White Picket Fences
Double Feature
Written by Matt Anderson, Eric Hutchins
Illustrated by Micah Farritor, Brian Mead
Pencils by Tim Lattie
Letters by David Hedgecock
Ape Entertainment
Cover price: $6.95; Available now

When this was offered by my dread lords and hamster-masters of GoD central, I kind of expected it just to be the trade of the recently completed three-part mini, which I already read, but wanted to check out again. Imagine my surprise when I opened this up to find that it was actually a collection of three new stories by the original creators with some help from a few others. It’s the same fun 50’s sci-fi and monster movie put down in comics form that the original mini was.

The first story is goes for the monster movie vibe, featuring our main characters, best friends Charlie, Tommy, and Parker as they investigate one of their neighbors who turns out to be creating his own race of atomic super-men (or atomic monsters, at least) with some of the locals. Of course the boys end up saving the day, but not before learning some lessons about themselves. The second story is a vignette showing what the boys want to be when they grow up, and it’s a charming enough interlude between the two main stories, consider it the cartoon short between the double feature (hey, just like the title). The third story is another full length story, this time with the boys meeting a new classmate from Japan, who brings a certain lizard with him, and ends up with a clash between giant lizards and giant bugs.

The creators have definitely gone out of their way keep the retro feel that the series is kind of known for. Fans of the movie The Iron Giant (like myself) will feel right at home with this title. The writing is very enjoyable, and even though we’ve seen these stories before on late night TV, I can’t help but smile at them. The writers have fun with the setting, and it allows them to tell whatever kind of goofy story they want to.

The art is great, really something that I always like looking at. It’s kind of sketchy, in fact I kind of wish they would do a better job of cleaning up the artists pencils lines, but the style is cartoony enough to bring out the fun of the story, but realistic enough to ground the action. The monsters in the first story look like their Universal counterparts, and the lizards and bugs of the second story step out of any classic Toho movie. Really, I recommended taking a look at this one, if for the art alone. It reminds me of the animation of Bill Plympton. Plus, the whole things only 7 bucks, and you get a lot of story for that price.

If you loved the original mini series, you’ll be picking this up, as it makes a great addition to tide you over till the next mini. New readers will find a great introduction to the series and may find themselves looking for the previous three issue mini. I’ll bring the popcorn.