Attack of the Bacon Robots
Mike “Tycho” Brahe and Gabriel “John” Holkins
Fantagraphics, Jan 2006
$79.95 US / $94.95 CAN
There are words that come to mind when one is privileged to “paw” through a tome such as the new high-concept, print-exclusive production from the gentlemen at Penny’s Arcade. Words like “rich” and “cream-tainted.” Words like “leather interior.” Words like “#88/500.” Words like “weighs as much as a neonate.”
But, to quote Wilde, it’s not the cover I judge; it’s the book. Attack of the Bacon Robots is a delightful surrealo-humanist romp through fields of neurotic bliss, as viewed by a feline railroad baron (Twisp) and a pale-eyed Satan (Catsby). The allusion to Sartre is obvious, and a little trite, but it doesn’t distract from the page-turning joy of the first section, “The Penguin Bespoke.”
Holkins and Brahe follow that quasitraditional narrative with an homage to Scott McCloud’s Modern Tales: the Mesopotamian epic “Twisp and Catsby Kick a Rock.” It’s printed in infrared-reflective ink on fifty pages of solid black, so this reviewer hopes you’ve got your goggles ready — you deserve it.
The pop-up section (pages 72-109) is in extremely poor taste.
The book returns to visible light and flat pages in its coda, “To All The Loves We’ve Won Before.” The auteurs sketch their titular heroines in ASCII art, arranged from a twenty-page list of critics, bloggers, parents and fans who have published assessments of their work. Each name is paired with a piece of bold, profane advice, and I was amused to find our editor Lance Sharps near the bottom of page 127 (for the record, no, he doesn’t, or anyway not at the office).
Holkins and Holkins have done rather a U-shaped turn since their days as t-shirt peddlers. Some less objective reviewers might be tempted to put this one down to a desperate grab for artistic credibility, but I prefer to ask: who let the bacon out?
Attack of the Bacon Robots receives nine thumbs out of twelve.