The Middleman Vol 1 #1
Temp Jobs and Butt Cheek Monsters
Working as a temp sucks. Crappy pay. Stupid people. Horrible butt cheek monster trying to melt you with nuclear vomit.
Wendy Watson the artist has it all. An illegal sublet she shares. A mother who’s sure that Wendy’s a lesbian with a homosexual boyfriend. A temp job at A.N.D Laboratories.
And then said butt cheek monster gets free and starts killing and melting everything in sight. Wendy’s surefire reflexes, honed from videogames, and her natural ability to remain calm help her stay alive until she can be saved by a guy with nerves of steel, killer gadgets and the look of a pilot out of the 40’s, The Middleman.
Basically Finding This Was Almost Like Finding Firefly
Creators Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Les McClaine and publisher Viper Comics released The Middleman Vol. 1 #1 in July of 2005. Since then fans (a very strong cult following) have been treated to four volumes and 12 episodes of a TV show in 2008 (also with a strong cult following), Grillo-Marxuach having a strong TV resume including Lost.
Once again my years removed from comics had prevented me from every hearing about the books. I actually do remember commercials for the series but, come on, it was on ABC Family with commercials running while my daughter’s watching Hannah Montana on Disney. Any grown man would instantly put anything on ABC Family with commercials on Hannah Montana in the must-avoid-at-all-costs bin. I did. Now if the butt cheek monster had invaded Hannah Montana, things would have been completely different. I might have even paid to see that.
I found The Middleman trolling the Comixology app way past midnight for anything free (digitally the book and the series are only currently available through Comixology). The book would be a fun read anytime. It was perfect for a late night. The smart, quick dialogue mixes perfectly with a cartoonish, black and white artwork (with dots even).
Crazy Fun
Wendy’s a young woman living in the 21st century. The Middleman looks and (mostly) sounds like the perfect, ideal adventurer created in the 40’s and 50’s. Writers always use contrast to make strange relationships and fish-out-of-water pairings more interesting. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it should get the nuclear vomit treatment. This one works from the very first panel.
In one book I had monsters, hipster neighbors quoting Shaft, weird mafia hitmen and the strangest damn temp agency I’d ever seen. I enjoyed every bit of it can cracked up more than once.
I didn’t get the next two issues right away, there was a reason I was trolling for free books, but I bought them soon after.
