Ryan Browne's Blast
Furnace Recreational Thief Volume One exists for every comic book fan that
says, 'fuck, why don't more heroes wear flaming neckties.' An esprit de Blast Furnace (if such a thing
was a thing) would require a light touch, improvisational pluck and twirling
twirling always twirling
Blast Furnace is like a kick to the crotch (that seems harsh), O.K., how about 'a dark chest of
wonders' (better, much better) to remind readers that ideas rule and plans
are for pussies. In his 'act as if' approach, Browne creates a comic as an
extemporaneous exercise in storytelling. Browne says it this way and with far
less pretension: ''[Blast Furnace] was created a page a day with an hour spent
on each page (or thereabouts) with little to no pre-planning over the course of
six months.''
What keeps Blast
Furnace from slapdash half-assery comes from a fire hydrant gush of
brainstorms, gags and non-sequiturs. Its un-predictableness is what keeps it
fresh. Browne goes whole-ass in this comic; the jokes aim low, hit hard and come
in on all sides, some silly some stupid and others straight-up surreal. Chances
are that Browne writes the first (and only) bird-shit-in-the-mouth gag that
makes one consider Chaos Theory, no joke.
Like a Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker movie -- more Kentucky Fried Movie and Airplane! than Naked Gun or Hot Shots!
-- Browne strings sketches that feel loose and impulsive, but never out of
place. So when ''He who looks exactly like a horse but actually is just a hideously
deformed man'' or Ralphie the Bear or even the dragon bartender appears on the page it
comes off feeling original and less asinine than it sounds. Browne's puns-per-page
rival the output of Brandon Graham.
Wait. Who the hell is He
who looks exactly like a horse but actually is just a hideously deformed man? What about Blast Furnace or Earnest Furnace
or whatever the fuck his name is, what about that dude? See, that's the thing
about a thing like Blast Furnace, it
loses something in the translation when you give all the jokes away and it
never stagnates long enough on one mustachioed thief or anthropomorphic extra
before it's on to the next one. Perhaps the most genius turn Browne takes
imagines instructional art school doodles 'Tippy the Turtle' and 'the Pirate'
as paid contract killers. No shit. What could be a throwaway at its folksiest
gives the story insider immediacy, inspiration and the saddest backstory ever
to feature a blue snaggletooth toy, a boy vampire and an afro pick.
Only someone who would kick a puppy would call Browne's
cartooning crude. O.K., there is no innovative panel layout here or detailed backgrounds
that looks like someone went on a weeklong meth-bender, but as an added bonus, no
photo-reference either, score. For those in the 'my-kid-could-do-that-or-I-could-do-that'
crowd, welcome to the not-so-profitable, but wonderful world of DIY comics and
you're wrong. Browne knows sequential art, knows where to place word bubbles to
cover up the naughty bits and he knows a crack about a robot businessman built out
of other robot businessmen kills every time.
If it weren't for all the fucking swear words and needless,
pointless preventable violence (always the best kind) one could claim Blast Furnace Recreational Thief Volume One
Wonka-esque. To go further, one could
employ (leaning on a too long overused cliché) the phrase, 'Browne takes
readers down the rabbit hole;' however, this creates a false sense of all-ages
appropriateness and no comic with this amount of inter- and intra-species hard
sex not to mention ''incredibly hard,
graphic and exhausting love making sessions'' should be given to children
or someone who can't legally be admitted to R-rated movies.Blast Furnace winks at the 'mad ones, mad to live, mad to talk' (to coin a phrase), those for whom one super-powered Fu Manchu mustache can never be enough. It comes from place where a cyclopean-news reporter makes as much sense as enslaved chain-smoking and trucker-hat-wearing ostriches who only want a 'little personal time' to enjoy some pay-per-view. If that sounds ridiculous and manic you haven't heard the half of it. Blast Furnace (ahem) fires the mind and makes you think how fun it is to steal in a found art anything goes hip-hop kooky-kind-of-way.
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Blast Furnace
Recreational Thief Volume One was a Kickstarter success. For non-backers
Browne is as entrepreneurial as he is funny so there is an Etsy site:
Or you can visit the virtual Ryan Browne at http://godhatesastronauts.tumblr.com/
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