4 out of 5

Comedy is a good thing.  Having Neal Adams draw a 70s-upped Green Lantern spoof – Green Harpoon in the Spongebob world – is a genius application of comedy.

Once again, Derek Drymon is the driving comedic force in a fun Swimtacular, which kicks off with ‘Spongebob Babysitterpants’ in which Mermaid Man gets baby-ized by a baby ray.  Drymon yuks it up all about the undersea kingdom, milking the gag for plenty of material, with wondrously exuberant detailed art from Robb Bihun and rich colors from John Kalisz.  Graham Annable and Gregg Schigiel drop a short Mr. Krabs money-makin’ scheme; it’s harmless, but passes the time.  The soft spot again comes from Rob Leighton’s contribution, which is mixed with the other meh bit of these ‘Taculars he scripts – the fake ads, as drawn by Mark Martin.  These aren’t particularly poorly constructed by any means, the humor is just very standard, and so pails next to Drymon’s more out there sensibilities.  Which are on point with that Neal Adams’ drawn strip: The Green Harpoon’s Challenge, in which GH wears ‘groovy threads’ and harps on Mermaid Man for not working with the common man, man.  This is one of those strips that’s just made for older audiences, and it’s the kind of humor that definitely brought me around to reading ‘Bob.  We conclude with a Scott Roberts Patrick-themed singalong, which starts and ends weak but gets into some really funny material in the middle and is drawn with a nicely limber Ren & Stimpy style of crazy.

Yet again: Rob Leigh works harder than everyone by lettering every story, every page, and not dropping a beat.