PARKER GIRLS #3 & #4 - Review

I love this cover. I love Katchoo from Terry Moore’s Universe. I would have loved this cover more three years ago. Three years ago this cover is guaranteed sexy. I’m thinking:

 

 ‘Ooh who’s this hot babe with the naughty tat in the heels staring down at a possibly nekkid Katchoo, grrr'.

 

Now I’m thinking:

 

‘Is this a chick in heels or a dude? Or a dude-chick? Is that why we only see the heels cuz Terry didn’t wanna draw the dude-chick? Is this dude or chick nekkid also? Is that his big ass foot in that tiny ass heel and he’s having a moment where he can’t walk? Is Katchoo looking up at his junk? Did he-she just pull out his-her junk? Is the look that Katchoo is giving like ‘is that all you have?’ Did the Dude-Chick just say in a gruff throaty voice ‘Get out the water honey, Tranny Liebowitz only takes dips alone, scram!’

 

Ya can never really know these days can you? Nevertheless this cover still sits front and center on my comic book rack because of its inherent sexiness. What, you don’t have a comic book rack at home to display all your current comics? And you call yourself a comic geek? See, what I’m doing here is I’m avoiding getting to the meat of this comic because frankly it’s canned lunch meat at best. It may even be processed soy/pea protein/chemical meat. Oy, Terry, you’re killing me!

 

I said this in the initial review of 1&2 but it bears repeating: Terry Moore is a master of writing intricate grounded in reality relationship stories. His best work is stuff like ‘Strangers in Paradise’ which is all about relationships, until it gets wonky with the international espionage thriller stuff. He can expand to supernatural and sci-fi as he did in ‘Rachel Rising’ and ‘Echo’ (Echo is probably my all time fave of his, you should check it out if you haven’t) but every time he meanders into this Mission Impossible/Undercover Black Ops Charlie’s Angels stuff it feels like a bad 80s movie that you’d see on Skin-emax back in the 80s at around 1am.

 

Moore is a master cartoonist, there’s no denying that. He also sure knows how to draw the hell out of a Woman and most of his leads are basically all female. So I get the lure for wanting to focus on this Super Spy Agent Bad Ass group of chicks. It just lacks stakes. These girls can do no wrong and they get away with everything. They’re all super strong, super smart, they literally get away with murder. I don’t know if this is some fetish fantasy of Terry’s where he envisions these babes putting the world right but knowing what I know of intelligence agencies, black ops and brutal off the books missions I think it’s safe to say these girls are complete and utter amateurs. It’s 2023. Cameras are everrrrrywhere. These chicks just waltz in and out of places, plunge their heels in UFC dudes and just waltz out like there’ll be no repercussions. I don’t buy it.

 

The premise of this story has also gotten officially wonky. So there’s a murder mystery of some billionaire’s wife found in the Pacific Ocean that’s running along these Parker Girls (every time I hear that phrase I think of Parker Brothers the game company. Who’s up for a game of Sorry!) cornering this billionaire into somehow giving up his interest in some water project that’s going to stop the drought in California. Oy frikkin vey. Katchoo’s Meathead Roller Derby Sister convinces Katchoo to act like a ho again and seduce the billionaire to convince him to give up the company. Katchoo finds him at an event and does the Sharon Stone ‘ooh I’m wearing no panties look up my dress’ bit. I will admit, I’ve been on a few dates and had that moment where I realize there’s no panties on. It totally shorts your circuits for like ten seconds and there’s a lot umm, uhhs right after

 

I’m not sure who I’m supposed to root for in this book: these awful crass women who act with impunity, an innocent cute bystander roped into slut duty or a robotic billionaire with zero personality. I checked out the solicits and, yeah, this story is going nowhere fast. Terry, I love your stuff, I will 100% jump onto whatever your next project is but, Sorry! Drrrop! More hot pool covers though and pan up, cuz, you know, we have no idea what’s doing up there these days.

 

Rating: 5.7

Verdict: Drop

PARKER GIRLS #1 & #2 - Review

I love me some Terry Moore. There’s no other creator out there that does what he does. He puts out what he wants when he wants how he wants. It’s his own imprint. It’s just his stuff. He writes and draws all of it and never uses color. No ads. If Prince was a comic book creator he’d be just like Terry Moore although there’d be waaaay more naughty stuff, lingerie and purple outlines. Like Prince, you can tell that Terry loves women. All of his leads are pretty much women and to varying degrees they all kick serious ass although I've yet to see one do the splits.

 

If you look at actual pictures of Terry Moore he looks like the kind of guy that would be featured in an episode of ‘Six Feet Under’. He's that odd bald guy that would switch back and forth between bawling and making cartoonish faces in a funeral parlor. He'd have some hot vixen in heels and a pompadour with him and he'd be sketching her while Michael C. Hall stares and wonders how to get him to fork over a grip for a casket.

 

Anyway, many moons ago I was traipsing around the web and found the entire ‘Strangers in Paradise’ comic book run on Craigslist here in LA; it was selling for like $100. I dove right in and loved all of it. But then the series took a wacky turn when it got into this international spy conspiracy global conglomerate stuff. This was a while ago but I remember there being all these threats on the main characters from these agents and hit men and I’m like ‘Whooaaa, how did we go from two cutesy lesbians and a Metro dude  in an art Gallery to Mission Impossible? So I put it away and have yet to finish the series.

 

Since then Moore has had some hits and misses. His best book by far if you ask me is ‘Echo’; it’s just perfectly done and balances his whole global intrigue with deep interpersonal relationships. Then ‘Rachel Rising’ came out and that was also a spectacular series that blended massive biblical implications with a small town horror vibe. The subsequent series were…mnyeh. Nothing great but nothing unreadable. His last go round was called ‘Serial’ which spun out of Rachel Rising and followed the little psychopath hatchet loving demon girl as she tried to hunt down another killer. That series got waaay too gory and violent for my taste so I had to drop that one also.

 

Now we get ‘Parker Girls’. Hmm. So, I remember this whole deal from previous series. These chicks are bad ass global agents that do all kinds of spy assassin stuff and they’re the best at what they do yadda yadda yadda. Terry Moore, you are a genius when it comes to writing relationships and emotions. Die Hard 5? Not so much. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination it’s just…I mean, Billy Joel doing Metallica could be okay but you’re like, ‘Dude, piano stuff homie, c’mon, bring the bottle of red and shit’.

 

The basic premise? Some accountant dude steals a bunch of money from some rich white CEO assholy dude who finds him and leaves him naked in a desert after he was banged the night before by a Parker Chick who takes the money he stole. Then the CEO’s wifey washes ashore dead somewhere else while the main Hulkamania lookin’ Parker chick goes to Kachoo in her art gallery (the best SIP babe) to recruit her for God knows what. It feels a bit dated to me. Not sure if that's Terry's intent but it gives me 90s action TV show/late night HBO series vibe. A couple of the Parker Girls are called Cherry Hammer and Becky the Gun Girl which sounds more like Roller Derby names than international spy chicks. Maybe Terry should do a Roller Derby Suicide Girl series, that would be amayyyyyzing. 

 

Look, the best thing about Terry Moore books is that you can gobble them up in just a few minutes. So if you’re in a rush and just sitting down for a sec with your morning java you can knock a few of these puppies out in a heartbeat, which is what I did. I’ll strap myself in for the ride but I got a parachute nearby and I'll disappear like Matt Fraction does in the middle of a series just in case Hans Gruber shows up.

 

Rating: 7.5

Verdict: Pull on alert.