Review: Tiger Lawyer #1

A Real Shark

  My friend Mark is a consummate consumer. Rarely does he make a purchase without first having read several sundry reviews, cross-referenced different retailers to find the lowest price and either finagled a further discount or signed up for some scheme in order to 'save' a few dollars more . Although his generosity allows me to ride on his coupon clipping coattails, I find the whole endeavor the height of exhaustion. Now, that's not to say that I am the proverbial 'fool and his money,' although, yes, at times, in my less fiscally responsible youth I was known to pay retail for a CD or cover price for a book. What gives Mark the screaming fantods is the 'blind buy' which I consider less of a risk and more of an intuitive (and therefore trusted) purchase.

  So, when I saw that Eric Stephenson of Image Comics had posted Ben Rankel's drawing of a tiger dressed in a suit lapping whiskey out of a glass, I knew I had to know more and I knew in my gut that this was for me. Call it the 'thunderbolt,' call it 'love at first sight,' whatever, you know it when you know it and I knew it. Tiger Lawyer is the inspiration of Ryan Ferrier who writes and publishes the comic through his own Challenger Comics. If animals dressed as people blows your hair back (you twisted fuck) or you think that there aren't enough tigers practicing law than Tiger Lawyer is the cat's pajamas or for you more R-rated sinners, the cat's ass.

  I've earned my 30 day chip, you might say, since I stopped buying Marvel and DC proper. That's not enough of a sample size to say if my experiment has worked or not. What I can report is that I don't miss those few titles that were giving me cause to carp, but little when it came to joy. So there's that. There is no shortage of 'other' comics out there and I'll be sharing more of my finds here and on Comics Bulletin as I continue to troll Kickstarter and follow promising tweets. It may take a bit more investigation to track-down self-published or creator-owned work and I've learned that you often have to be patient, but it's not so different from any other obsessive and his object of desire be it a 20% off coupon or anthropomorphic lawyer.  Thanks again to the redoubtable Danny Djeljosevic and Mr. Jason Sacks.

  Here's the first 'graph, hit the Rawr! for the lion's share -- apologies I make that joke again in the review: 

  Leave it to a guy with nothing to lose -- an innocent victim sentenced to death -- to say what every reader of Tiger Lawyer may think at first: ''You're a joke, Tiger. You're a gag. A gimmick. An animal for Pete's sake.'' What is the precedent when it comes to an anthropomorphic professional? Fish Police?  Is this some kind of one note bon mot or does Tiger Lawyer have teeth?  Rawr!