4 out of 5

Holy banana jams, Powell!  Now, I’m probably wrong, but when ‘Chimichanga’ came out, I believe Eric had had the desire to do these little minis more often – something light, and non-continuity related that he could self-publish.  Eric, being mostly a one-man show, is generally way busier than to be able to afford casual projects (or so I assume from how busy he states he is in letters pages), so we’re lucky we got this (thus far) one example of what these minis could be.  Which is: the magic that is missing from current Goon.  Back when Goon started, it was a batshit combination of random humor, crazy monster drawings, and surprising sudden detours into darker, plotted territory.  Unfortunately the latter part of that equation started to slowly take over, and the Gooniverse grew, and attempts at humor felt more expected than inspired, and the monsters just lacked the zing of an artist having fun.  ‘Chimi’ brings that all back.  A bearded circus girl (What?), Lulu, visits a flatulent witch named Dagmar (What?) and trades her some of her chin hair – which Dagmar needs for an ultimate power potion (…sure) – for an egg Lulu spots on the witch’s lawn.  The egg hatches into a creature Lulu dubs Chimicanga, who is all bulbous belly and shoulder and cartoonish lumps and angles and Powell googly eyes, which Lulu pledges to train for the circus.  Train it she does, much to the chagrin of the other performers, who are… less notable than Chimi (with hilariously descriptive names like ‘Randy, the man with the strength of a slightly larger man.’), and thereafter Eric plays with the “rejected monster saves the town” trope with glorious glee.

The books are a quick read and super quirky charming, though prehaps leaning a bit heavy on the tootin’ humor, even if it is an ‘integral’ part of the plot.  Good guys (and bearded kids) are good, bad guys are bad, and Chimi looks fantastic.

The backhanded critcism here is… I’m not sure who this book is for.  I remember reading that the intention was for it to be accessible to children, but – and hate me for saying this – I feel like I didn’t know how to read black and white comics when I was a youngster.  I realize this was self-published, and that color takes more time and money, but I just don’t see this book as really appealing to kids, as Powell’s water color style in black and white doesn’t “pop” off the page the way it does with color.  I compare this to Doug TenNapel’s B&W stuff (never noticed the similarity between the two artists until Powell dropped the color), and as Doug doesn’t work in grays (and focuses a ton more on motion than the still joke shot Eric does a lot), his pages do grab my eye, whereas I feel like I had to already dig Powell to get into Chimi.  In other words: Goon – definitely a book you give to someone.  Chimichanga – works better when you’re a fan.

Still, we all know I’m wrong about everything, so children have probably dropped their Divergent Harry Potter 50 Shades books (or insert timely reference here) and are only reading this Chimichanga mini-series from 2009 forevermore.  Hopefully, because we need to encourage more comics like this.