2016 Comic Challenge 192 Dragonforce #01

TITLE-Dragonforce #01
PUBLISHER-Aircel

Oh Aircel,the IIRC insulation/AC company that Barry Blair talked into funding a comic company in the mid to late 80s.And while this series was co Creator by the previously mentioned Blair,creepy fuck that he was,Dale Keown co created,drew and writing it.

I remember when this came out it was one of them titles that the shitty comic shop in Biloxi,Diversions,after a week had jacked the price up to $5. Yeah that store fucking sucked and ripped off/ran off many a fan. I never bothered with much from Aircel back then. But after many buys of say 20lbs of random comics I acquired a later series that reprinted this original Dragonforce series. Of course this reprint series came out around the time that Dale was huge cause of Hulk and then Pitt.

The series isn't bad. The writing does suffer from the flaws that anything written by a lifelong fanboy does. But the art is pretty damn good. Keown this early on in his career had a polish to his work that it seems to take most artists at least a few years to get.

Dragonforce #01 gets a borrow.

2016 Comic Challenge 034 Cat and Mouse #01

TITLE-Cat and Mouse #01
PUBLISHER-Aircel

I had never heard of this series. Then a few years back I had won a random lot of 100 comics off Ebay. And in that lot was about 6 issues of Cat and Mouse. I opened up an issue and saw that Steven Butler,an artist from Mississippi,and Mitch Byrd,another artist from MS,had created this series. And Byrd was the main artist on the title.

After reading those issues I was hooked. And later on that year at Free Comic Book Day I got to talk to Mitch Byrd a bit. He lives on the MS gulf coast area. And was at 3 Alarm Comics in Diberville. The comic shop owner had went thru his back issue stock and put out a bunch of comics Mitch had worked on. I had been wanting the first issue of Cat and Mouse and saw a copy.Plus since it wasn't bagged and boarded it was only a buck. I handed it to Mr Byrd,and explained to him how much I enjoyed the series. "Thanks,but this was very early in my career.So when I look at it all I see is all the mistakes I made."

Set in 80s New Orleans. Cat and Mouse are a team of cat burglars. And both of them are well trained martial artists.

So this series was kind of a mash up of lots of stuff. You get the big city crime drama. Plus a heavy amount of martial arts and ninja stuff,remember this was the 80s when ninjas were mega hot.

Really my only complaint about the comic is I wish it was in color. I have seen so much of Mitch's artwork in color. And while his art works in black and white. It is even more amazing when in color.

So if you like crime dramas and/or 80s era action films go digging thru you local comic shop's cheap bins and try out some issues.

Cat and Mouse gets a Buy.