RECOMMENDED: "Corporate Skull" 

- by Ninja Ross, 5 February 2014

Everyone who has ever worked in an office knows exactly how soul destroying they can be. You turn up at nine, make a cup of tea and do the same thing over and over again until you start trying to type on bread when making a sandwich or dial a roll of toilet paper when you’re... You know. Sometimes you just want to pee out of a window or wear some tassels on your nipples. Am I right? But you can’t do that, unless you want to get fired. But it sure is fun to read about! Especially when the hero of the story is a guy with no skin or flesh on his face!

In this rather fabulous comic, Skull was just an ordinary guy named Alan Buttons. He was picked on at work, he hated the job itself and he saw no way out. Since he worked at a pharmaceutical company (curb Pharmaceuticals), he decided that the only way to fix his life was to steal as many bottles of vitamins as he can carry and overdose on them with a big bowl of cereal.

He later wakes up in his bathroom, regretting using vitamins instead of drugs that could actually kill him. Best thing to do? Go back to work as if nothing happened. But he’s not in the best shape.

And then he gets his face ripped off in a tragic photocopier accident.

Face Off.

One would think there’s no walking away from that, right? You get your face torn off, you tend to kinda... die, usually. But not Buttons. Instead, he loses the majority of his sanity and ability to care and turns into Skull: a walking, talking HR nightmare.  He wears hamster hats, hits people with poo and all the stuff we all really want to do, but can’t. Oh, and he also gets a super cool healing factor and super strength and stuff. Niiiiiiice!

Based on this, it’s all pretty standard for artist and writer Jamie Smart; he creates some seriously silly, hilarious comics including Bear, Whubble and Find Chaffy.  But with Corporate Skull, Smart has inserted some serious elements into his story.

Smart introduces these elements of the book slowly, never letting each part over stay its welcome. He brings in the Catholic Church, terrorism and teases the true nature behind everything Curb Pharmaceuticals does.

Skull!

The main plot is incredibly interesting and has a lot of potential. It’s nice to know that someone who has, for the most part, only really put out funny stuff and avoided anything as serious as suicide or conspiracies can write a story so well and pace it perfectly.

The characters are also pretty awesome; besides Skull, there’s also his friends/Co-Workers. People like Spartan, Kiko, Adolf and Johnny Tits. Each character has their own personality, flaws and strengths. While Skull is the main character, everyone else is essential to the book and makes the story feel more full and engaging. They’re not especially developed, yet, but the development isn’t being rushed. It’s a slow process that allows you to get comfortable with each character.

I’ve followed Jamie Smart’s work for quite a while now and Corporate Skull is the best I’ve seen from him so far. The thick black lines, the simplistic character designs and the very busy, detail-orientated backgrounds make each page a joy to look at. It’s all in black and white, except for anything that should be red. Blood and such is coloured, giving it a very stylish look. Like "Sin City", but with cartoons.

The art can be a little jarring when reading the more serious sections at first, but it’s easy to get past that when you get stuck into the story. Even if you don’t get used to it (You will) it’s worth sticking with. If you don’t like the serious elements, the funny parts are a blast. Don’t expect any high brow, Oscar winning seriously seriousness here, of course; it’s mostly comedic. But the serious elements are there and they are very well done.

This is a book set in a corporate world. A place of work. But, it’s full of genitals, swearing and violence. So, despite the theme, it’s best not to read this at work. But if you desperately need some cartoon awesomeness to read at work, the aforementioned Whubble might be right up your alley.

Not looking so good...

The truth is, pretty much anything in Smart’s back catalogue is worth having a look at but Corporate skull shows exactly what he’s capable of in terms of storytelling and character development. Oh, did I mention Corporate Skull is a webcomic? That you can read FOR FREE?!? Yeah, what’s your excuse now? Hmmm? Go read it. If you like it, support it by buying stuff from him. All kinds of stuff.


Check out Corporate Skull and come back here to tell us we were right! Also, check out Fumboo.com and follow Jamie Smart on Twitter!

Tagged: comics, Reviews, RECOMMENDED.

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