4 out of 5

Willfully goofy, Drawn and Quarterly’s oversized hardcover collection of Brian Ralph’s Reggie 12 strips – taken from various publications (with maybe some new material or touch-ups added?) – is a rose-tinted capture of when the Fort Thunder comic collective was charging through the indie scene, making a fuss with their mixed media approach, and embrasure of classic influences from all corners of the comic-making globe.  Rose-tinted because Ralph was undeniably a stand-out: offering up approachable, kid-friendly but smart and aware work that was a decade ahead of when shows like Adventure Time would make that a more desirable and common-place tone.

But it’s never been easy.  Don’t tell Reggie 12 that, of course: the Astroboy proxy, designed with a shrug by Professor Tinkerton, beats up and/or befriends random robot villains across newspaper-sized one or two or three page tales, with Casper the cat and former-robo-attempt Donald 12 waiting at home, watching his exploits on TV (but more likely playing video games).  The ease with which Ralph arts up Reggie’s innocent adventures, bringing them to Zoinks!-worthy punchlines, is admirable, and the book is bursting with a general feel-good vibe – helped by that bright blue and white color palette – that has you smiling even when Ralph can’t quite nail an ending or a joke.  Something else that also happens when having these strips all together is seeing a slight discrepancy in Reggie’s and team’s intelligences: sometimes they’re the aw-shucks fools; sometimes they seem quite self-aware.  Newspaper comics tend to function off of a familiarity – week to week, you recognize the characters – and Ralph kinda zips and swerves around familiarity, shaping it up to suit whatever joke he’s pursuing.

D+Q’s busy cover and the big ol’ binding look fantastic, and given that these are just one-off strips anyway, reading them in a pick-and-choose format is probably desirable.  It’s a guaranteed way to smack your face with a grin.