REVIEW: Bob's Burgers #9 - COMIC CRUSADERS

This week“s issue of Bob“s Burgers was a lot of fun. As a person who has only seen, and loves, the show, I wasn“t really expecting much from this comic book adaptation. I was anticipating some recycled material that didn“t quite make the cut to air on Fox, and I could not be more wrong. All three stories in this issue were clever in their main themes: desperation in love, redundancy in writing, over-indulgence, and cheese. Which not only keeps with the continuity of the show, but adds to it.

Rachel Hastings, Tom Connor, and Anthony Aguinaldo, kick off this issue with an homage to the great Gilligan“s Island. The art was well done by both Tom and Anthony. Tom“s main strength was with movement, which is good since dancing played a strong part in the story. And Anthony did a great job on the color; his night scenes around the bonfire were impressive, and deserved at least a mention. Rachel“s writing was a weird mixture of profound and predictable. Without spoiling much, I think that she did an amazing job tackling some issues that everyone faces as a human: loss. And what people do in the face of losing something that they thought would last a lifetime. At the same time, however, she also starts poking plot holes in Gilligan“s Island, which is low hanging fruit at this point. My suggestion is just avoid this kind of redundancy as much as possible.

Next, Rachel teams up with Mark Von Der Heide and Kimball Shirley for ”˜The Why Files, Part 2“. This is a continuation of the story, left by an unfortunate hand cramp, in issue eight. The art for this story does not seem too different from ”˜Tina“s Island“, but the color palette is definitely darker. Which is great since it fits the story better. The writing, though, was much better in my opinion. Yeah, Rachel and Mark tackle the fairly obvious jokes of how horrible nior writing can be, but it is more about the way they handled it. I felt like they really rubbed the industry“s nose in it, showing how bad these ”˜mature“ cookie cutter stories really are. That ending with Tina, and her mysterious banter, was gold.

Lastly is the Gene-As Touch, by writer Anneliese Waddington and Sara Richard. This was definitely the most artistic of the three stories. Sara really did do an excellent job of taking a simple two-tone color palette, and turning it into well rendered masterpiece. All without losing the light-hearted animated style of Bob“s Burgers. I just need to mention that the way she drew the wind was seriously inspirational; great job Sara! And Anneliese also did a great job. The story was basic, King Midas yada-yada, but she tailored it very well to Gene“s character. And the rhyming, just like in prior issues, blew my mind. The dialogue and narrative were timed very well, so much so that you run the risk of not noticing the art as you breeze through. There was one spot, however, that felt out-of-place. When Gene was dancing on mailboxes, parked cars, and street lights, the narrative felt forced. It is only really noticeable when you try to sing it out loud, I suggest not trying it on the train to work. Other than that, the story was fantastic.

All in all, Bob“s Burgers issue nine was great. I think that adding ”˜Tina“s Island“ as part of Tina“s Erotic Friend Fiction was clever and witty. Not to mention the fact that ”˜The Why Files“ was indeed ”˜meta“ for the comic book industry as a whole. Â And the art and poetry for Gene-As Touch was impressive. I suggest the buy if you want more from the cast of Bob“s Burgers. 3.5 out of 5.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

STORY BYÂ Rachel Hastings, Mark Von Der Heide, Anneliese Waddington
ART BYÂ Tom Connor, Anthony Aguinaldo, Kimball Shirley,Sara Richard , Circus Leveo
COVER BYÂ Joe Healy, Luke Ashworth
PUBLISHERÂ Dynamite Entertainment

Author Profile

Dylan Hicks

I just graduated from MSUD with my BAS in Mathematics. I live in a small 1 bedroom apartment with my girlfriend, and our two cats. I work full time for NTIA-ITS as a Computer Scientist. All I really do is engineer mathematical models and write code all day. I took up this second job at Comic Crusaders as a way to become more involved with the comic book community. Since I was a child I have loved comics. I grew up reading Spider-Man, Shi, New Mutants, Spider Woman, and Gen13. As I got older, however, my tastes started to shift from almost exclusively Marvel to various independent labels. Now I read a huge variety of comics: Valiant, Black Mask, Aspen, Avatar, Image, Dynamite, Boom, Aftershock, etc.. If anyone wants to know, my favorite publisher, hands down, is Valiant.
I am also working on writing a few comic books myself. I have about 4 ideas in the fire, but only 1 of them is really getting anywhere; I have 6 of the 10 books finished. In addition to writing, I am also a practicing colorist. If you want to checkout any of my writing samples, or coloring samples, please check out my DeviantArt and let me know what you think.
dirtgrubdylan.deviantart.com.
Some more about me? I love black metal and video games. I usually spend most of my time hanging out with my girlfriend. We have been together for 6 years, so at this point she is basically my best friend. But when I am not with her, I get together with my friends to drink some beer and play some Magic, the Gathering. And, as pretentious as this is, I am also working on starting my own engineering firm. So that involves me reading a lot of textbooks on Mathematics and Computer Science.
So yeah, if you have made it this far thank you very much! I am crazy excited to start my career in writing. Let's see what I can do with this.