4 out of 5

Aright, you can get a little cheesy when it’s personal, and the titular tale featured here has a touch of that, as Axe Cop’s wife – Water Queen – is modeled off of artist Ethan Nicolle’s then-fiance, causing her representation to constantly stick out as a little less cartoonish than Axey and the bunch.  Little bro’s (aged 9 at this point) grasp on love and marriage is given an innocent gloss while he tries to justify hating girls with the fact that a lot of people in his life at that point were coupling, making the pages focusing on that part of the story… soft.  Erring toward cute.  We prefer Axe Girl, from Axe Planet, but she didn’t want to stay at home and take care of Axey’s adopted kids – again modeled off of his family, again a little cutesy when we’re focused on them – and so I guess the moral of the story is something something girls make babies and should be moms.

I know this is all filtered from a kid’s point of view, but it rankles a bit, especially knowing that Ethan is from a religious background, which I can cynically wonder whether or not that means stereotypical boy and girl roles are being taught directly or indirectly to Malachai…

pant pant

Okay, set that aside.  It’s a few pages in what’s otherwise a great collection of Axe Cop’s third year web strips (with the now-usual spattering of Ask Axe Cops as well), which comes out on the other side of the questionably motivated President of the World reinvigorated with slightly more mature story-telling chops, touched by the ever-inspired randomness of the Axe Cop world.  Mummies and secret attacks where characters combine into one are the inspirations of the day, and they provide for some truly laugh out loud moments, to an extent that I haven’t experienced since the first, hilarious collection.  Ethan’s artwork looks fantastic, with Kailey Frizzel’s colors giving it a complementary airiness that keeps the comic timing and buoyancy of the tone fully intact.  As Malachai has gotten older, his concepts have gotten notably more complex and inadvertently dark, which makes for some gob-smackingly odd and great imagery, and around ‘Axe Cop Gets Married’s eye-rolling spots are a lovably all-over-the-place intro and an escalating ending that’s a great shoulder-shrug ending to everything almost exploding for the Nth time.

When I get married and have kids, I’ll allow myself a couple cheesy days also, I guess, but you’re allowed to call me out when you review my life on your blog.