their lives in their cartoon world. The good guys are called Merries and the bad guys are called Meanies, and pretty much everybody is an obvious stand-in for Warner Brothers’ characters. Our “hero” is a Meanie named Rascal Raccoon whose rival is Jumpin’ Jackalope, a character who feels like he’s intended to combine Bugs Bunny and the road runner.
Rascal’s getting tired of the whole chase business, but can’t seem to bring himself to focus on anything except taking down Jumpin’. Then one day, he succeeds! (Accidentally, of course, Rascal’s not really capable of taking anybody down himself.)
Um...whoops?
With Jumpin’ gone, he has a brief spell of happiness, then he gets depressed. Now normally, this would be the point where the villain would come to realize that he enjoyed the chase, that he found it fulfilling, and that he wanted the hero back, but Rascal’s reaction is a bit different. He still hates Jumpin’ as much as he ever did, but still can’t focus on anything else and his life is really no better off than before. He blames his troubles on the almighty creator (here called the “pen man”) who created him to be so obsessed with Jumpin’. His new plan? To head into the pen man’s world and drop an anvil on him, thus freeing himself. The only problem is the only magic pen he knows of is owned by Jumpin’s wife, Janey. Using the excuse that he wants Jumpin’ back, the two form a truce and head out to find the mysterious pen man, but they’re in for a shock when they arrive in the pen man’s world.
It's like all my failures are gathered together in one place...
The story succeeds really well in getting the reader to sympathize with Rascal while still making him villainous. True, most of his plans involve shooting things or blowing them up, but we see that Jumpin’ was pretty often a jerk to him for no real reason.
Well, yeah, there is THAT...
He’s no saint, but we do get to see that he wants to do better, he just can’t because he only has one focus in life. His interactions with Janey are actually a lot of fun too, with some good lines and the occasional role reversal as she gets increasingly frustrated with the human world (Rascal has learned a lot about patience.)
...and he'll need it...
I also have to give this book major props for avoiding the usual cliché mentioned above. Rascal doesn’t want Jumpin’ back, he HATES him! But he was never given a purpose beyond hating Jumpin’ so what to do when his only purpose is gone? It’s essentially the same question, but answered in a much more interesting way.
It's a coping mechanism, okay?
The book combines a lot of the absurdity and silliness often found in cartoons with the more meta discussions of how the animation industry works in general, so it ends up being a bit more than the typical story of a bad guy turned “good”. They don’t quite get to the point of showing the stark differences between the real world and cartoon one - while it’s shown that the toons can actually get hurt in the real world, the majority of cartoon physics still apply to them. Still, it’s neat because it’s not just a comic about cartoon characters, it’s a comic about cartoons and all the awesome and terrible things that come with it. From the wonderful stories they tell to the inevitable reality of merchandizing.
Ha. Toilet Humor.
All that said, I do have some complaints on the writing. For one, I wish this book was longer. While I did enjoy reading it, the real reason I would like more of it was that the story often felt very rushed, and I would’ve liked to see it take its time and develop things a little more. The ending is also a bit strange. It felt like a bit of a let down, but not necessarily in a bad way if that makes any sense. Not that the ending is a downer, it actually ends about as well as it could. I guess I could say it feels kind of half finished, it didn’t have a satisfying conclusion somehow, so I’m left wanting to see more of this story. Which is a little rough, because while I’d welcome a sequel to this if they wanted to do it, I feel like the story’s been told and everything’s been wrapped up nicely, so I’m not sure where they’d go from here.
Eh, ice cream treats seems like a good way to go...
Now, before I get to discussing the art, can I take a brief moment to talk about the cover? This book shipped with a hard cover and a dust jacket. Not too much weird there. The hardcover itself is just a painted background, that’s all. The dust jacket is mostly a clear plastic with the characters, title and credits printed on it. The result is that when its put together, it actually looks a lot like an animation cel. It’s such a simple, yet clever idea, I can’t get over how much I love the cover of this thing! Such a great touch!
Ahem…moving on…
The art I’m back and forth on a lot. The designs are simple and cartoony with bright colors in the cartoon world and a lot more grays and browns in the real world. Like in the last comic I discussed, The Intrepic EscapeGoat, Rascal himself is wonderfully rendered and very expressive, but a lot of the background characters seem a bit static and it can sometimes be hard to read even Janey’s expressions (and she’s in this a lot). It’s hard to pick out what my problem with it is, and I don’t really think it does anything specific wrong - in fact I think it’s pretty well done and fitting for the most part. I think I just wish it had a bit more detail to it. Not too much, just a little bit to flesh out everything a little bit more. It feels almost unfinished to me sometimes. Though this complaint might only boil down to personal preference as there’s not much in particular I can pick out that’s wrong with it.
It's a dream we all share, Rascal...
This comic kind of skirts the line of my “all-ages” label. There’s some mild swearing in it, and a lot of talk about death (since one of the characters dies and all). It's more a "PG" rating than a "G" one is what I'm saying. I don’t think it’d be a good fit for younger kids, though more because I think a lot of the story and humor would be a bit subtle for them than because of the aforementioned swearing and violence. But around 10 and up would probably enjoy it a great deal. I know I had a lot of fun with it. It put me in mind of Who Framed Roger Rabbit at times and though it’s not quite to that level that’s still a huge compliment. It was created by a couple of guys who have a real love of cartoons and that’s something I (and most kids) can really relate to.
Next time we'll look at Lions, Tigers and Bears!
So, most of you have probably watched some of the Loony Tunes cartoons in your life, and if you have then you’ve probably seen some involving Wile E. Coyote. If you’re anything like me and most of the people who ever watched it and the people who created it, you probably felt more sympathy for the coyote than the road runner. Well, so did Brendan Hay (writer) and Justin Wagner (artist) as it’s the basic premise of their comic Rascal Raccoon’s Raging Revenge!
The comic features the cast of a series of cartoons called Toonie Treats living their lives in their cartoon world. The good guys are called Merries and the bad guys are called Meanies, and pretty much everybody is an obvious stand-in for Warner Brothers’ characters. Our “hero” is a Meanie named Rascal Raccoon whose rival is Jumpin’ Jackalope, a character who feels like he’s intended to combine Bugs Bunny and the road runner.
Rascal’s getting tired of the whole chase business, but can’t seem to bring himself to focus on anything except taking down Jumpin’. Then one day, he succeeds! (Accidentally, of course, Rascal’s not really capable of taking anybody down himself.)
Um...whoops?
With Jumpin’ gone, he has a brief spell of happiness, then he gets depressed. Now normally, this would be the point where the villain would come to realize that he enjoyed the chase, that he found it fulfilling, and that he wanted the hero back, but Rascal’s reaction is a bit different. He still hates Jumpin’ as much as he ever did, but still can’t focus on anything else and his life is really no better off than before. He blames his troubles on the almighty creator (here called the “pen man”) who created him to be so obsessed with Jumpin’. His new plan? To head into the pen man’s world and drop an anvil on him, thus freeing himself. The only problem is the only magic pen he knows of is owned by Jumpin’s wife, Janey. Using the excuse that he wants Jumpin’ back, the two form a truce and head out to find the mysterious pen man, but they’re in for a shock when they arrive in the pen man’s world.
It's like all my failures are gathered together in one place...
The story succeeds really well in getting the reader to sympathize with Rascal while still making him villainous. True, most of his plans involve shooting things or blowing them up, but we see that Jumpin’ was pretty often a jerk to him for no real reason.
Well, yeah, there is THAT...
He’s no saint, but we do get to see that he wants to do better, he just can’t because he only has one focus in life. His interactions with Janey are actually a lot of fun too, with some good lines and the occasional role reversal as she gets increasingly frustrated with the human world (Rascal has learned a lot about patience.)
...and he'll need it...
I also have to give this book major props for avoiding the usual cliché mentioned above. Rascal doesn’t want Jumpin’ back, he HATES him! But he was never given a purpose beyond hating Jumpin’ so what to do when his only purpose is gone? It’s essentially the same question, but answered in a much more interesting way.
It's a coping mechanism, okay?
The book combines a lot of the absurdity and silliness often found in cartoons with the more meta discussions of how the animation industry works in general, so it ends up being a bit more than the typical story of a bad guy turned “good”. They don’t quite get to the point of showing the stark differences between the real world and cartoon one - while it’s shown that the toons can actually get hurt in the real world, the majority of cartoon physics still apply to them. Still, it’s neat because it’s not just a comic about cartoon characters, it’s a comic about cartoons and all the awesome and terrible things that come with it. From the wonderful stories they tell to the inevitable reality of merchandizing.
Ha. Toilet Humor.
All that said, I do have some complaints on the writing. For one, I wish this book was longer. While I did enjoy reading it, the real reason I would like more of it was that the story often felt very rushed, and I would’ve liked to see it take its time and develop things a little more. The ending is also a bit strange. It felt like a bit of a let down, but not necessarily in a bad way if that makes any sense. Not that the ending is a downer, it actually ends about as well as it could. I guess I could say it feels kind of half finished, it didn’t have a satisfying conclusion somehow, so I’m left wanting to see more of this story. Which is a little rough, because while I’d welcome a sequel to this if they wanted to do it, I feel like the story’s been told and everything’s been wrapped up nicely, so I’m not sure where they’d go from here.
Eh, ice cream treats seems like a good way to go...
Now, before I get to discussing the art, can I take a brief moment to talk about the cover? This book shipped with a hard cover and a dust jacket. Not too much weird there. The hardcover itself is just a painted background, that’s all. The dust jacket is mostly a clear plastic with the characters, title and credits printed on it. The result is that when its put together, it actually looks a lot like an animation cel. It’s such a simple, yet clever idea, I can’t get over how much I love the cover of this thing! Such a great touch!
Ahem…moving on…
The art I’m back and forth on a lot. The designs are simple and cartoony with bright colors in the cartoon world and a lot more grays and browns in the real world. Like in the last comic I discussed, The Intrepic EscapeGoat, Rascal himself is wonderfully rendered and very expressive, but a lot of the background characters seem a bit static and it can sometimes be hard to read even Janey’s expressions (and she’s in this a lot). It’s hard to pick out what my problem with it is, and I don’t really think it does anything specific wrong - in fact I think it’s pretty well done and fitting for the most part. I think I just wish it had a bit more detail to it. Not too much, just a little bit to flesh out everything a little bit more. It feels almost unfinished to me sometimes. Though this complaint might only boil down to personal preference as there’s not much in particular I can pick out that’s wrong with it.
It's a dream we all share, Rascal...
This comic kind of skirts the line of my “all-ages” label. There’s some mild swearing in it, and a lot of talk about death (since one of the characters dies and all). It's more a "PG" rating than a "G" one is what I'm saying. I don’t think it’d be a good fit for younger kids, though more because I think a lot of the story and humor would be a bit subtle for them than because of the aforementioned swearing and violence. But around 10 and up would probably enjoy it a great deal. I know I had a lot of fun with it. It put me in mind of Who Framed Roger Rabbit at times and though it’s not quite to that level that’s still a huge compliment. It was created by a couple of guys who have a real love of cartoons and that’s something I (and most kids) can really relate to.
Next time we'll look at Lions, Tigers and Bears!