Decoy: Menagerie!

It isn't easy being green for either Kermit the Frog or Decoy the little alien. Both have seen better days.

Everyone knows that Kermit is a Muppet and that Muppets are waning in popularity. Fewer know that Decoy is a malleable, green alien whose word balloons are cluttered with what looks like chicken scratch, and who is the companion of a cop nicknamed Luck.

For Decoy, his better days seem like yesterday since he is a relatively new character, and his problems begin with the lack of visual continuity in a new hardback anthology called Decoy: Menagerie.

Every anthology is uneven in quality, but the often-excellent artists in this anthology either did not have a character style sheet to guide their interpretation of Luck, or ignored one. The cop looks so different from story to story that it simply destroys a reader's ability to suspend disbelief.

Decoy's better yesterday's are also due to the brevity of the stories about his and Luck's crime "busting"; some tales are merely brief moments in time and have little plot, dialog or characterization.

But the greatest mystery is why an editorial decision was made to package lesser material in an expensive, beautiful, hardback collection.

I admit it hurt to write this review. Publishing is a tough business, and Decoy the character deserves to succeed. Gentle is very difficult to capture in word and pictures, and books that can be enjoyed by readers of every age are rare indeed. Earlier appear-ances of Decoy accomplished both goals. This collection is still above average, and will be enjoyed by his growing number of fans. However, new readers should turn to earlier efforts and hope for better days for Decoy…and Kermy too.MV

Decoy: Menagerie, Part 2/162 pgs. & $19.95,Penny-Farthing Press/various writers and artists/available at comics & bookstores & www.pfpress.com.

Order Vance's history of the American Comics Group in Alter Ego #61 at www.twomorrows.com.

Interested in the exciting Oklahoma Cartoonists Collection and Toy and Action Figure Museum? Go to fourcolorcommentary.blogspot.com/

Shudder at Michael Vance's "Light's End" audiotapes narrated by legendary actor William Windom. Star of 18 Broadway plays, 200 TV shows (Murder She Wrote, Star Trek, etc) & 50 movies, Windom will chill you as Vance's prose curdles your blood! Light's End #1: "A Change of Heart" and "Cross Purposes" or #2: "Fall Guy" and "The Zoo" plus the song "The World Roars On". $10 unsigned. $20 signed by Windom and Vance. Cassette or CD from: Vance, 1427 S. Delaware Ave., Tulsa, OK, 74104, or www.starbase21OK.com!

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