3 out of 5

The original Sludge run concluded without a conclusion at issue 12, before Steve really got to delve too much into any one aspect of his character, moreso establishing the book’s downbeat vibe (and demolishing Frank Hoag / Sludge’s hope), before issues 10 and 11 veered off in a slightly more typically random and amusing Gerber direction, that nonetheless offered some inklings of potential interesting plot developments.  Steve and Malibu agreed that low sales didn’t necessitate more issues, but that the Sludge story could be continued through some one-shots – Red X-Mas being the first.

As the title suggests, it’s Christmas, and Sludge gets wrapped up in some street crime shenanigans that are going down in the wake of the whole Lord Pumpkin gang war that happened in the middle of the Sludge run.  This means we get to follow up on Pistol, who’s walked a still crooked, but less wayward, path on his way to finding some stability post-Pump.  The ‘twist’ involving who’s behind some recent crimes isn’t all that surprising, but the big bad is more of a throwaway character to let Steve wrap up Pistol’s story, which is done surprisingly well, considering how heavy-handed the Malibu Universe made things be.  The kid isn’t completely white-washed, and as the story takes place on a more ‘human’ level (besides Sludge), it means that a lot of the grand-standing Pistolness can be toned down to something more believable.

Who knows how things would have gone is Sludge had continued as an ongoing with consistent sales.  Perhaps Steve wouldn’t have felt the need to lighten things up.  But we can tell from this how the books could have found an issue-by-issue pacing – an unavoidable Man-Thing set-up with Sludge-as-observer who inadvertently or inevitably gets involved.

Art-wise, I mentioned in my Sludge series review that Lopresti, while impressive and always filling the pages with big, bold and dynamic images, tended to have too cartoony of a look for Sludge, his design for the figure was ideal.  Rob Phipps came in for those last couple issues, and his style was a bit too generic to make the wackiness work; it would’ve been nice to see Lopresti draw those.  For the special, we have the gift of Mike Ploog.  I bring up Lopresti because he actually does ‘lumbering’ a bit better than Ploog, who draws Sludge even more cartoonish, but Ploog does a more visual version of the gooping and dripping than Lopresti.  Sludge looks like he leaves a mess everywhere.  Because there’s not much otherwise for Ploog to get crazy with in the issue (there’s actually a lot of talking heads), it doesn’t feel as lively as the regular series, but again, he was definitely a good match for the upswing in tone.