5 out of 5

This is a repeat of volume 2.  …Meaning it’s just as hilarious, just as wonderfully satisfying artistically, features the same balance of yuks with light but relevant dramatics, printed on the same thick, bright paper stock with the same square-bound glued binding that, like all the Goon and HB books, is creased about 1/4″ from the spine (internal printing a little bit more than that) so that the book forever remains sturdy, pages clear, and still feels solid after frequent, frequent re-reads.  Powell plays a little bit more with the balance between sketched art, pencils, inks and paints/watercolor, making for some interesting, striking compositions with clear inked focuses on painted backgrounds (volume 2 he was heavily painting backgrounds and lightly water-coloring shadows in the foreground – to my untrained eye, anyway); it’s a subtle switch and doesn’t distract but shows the artist still evolving throughout the series, as he continues to do with his plotting, sprinkling Chinatown and general Goon tragedy into stories that are otherwise bonkers hilarious.  Contained within we get the climactic conclusion to Buzzard’s kidnap (team-up!), the full indulgence of Powell’s randomness (and thus, his genius) with the alien-turned-Spanish-speaking-toad-hybrid Lagarto Hombre, a response to an Eisner nomination with a ‘please take me not-seriously’ cry poop joke, and an amazingly rewarding crossover with Hellboy which, unlike the later Metalocalypse crossover, feels completely natural – Mignola supplying the bookeneds – and effectively wrapped into the Goon world.

Couple pages of sketches as a TPB bonus.  Low, low price of $12.95.  Again, if you at least get a chuckle out of these books, the matching spines, stable binding, and sub-20 buck pricetags make the initial trades easy purchases… especially once you get to Powell’s golden streak, which definitely includes volume 3.