Smax

jeff (jaafs) smax was first introduced in top 10, which this is an offshoot of. i didn't really care too much for top 10, maybe i just don't like the setting. but smax is great. it's funny and the story is very good. i'd recommend this to all comics and alan moore fans.

Once again, Alan Moore for the win. Like The Forty-Niners, this is a spinoff of his excellent Top 10 series. Smax and Toy Box head to Smax's homeworld, a place brimming with all the hallmarks of a fairy tale world, as well as wink wink, nudge nudge fantasy humor. Essentially, it's a fairy tale in a fairy tale land filled with all the tropes of fairy tales, but with Moore's little twists. Entirely different than Top 10, but just as enjoyable. Despite having a very childish, cartoonish look, just like Top 10 the art is bursting with references to everything under the sun, from Harry Potter to Winnie the Pooh to Bob The Angry Flower to Star Wars and lots more. Great fun (though don't let the look fool you; the story deals a bit with rape and incest, so this isn't for kids).

What could I say about Alan Moore that hasn't been said yet? After a 12-issue run of Top Ten, Moore takes us to Smax's homeworld, a place where technology doesn't exist and there are dragons to be killed. Smax takes his partner, ToyBox, with him and we get to learn more than we could have hoped for about the previous life of Jeff Smax, or Jaafs Smackson, the dragonslayer. It is funny (there is a bureau that oversees all kinds of quests; quotas must be met, so Smax has to take with him some dwarfs, elves and sorcerers!), it is smart, it is Alan Moore! The art is cartoony, but it works.

In case you missed Top Ten (I'd recommend you go pick uop the Trade Paper Back) Smax was a blue skinned cop who had a habit of talking to his closet. In his own series we get to find out why.(along with the name confusion in Top Ten) Alan Moore and Zander Cannon(who finally gets some credit) shine in this tale. Just as in Top Ten both Moore and Cannon let the in-jokes fly and have a romp through the magic kingdom.

I was never that much of a fan of the original Top Ten series. But I really enjoyed this fun and engaging spin off. In this series we follow Top Ten character Smax back to the "Sword and Sorcery" style parallel universe where he grew up. This book is fairly different from Top Ten - this is pretty much Alan Moore doing humorous fantasy in the style of Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" novels - although Moore can be a little bit more dark and nasty than Pratchett. Readers who haven't read Top Ten should be able to pick this one up and enjoy it, although they may be slightly confused the first five or ten pages. But after that this is completely its own story. And it's all very enjoyable.