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Zoo Force: Dirty Hands

By Leroy Douresseaux
May 13, 2010 - 15:55

Zoo Force: Dirty Hands cover image

A unique take on the superhero genre, Zoo Force focuses on the (non) adventures of a costumed hero group known as the “Enforcers.”  With a base of operations in Freedom City, Texas (a crossroads city), the members of the Enforcers are Pythagoras, a chicken that talks; Snowball, a female polar bear; Ding, a man whose cowl/mask is in the shape of a bell; and Prairie Dawg, a humanoid prairie dog.

Zoo Force comics have been epistolary, philosophical, and conversational.  This highly entertaining superhero series has only been available as graphic novels or in trade paperback form:  Zoo Force (2003), Zoo Force: Bean and Nothingness (2004), Zoo Force: BBQ (2007), and Zoo Force: We Heart Libraries (a 2009 book that collected the three previous graphic novels).

Now, creators John Ira Thomas (writer) and Jeremy Smith (artist) present the first new Zoo Force story in three years, Zoo Force: Dirty Hands, a stand alone single-issue.  Dirty Hands is a Prairie Dawg solo story.  Dawg gets a letter from Corbett Ewell, the father of a missing son, Clint, and Corbett insists that Prairie Dawg knows Clint’s whereabouts.  Traveling deep into the heart of dry, rural Texas, our hero will find a legendary creature and his own past.

If I dropped the 1980s Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League series, Grant Morrison’s Animal Man, the early Love & Rockets monster and sci-fi stories into a blender, maybe I’d get something that kinda looked like Zoo Force.  I wouldn’t call Zoo Force clever, because that might make it sound shallow, but Dirty Hands does have a clever take on the vampire.  I will say that Zoo Force is about good characters, and it has a few great ones, which is more than many superhero comic books can claim.

Artist Jeremy Smith has compositional skills light years beyond most small press artists, and his skill at figure drawing and design would make him a star at a big company.  I can say much the same thing about Thomas’ writing.  For four bucks, you can get work by two of the best creators in American comics and a sweet introduction to a comic book you will want to read again.

A-

 

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12