5 out of 5

I suppose I’m going to have to accept that tracking down #1 in this indie series – put out by the short-lived animation group The Missing Link – isn’t going to be easy, and so I’ll relent and review #2.  …Which is a glorious TenNapel-esque cartoon adventure of a Duck (…’Duck’) and a worm (‘Cover’), friends who’re running about in scrabbled-over lands via an oddball mechanical egg ship they apparently discovered.  Yup.  The humor has a wonderfully timed classic adventure flick feel about it (like Indiana Jones), while the art mash-up of foreground (Mysh) and background (JP Vine) actually works miraculously well.  In this particular issue, Duck desires a soda (something witnessed via “human videos” from the past) and the egg deposits he and Cover somewheres where may may coincidentally procure one.  Unfortunately, it’s guarded by insane cockroaches.  Meanwhile, a gigantic airborne ship piloted by a shadowy captain is in pursuit of the egg…

A lot of first-time productions suffer from overly complicated plotting that you can sense won’t amount to much.  ‘Carbonized,’ though, casually sets up its fun mythology and relaxes into its shtick.  I regret that this was probably never completed, but maybe one day I’ll discover elsewise…