Maintenance Vol. 1: It's a Dirty Job...

Maintenance Volume 1: It's A Dirty Job (Maintenance Department) (v. 1) Funny funny Graphic Novel good start from Oni Press. Ever wonder why the Mad Scientist never wins? Read this book and you will wonder no more.

... and they're the guys who clean it up. I've always had a soft-spot for comics dealing with Mad Science and this one is right up there with "Girl Genius" and "Narbonic". Well-written, funny, and charming at times. An excellent comic well worth looking into.

Doug and Manny are two ordinary guys just trying to get through life without too much trouble. They are maintenance/cleaning staff. Unfortunately they work at TerrorMax, a think tank for evil mad scientists. They have to deal with everything from huge fetid piles of ####, aliens, intelligent germs, time travel, and runaway biologicals, all while trying to impress the cute receptionist. It doesn't help that their boss was given the position as a form of punishment. This volume collects the first three issues. Herein Doug and Manny must face fetid piles, aliens, a lonely and bored manshark whose only view of reality is the movie Porky's 3, time-traveling cavemen and aliens. Tongue-in-cheek humor mixed with clean art makes for a fun series. Check it out.

At Terromax you can find everything you might need for your world domination plans. Their mad scientists are hard at work creating genetic experiments, building time machines, and studying captured alien technology. And Doug and Manny have to clean up after them. When machines go haywire, they get to fix them. When a genetic experiment goes wrong and leaves a fetid pile of . . . you don't want to know . . . they get to clean it up. Maintenance is written by Jim Massey, drawn by Robbi Rodriguez, gray tones by Jared Jones and Lettering by Douglas E. Sherwood, and they all contributed significantly. Writer Jim Massey has developed some great characters. Robbi Rodriguez has a cartooney style with individual characters that are clearly definable and excellent storytelling. Jared Jones' tones are well thought out and aid the storytelling. And the lettering is noticeably good, giving different characters clearly different voices. This volume collects the first 3 issues. Our first issue introduces a number of characters including Doug and Manny, of course, and their boss Dr. Mefulor who's not happy about being in charge of maintenance instead of working in a lab, Mendy the receptionist who Manny has a crush on, and K'arl, the alien found at Roswell sixty years ago. The main story of issue one though is the manshark who so far can only spend three hours at a time out of the water, and who's tired of spending those three hours being experimented on. So the guys take him to a bar. In the second issue a mad scientist accidently sends the boys back in time, where they meet cavemen who the mad scientist has taught English, among other things. Here is where the letterer really shows his stuff. One of the cavemen is embarrased about his high-pitched girlish voice. When he talks the letters are petite and cursive, and really gives you a visual feel for what his voice should sound like. The third issue, my favorite, focuses on K'arl, the alien from the Roswell crash. I don't want to give too much away, but if you crashed a car in the middle of primitive Africa, and the natives asked you to show them how to rebuild it and/or make more? I know it sounds cliche, but this comic actually made me laugh out loud, and I haven't had that happen all that often. This is definately worth the cheap price. You will read it over and over.