3 crampons out of 5

Sometimes there are just characters named Ratfist, and that’s enough to write a story.  One day, cartoonist Doug TenNapel – if you’re an avid reader of the 3 book reviews I’ve put here so far then you know who he is – Doug decided he wanted to create a webcomic.  Maybe he got the idea from his buddy Ethan Nicolle, who works on Axe Cop, or maybe he just wanted to try something new, which seems just as likely.

So you have a guy named Ratfist, who dresses up like a rat and fights crime.  He has a pet rat.  He’s maybe ditching the hero gig to get married, except for one last job.  Unfortunately, on this last job he runs afoul of a bad trip that… turns him into an actual rat, oh my.

Ratfist doesn’t exactly read like a webcomic: TenNapel did a good job of playing down the beats so it reads like a trade, which means it’s nice having it collected by the boys at Image Comics.  Unfortunately, TenNapel also decided to up his output ante by publishing 7 comics a week, which brings out the blessing and curse of his style: insanity and sloppiness.  TenNapel’s got no problem with being random, but his momentum tends to lead his stories down blind alleys until they collide with what seems like a rushed conclusion.  In this feature length collection of a compressed format, that means a ton of silly gags that are worth the setups and thus doesn’t have time to build the grandiose simplicity that breaks down some of TenNapel’s other Image stories, but it also means Ratfist doesn’t really build to much except stream-of-consciousness, and then, expecting its end, TenNapel tosses in some light philosophizing on his usual topics (faith, impact of our decisions) and slams the door shut pretty bleakly.

If you like your comics big on the Fleischer and you don’t mind poop jokes, TenNapel deserves your attention.  Ratfist isn’t his best work but its fun, gets a good color treatment (most of his Image stuff is B&W), and is good prep for the blend of ethics TenNapel uses.

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