by Jayden Leggett, Editor

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: An anthropomorphic and questionably named hippopotamus walks in to a bar… OK, not the most conventional opening to either a joke or a review, but it does provide some insight into the subject matter of Hairbutt The Hippo – Private Eye No. 1.

Published by Asylum Press and written and illustrated by the versatile and ever-talented Jason Paulos (check out our review for another of his works, Eeek! No. 1), as the title suggests, Hairbutt The Hippo is a binge drinking and often cowardly private detective who is living in human society. Narrated in the past-tense by Hairbutt himself, the story begins with him being threatened by the Haitian mafia to not testify against one of their members.

As he is sleeping off a combination of a savage beating and an equally brutal session of alcohol abuse, Hairbutt is visited by an alien super being named the “Reality Ranger”, who agrees to be Hairbutt’s bodyguard, assured that this is the only way that he will be able to “expunge a great evil” from Earth. Meanwhile, a Haitian witchdoctor, “Doctor Zum-Zum”, is creating a vile (or more accurately, a “bile”) creature to kill Hairbutt, suitably named “Phlegmulon: The Muclear Man”…

In case the above plot synopsis doesn’t make it clear enough, this is a tale rife with sleaze and humor with no restrictions as to what can happen (hence the humanoid animals and monsters constructed of snot). I found the storytelling style and narrative content to be a very enjoyable read, and I particularly giggled at a section that paints a very tongue-in-cheek but somewhat accurate picture of the human race (via the Reality Ranger’s special “evil detecting goggles”).

Despite the comedy and very cartoony art design, the subject matter is quite often very adult in nature, containing swearing (which was admittedly censored), murder and alcoholism etc, so make sure little Timmy doesn’t get his hands on a copy of this book.

While on the subject of the art, once again Paulos shows that he is far from being a one-trick pony when it comes to illustrating. The art design features high contrast black and white cartoon style drawings that hold a wealth of detail in both the character designs and backgrounds. Despite being mainly comprised of deceptively simple-looking bold outlines, Paulos still manages to perfectly communicate a vast range of emotions via the facial expressions of his various characters. I always got amused every time the cowardly Hairbutt would nervously sweat under pressure.

Despite one grammatical error (these always bug me, which is pathetic, I know) and the relatively short page length of just over twenty pages (I want more, dammit!) Hairbutt The Hippo – Private Eye No. 1 was a “done in one” story that I got a heck of a lot of enjoyment out of. When I next get the chance I will definitely be looking in on more stories from the Hairbutt The Hippo series, and I strongly encourage all other comic book readers to do the same (go to the Asylum Press website to score a copy of this and other sweet titles).

Rating:

ComicsOnline gives Hairbutt The Hippo – Private Eye No. 1 4 out of 5 bottles of industrial strength nasal spray.

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