The first graphic novel written by The Colbert Report
's Eichler is a light comedy about racism, with a hint of retooled movie proposal about it. It concerns a pair of half-brothers—square family man Tim Johnston and a spaced-out, trepanned loose cannon who calls himself “Free”—whose inheritance of their father's “museum of curiosities” includes the preserved, stuffed body of an African man in a loincloth and bone necklace, holding the remnants of a spear. Naturally, they want to get rid of the “Warrior,” as Tim prefers to call him—but getting rid of human remains turns out not to be as easy as driving them to a museum. Naturally, all kinds of uncomfortable associations about race and history burble up. Naturally, hijinks ensue. Bertozzi's artwork—a slightly cruder, much less detailed variation on the look of his graphic novel The Salon
—unobtrusively whisks the story along; there's also a nuttier, bolder style for a series of dream sequences in which the “Warrior” becomes the focal point for all of Tim's anxieties. Even when the plot seems a little too formulaic (will
everyone learn something by the end?), Eichler's crisp, snappy dialogue keeps it percolating. (Sept.)
