"Zombie Bob Gets a Job"

In years past, I always made a point of picking up a handful of titles -- sometimes more -- from the self-published creators tables, but this year was different. That's not to say that the material wasn't any good, it's just that I saw fewer such tables and at least a couple artists that seemed promising had sketchbooks but nothing sequential. Being more of a story-oriented sort, I passed on the sketchbooks.

One fellow whose art looked promising didn't even have his comic with him; he was there taking pre-orders. That was a first for me.

There was, at least, Zombie Bob Gets a Job. Yep: zombies, the current hot property in comics today with Marvel Zombies and Wake the Dead and a half-dozen or so other titles, have finally made it to the mini-comic format.

My brother picked up both issues of Zombie Bob, written and illustrated by Jimmy Proctor (that's him on the left, with uber-talent Chris Yambar, below).


My two cents:

-- I liked it.*
-- It's a little reminiscent of Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman.
-- Spelling isn't Jimmy's strong point.

* I can't elaborate much on this. I will add: even though the two issues are very trim, there are no backgrounds in any panels and the art won't woo fans from Steve Rude's or Guy Davis' tables, it is a fun read. And I think Proctor has it in him to be a good illustrator, but just needs to put more time into each page. One small-press artist I spoke with said each page took him about 15 hours to illustrate; a page of Zombie Bob probably took about 30 minutes. That's not me being mean; I really don't think Proctor put too much into these initial efforts, but I'd encourage him to put more into any follow-up. The idea is worth the investment.