Monkey Meat: The Summer Batch #5 // Review
It’s been a long summer. You’ve been on Monkey Meat Island for long enough that maybe you’re beginning to realize that a life of leisure ISN’T for you. Or maybe you’re looking for something to give your life meaning. Or maybe you’re just running out of money. Whatever it is that is the case, you might consider joining the Monkey Meat Armies. Writer/artist Juni Ba is ready to tell you all about it in the final issue of Monkey Meat: The Summer Batch. The fifth and final issue in the mini-series also features two other narrative features and a few other bits of inspired satirical silliness.
Of course...any corporation that’s going to build its own army is going to have its share of problems. It’s not even a few pages after the opening “join the army” pamphlet that the Monkey Meat company finds itself dealing with a popular uprising. Things get very, very uncool for a very large group of people in a bloody war that precedes the final story of the series.That story takes the form of a demon goddess appearing to deliver her pitch for followers on a late night talk show. What’s the worst that could happen?
Juni Ba’s satire has a particularly frenzied approach in the final issue of the current series. There’s a deliciously manic energy about the comedy that touches on a great many issues with a dizzying amount of force. The energy has been impressive throughout the series, but Ba tackles some incredibly big concepts in the final issue including war, the overwhelming power of capitalism gone turbo and, of course, religion. Lots of sacred and semi-sacred stuff gets knocked-over in the process. It’s a lot of fun straight through.
The intensity of Ba’s artwork feels kind of overwhelming in places. It’s graphically impressive in aways that embrace a simple line economy and simple color for maximum impact. The impact of the aggression on the page is augmented by a delightfully surreal sense of humor that slams into the page with a stylish sense of the absurd. As intense as it can all be at times, it is all modulated quite well. The balance between pensive and serious moments and ridiculously over-the-top comedy is managed with a sense of perfection that's really admirable.
Once again Monkey Meat shows itself to be one of the more idiosyncratic pieces of art on the comic book rack today. Very impressive on a whole bunch of different levels. The feel of this particular series is quite unlike anything else that's ever appeared in comic book format. And it would only really work in comic book format. Ba’s mix of iconography and text really wouldn't be at home in any kind of a video format or any other popular mediated format. It fits perfectly on the comic book page. And it's really nice to see something like this roll across the rack every now and then. With any luck, there will be another helping of Monkey Meat at some point in the future.
