4 out of 5

Only ’cause it doesn’t quite make a whole lotta’ sense, even within its own context, does JS feel slightly incomplete.  Otherwise, Lapham creates a fun, colorful world with fully realized characters and a hilariously simple, effective premise (touted on the back of each issue: “Tough kids kicking insect butt!”) that should put it at the top of both kid and adult reading piles.

In what’s intended to be (and hopefully will be) an ongoing or series of minis, Juice Squeezers very quickly establishes its leads: 6 grade school kids, organized into a bug-squashing regime by one of their teachers, and ex-Squeezer, Mr. Kettleborne, and its setting: In Weeville, CA, where the bugs grow big and tunnel beneath the city.  Children are the right size for heading into those tunnels with special squashin’ sticks and making bug pulp of ’em all, and thus, stretching back to a ‘war’ some decades back, the Juice Squeezers were born.  The main battlefield during the war was a madly infested farm, and trying to manage a resurgence of critters in that area – without alerting the just-moved-in (in issue 1) landowners – consumes our time for four issues.  Lapham writes the kids (and their bickering) realistically but without it being annoying; these are real kids, inserted just far enough into the fantastic to allow us to be fully invested in their story.

Lapham’s rather bug-eyed (womp) characters are have that Tintin style of simple realism that gives the panels a good grounding, and his ability to make us “see” a space is especially rewarding when the action goes down in the catacombs.  Combined with Lee Loughridge’s amazingly outlandish colors, the book is an absolute delight for the eyes.

Now it’s the first arc, and Lapham favored brevity over over-explanations, which is fine, but there’s a bit of a lack of consequence to everything.  Our big, bad battle ends in a couple pages, and because we focus on only the characters who deal with the bugs, a one-sentence flippant explanation as to why Squeezin’ is kept secret from others doesn’t really sell the feeling that this is an undercover operation.  Although, as some members begin to question the Why of what they do and How the bugs came to be, future tales may smooth this setup roadbump a bit.

Similar to another recent DH set of minis, ‘Resident Alien,’ ‘Juice Squeezers’ takes a high concept idea and just makes it fun to read, while also giving us some great visuals and rich characters.  The slew of books that miss these marks shows us this isn’t an easy thing to achieve.  Lapham’s been making a bit of a splash in recent years working on horror books.  I haven’t dug too deeply into his writing there, but glances haven’t grabbed me.  ‘Squeezers,’ though, worked from page 1 until the end.  If future entries flesh out the premise, this can become the go-to book for showing all-ages crowds how good comic books can be.