"Family Fun Comics," was a series that much of the time featured Stardust the Super Wizard. A strange hero created by Fletcher Hanks back in 1939 during what is considered the Golden Age/Era of comics, a number of issues of, "Family Fun Comics," featured Stardust. It ended with issue #17....until now. Thanks to brothers James and John Coats as well as publisher Cosmic Lion Productions, "Family Fun Comics," #18 was released recently--it is gloriously odd.
This, "New," issue of the series has Stardust the Super Wizard fighting everything from humanoid hippos to buxom bird-women. He still talks in a stilted style you'd find in old comics, although the rest of the characters have a more modern dialect/manner of speaking. The comic is insanely violent, like over-the-top, intentionally so. It takes the quirkiness of the Golden Age and marries it with the hyperviolent action of the more modern era, where limbs, torsos, and noggins go flying. It is cartoonishly absurd, however, so you readers shouldn't be grossed-out so much as amused and bewildered at the wild flying about of viscera between off-kilter verbalizing.
The dimensons of, "Family Fun Comics," #18 is made to be large like old comics (get a magazine-sized bag and board), and it really lets the art sing too. These Coats brothers know how to tell a zany yarn and make it look so grotesque that it's good. The issue ends with a faux-cliffhanger and the disclaimer that there probably won't be an actual issue #19 or #20 anytime soon...I honestly hope there is, though! After all, if you like surreal reads, "Family Fun Comics #18 is a great time. Ask your comic shop to get you a copy or order it outright from Cosmic Lion Productions if that's easiest for you. Now to just hope we do get an issue #19--or more!
5 out of 5 Stars.
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