The Taste of Rising Bile

When HAWKEYE throws his mighty ARROWS...

On the rare occasions when people ask, I usually tell them that I got into American comics through reading Panini Collectors Editions of both Kurt Busiek and Stan Lee’s Avengers before moving onto Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men, with my addiction spiralling on from there.

But that’s not strictly true.

Well, it is true, but I’m omitting something. You see, what really captured the imagination of the rubbish-teenage-artist that was me was a neglected little feature on Marvel’s old website (we’re talking about four designs ago here); Chris Giarusso’s Bullpen Bits.

Initially a pastiche of Peanuts with Marvel characters, Bullpen Bits was a traditional newspaper style comic strip that gently poked fun at Marvel’s own characters and titles, printed sporadically on the editorial pages of most books around 1999-2001. And it was damned funny, even to someone who hadn’t actually read most of the stories it was parodying.

Editorial pressure meant that Bullpen Bits was unceremoniously dumped though, leading to Giarusso to go off to Image and create his own title in the same style – G Man – which I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never gotten around to reading (it’s on my list, honest). After a few years though, Giarusso returned to Marvel and Bullpen Bits became Mini Marvels, running as longer form stories in anthologies, back-ups and one-shots. And they’re damned funny.

Giarusso has a fantastic style. Sublime, even. As someone who spent ages trying to ape it over the years (rubbish-teenage-artist remember?), it’s not as simplistic as it appears to be. Married with his natural story-telling skills and comedic timing, Mini Marvels becomes a tour de force in comedy comics. Giarusso always knows when to let the absurdity of the story build up unabated and when to let it overwhelm his characters.

Plus there are a few subtle cameos by Optimus Prime in there, which raises the bodacity by a factor of four.

The characters in the Mini Marvel universe generally all exist as children. Spider-Man is simply “Spidey” and instead of being a photographer is a paperboy (Albeit one who works directly for the editor-in-chief of a national newspaper, rather than say a newsagent). Jameson is an adult, though, instantly setting him up as an authority figure. The X-Men are made into a home for orphans run by Charlie Xavier, who mindwipes all authorities into thinking the place is legitimate. Despite this, the stories never feel kiddy or dumbed down. It takes this simplified universe and runs with it. Where else will you see a replay of the Spider-Man symbiote suit saga with the suit made of newsprint? Or Wolverine go on an epic quest to buy his favourite breakfast cereal?

Although Giarusso usually writes his own strips, there are many strips in here written by other writers, such as Paul Tobin and Marc Sumerac. These all, with one exception, manage to maintain the high quality of Giarusso’s solo work. I do have to wonder why other writers were brought on to co-create these strips given how they don’t improve upon Giarusso’s solo work, but I’m not going to complain that they seamlessly fit together.

The exception, however, are a series of one page Hulk strips that are, quite frankly dire. The art is, as always, fantastic, but the writing is terrible. Despite having been howling with laughter at the preceding and successive material in the collection, these left me stony faced and unimpressed. It should come as no surprise then that they’re written by a Loeb. Audrey Loeb in this case, daughter of the insidious Jeph. They’re just not funny at all.

The book itself is, I was a little surprised to find, a digest sized collection. I’m usually a bit of snob when it comes to comic book formats and generally detest American comic books that were originally printed in normal dimensions being shrunk down into digests as some lame attempt to appeal to the Manga market (see Marvel titles like Irredeemable Ant-Man and Amazing Spider-Girl). But, actually, it works well here. The Mini Marvels style is bright and clean enough that it suffers none from the smaller format and I suppose it helps keep the price of the collection down by a few quid.

Which is important, because this is a very thick collection, given that it contains all the Mini Marvels strips ever*. And there won’t be any more (in the foreseeable future, so this really is an “Ultimate” collection for once). Mini Marvels has once again been the victim of an editorial edict, claiming that it’s too similar to Marvel’s Super Hero Squad property that is currently being exploited in comics, animation, toys and video games. In the face of a mass-media property, Mini Marvels didn’t stand a chance, so is no more. Personally, I think they should have ditched Super Hero Squad and made toys, cartoons and video games of Mini Marvels.

I cannot recommend this title highly enough and I will quite possibly think less of you if you don’t own.

*Ok, so despite the fact that this collection is rather exhaustive and claims to contain all the Mini Marvel stories ever, it, well, doesn’t. Eight of the original Bullpen Bits have been omitted, which is a bit lame. Ok, so I can guess why most of them were omitted (one contains characters not owned by Marvel, one isn’t “All Ages” appropriate, a couple don’t stick with the general style and a couple more flirt too closely with Peanuts imagery for comfort) but the fastball special one is great! So, for you edification, here it is: