By: Jimmie Robinson (writer & art), Paul Little (colors) & Jade Dodge (editor)
The Story: Cassie Hack & Vlad go through a dimensional portal to New Port City, the land of the Bomb Queen.
What’s Good: What a delightfully funny, risque and well-done comic this was! As a disclaimer, I’ve been a fan of Hack/Slash for some time, but I’ve never experienced Bomb Queen before. It is always there on the LCS shelf or lurking on Comixology beckoning me, but I’ve never quite pulled the trigger because I’ve got so much other comic stuff to read. That will change as a result of this issue.
If the purpose of this one-shot was to expose fans of either Hack/Slash or Bomb Queen to the other property (with the hope that they’ll jump on), this comic gets a Gold Star because I’ll be carving out time to catch up on Bomb Queen asap.
The story is pretty simple: Cassie Hack, Vlad and Pooch from Hack/Slash end up in Bomb Queen’s world while they are chasing a demon who manifests as a cat and while there they run into Bomb Queen. Whether they triumph over the demon is really irrelevant to the story because the whole point is to showcase the attractions of the two series. Speaking from a Hack/Slash fan’s point of view, it does that well as we see some of Cassie’s trademark violence (hits one criminal dude in the crotch with her spiky baseball bat!), Vlad’s humor (being called a MF and remarking that “I don’t know my mother.”) and Pooch’s earnest loyalty. I presume that the Bomb Queen teasers are authentic (since the issue is done by Bomb Queen creator Jimmie Robinson) but they feature the scantily clad heroine, with her g-string that is overly “tight” in the front, incredibly raunchy dialog and word balloons that often point to her nether regions.
This comic is not pulling any punches and there is something very respectable about that!
Robinson also illustrates this issue and does a great job. The issue is naturally very cheesecake heavy and if that’s your kinda thing, you’re going to be a happy camper. And….while it is easy to be distracted by the cheesecake aspect, the layouts and story telling are both top notch as well including a couple of panels where he goes into silhouette mode really effectively. Nice coloring too.
What’s Not So Good: The only technical I can find is that Pooch looks a little funny. A little too short and not long enough. But, animals are hard to draw and it isn’t as if Robinson is auditioning for a job drawing Hack/Slash.
The bigger negative is going to be a personal taste issue. This subject matter isn’t at all for everyone as the visuals and dialog are incredibly sexualized. It kinda floats my boat, but there are a lot of people who aren’t going to dig this kind of subject matter.
Conclusion: Succeeds wonderfully it what it sets out to do: providing a primer on both the Hack/Slash and Bomb Queen universes. Honestly, there should be a lot of cross-pollination between the two anyway, but this should help to sell fans of one series on the other. Take the “Mature Readers” tag seriously because this is one comic that you’ll find yourself stashing in the bottom of your reading pile so no one sees it. Very naughty.
Grade: A-
– Dean Stell
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