Smax

Smax, the sneering, antisocial big blue "tank" from Top 10, gets his own book, which falls after volume 2 of that series. This is Moore at the comedic end of his mile-long range; you'd never know it was the writer of From Hell and Lost Girls.

I'm very fond of Smax, both the character and the book. Moore creates another world, with fairy slums and mystical portents, affirmative action quotas for adventuring parties, and a Death named Dennis. It's whimsical, but Moore gives it a bite.

The only thing that doesn't ring quite true are the three or four panels that are a parody of the Harry Potter series. I'm a fan, and even I have to admit there are many good jokes to be made at Harry's expense - but I would have expected Moore to find show more better ones than these. Still, it's so short it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the rest of the book.

Smax' sad story is revealed, and he sets out on a quest to redeem himself. Toy Box, the pretty-in-punk protagonist of the first Top 10 collection accompanies him as "wizard". After some truly gorgeous art and a slam-bang of a climax, we arrive at a deliciously unconventional resolution for our big blue boy.

Cannon and Currie produce art that's a little more cartoonish and bright than Top 10's brushed-metal exterior. The panels are wallpapered with pop culture and literary allusions; read it with a friend and try to spot half of them. show less

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

This is the last Top 10 spin-off (at least, the last one collected in trade paperback format). This takes Top 10 cop Jeff Smax back to his home dimension, a parallel Earth governed by the rules of fantasy stories, not superhero stories, accompanied by his partner, Toybox. Unlike Top 10, which smashes superhero stories and cop dramas together, this isn't really about genre collision; it's mostly an affectionate riff on the conventions of fantasy fiction, especially the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings/Dungeons & Dragons-based quest stuff. Smax finds out that the only dragon he ever ran away from is still rampaging, and Toybox guilts him into confronting his show more responsibilities.

There's no deep insight into the fantasy genre, but there are good jokes: I appreciated the "politically correct" take on fantasy races, the idea of a bureau to authorize quests, Smax's inability to read emotions and utter conviction that he is reading emotions, the tedious dwarf funeral, and the fact that dwarves play RPGs based on being in middle management. And of course, I have to love any page that has jokes based on both Victorian poetry and Homestar Runner.

I do wish that Smax played a bigger role in the resolution of his own story-- the ending is probably the only part of this that didn't work for me, as Smax is outshone by Toybox, and the romance subplot is resolved in a pretty rushed way, too. This isn't as good as Moore's work on Top 10 proper, but it's an entertaining diversion with a couple of its key characters. show less

I don't know anything about "Top 10", and I don't like much about your standard "hilarious modern take on medieval world" genre stuff (Fables I like because of the general awesome of getting to see all your faves in one spot, but Neil Gaiman andTerry Pratchett and shit? Eugh.). But this is a lot of fun. I gues they're in some kind of future superhero world with teleporters to other dimensions and shit, and one of them comes from a giants-and-ogres world originally, and they go back and slay a dragon. Sounds generic, but Moore puts a lot of heart into this--the appealing surprise ending,the AMAZINGLY WELL DESIGNED dragon, and all the little jokes and cute moments (spot Trogdor! chuckle at the shify elves! Even the old joke where Death is show more self-conscious and called "Dennis" is pulled off with aplomb). All in all, this will tide you over nicely on a bus ride to UBC. show less

And now we find out about the mysterious background of Jeff Smax, one of the stalwarts of the Top Ten police force: he's from a fantastic parallel world. Alan Moore starts with a world dominated by the tropes of fairy tales and high fantasy quest fiction and infects it with all the worst traits of our own world: bureaucracy, inflation, suburban sprawl, and scams. The result is hilarious-- and even against this background, he manages to depict a very grave villain indeed.

I love Alan Moore but have to say this is probably the book of his that I least enjoyed. I can handle silly as long as it's funny - this was mostly silly and only occasionally funny (to me). The main villain was interesting and cool. The solution to the problem was interesting if a bit of a stretch. The art was okay.

So if you're an Alan Moore completist, read it. If you're looking to sample Alan Moore look elsewhere (I would suggest Top 10 or the Watchmen).

Not quite as good as the Top 10 comics and featuring two of my least favorite characters from that series (not to say that I don't like these characters....they just wouldn't have been the ones I'd have picked to focus a miniseries on), this is still a fun read.

A very fun Top 10 spinoff that works well on its own. We leave the super/action-hero world of Neopolis for Smax's home world of fairy tale and fantasy, seen in the Top 10 universe as hillbilly, backwater country.