Thirty-One Days of CCS #7: G.P. Bonesteel

GP Bonesteel is best known for his tongue-in-cheek takes on horror and satire in general, and his mini series sixty/forty allows him to do this in a shorter form than his ongoing satire Jason. sixty/forty: Movies I Watched In 2016 isn't so much a comic as it is a zine with mixed content: lists of movies, illustrations and a short comic at the end. His parody drawings of films he didn't like as well as drawings of actors he thinks should be in the next Expendables film are funny. The strip where he's arguing with a friend about the film It Follows was especially amusing, as Bonesteel adds details like the friend stealing Bonesteel's sandwich, a diagram of the perfect sandwich, etc. All throughout, Bonesteel adds compelling arguments for a number of his points with regard to films he liked and didn't like. Someone who has strong opinions about film will find this well-assembled zine quite interesting.

sixty/forty Vol 5 is a more traditional comic as Bonesteel serves up several short stories. "The Day The Sharktopus Ate The Moon" was fun, as it's really about an apathetic lifeguard who refuses to do anything to stop the titular creature from completing its stated mission, reasoning that it doesn't have anything to do with him. It's a typical Bonesteel tactic of subverting a familiar story through logic, unsound as it might be in its premise, that is otherwise ironclad. "The Day The Frogs Fell" is one of Bonesteel's more visually intricate story, as it once again presents a debate regarding a potentially horrific or supernatural occurrence. In this case, it's the meaning of frogs raining down from the sky, with one unseen person talking about portents and other vague warnings and the other person doubting him. Bonesteel throws in a twist at the end where the seemingly deranged person turns out to be right. "This Is Howard" is an absurd space epic about a duck that steals a spaceship told in a deadpan narrative style, with occasional flashes over to the fuzzy duck in question. It's Bonesteel at his funniest, as his dry sense of humor is a perfect match for his minimalist, simple style. The absurdity in his work always comes from the concept, not the illustrations, even though their simplicity helps establish the deadpan quality of his stories.