Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Adventures - Volume 1 - Slave Labor Graphics

Ethan Switch - Wednesday, 13 April 2005 - Print Version

Bogus. Chance a go at wiping down a comicbook with a slightly, though not entirely, damp cloth, and spend the next few days in observation. Watch as the next days curl up the covers, possibly shortening the reach like the bed sheets at a hostel. No slight increase by way of meds here. One sudden burst in the right temperature and then BAM! The whole book needs to be flipped over to sleep on its stomach in an attempt to bring down the erection. The indignity of it all.

Feared lost with severe degradation in back issue bins or drowning in the heady throwaway status of many a comic, this reprint collection brings back the first four issues of Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book along with the adaptation of the Bogus Journey film. The original series is in disparate and dissected numbers out there. Fighting desperately against age and mould on the battle ground made of long boxes, naked without the aid of backing boards.

Pay attention to the names of the lil ones.

Sucking off all its colour and squeezing it down to a shadow of its former size, this collection from Slave Labor Graphics still punches with all the wild fun of the original Marvel Comics run. No way. Yes way.

Evan Dorkin (writer/artist of the original series) does away with having to keep to some exacting resemblance toward the source actors. Bill, Ted, Rufus and everybody else basically just don't match up with the dudes what portray them in the movies (Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and George Carlin respectively). Hell, they don't even look much like the actors from the abomination of a TV series. Or maybe they do. This most triumphant exercise lifts the whole deal from any wayward heaviness and stiffness and gets to fly with all sorts of hilarity and contortions.

Preparations may be in order to deal with the flood of "dude" and "excellent" around every other speech bubble. Stoner slang of the generation under the New Romantic reign. And don't forget the impromptu air guitar solos that crop up, though not quite as often. There is no escaping this. This is the world of Ted "Theodore" Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esquire. This is the universe that created gods out the Wyld Stallyns. [insert air guitar]

At times it would seem as if Dorkin is throwing in too much of the Bill and Ted vernacular, yet by the end, it just seems like the right amount. The humour, enthusiastic and at times rather frivolous, wavers between truly slight scenes with an awkward air to pure slapstick.

On occasion, the artwork suffers from fraying; disconnected on the transfer from archival prints with what might have been lifted direct off the original comics themselves. The clarity in the inked pages still hold up well despite the fade away here and there. Given the compact size, scenes on pages close to the spine swim too close to the fold, making the task of total consumption fraught with the old dilemma of cracking that area of the book for a flat out glimpse. Granted, there isn't much to be had in those crevices, but some slight give would have been ideal. Even if superfluous.

A seriously non-non-non-heinous effort. Far better in keeping with the spirit of the two movies as opposed to the travesty that was the thankfully short-lived television series.

Ethan Switch