4 out of 5

Aw snap I almost pooed my pants when I saw this on the rack.  Brendan’s psychedelic style easily overwhelms – his constant use of a neon palette with skinny, elongated-limbed and -faced characters somehow never gets tired, but it does get hard to read on occasion.  His recent Spider-Man mini was a joy because it grounded us with some recognizable characters and a small dash of reality, although the story still totally found a way to get all wacked.  Zaucer is alleviated of such ‘reality’ concerns and goes full on 2000AD on us.  This is what makes it great… and this is what makes it imperfect.

 
I’m glad Zaucer is only 2 issues.  Had it been more, I would’ve continued to buy it and been unable to absorb it issue to issue.  Even with the pause between these two issues I had to force myself to sit and actually read the panels, the loosey-goosey story and gorgeously weird drawings just making you want to float back and forth through the pages.  Pffft to reading.  But issue one made me glad to put in the time, wending an interestingly layered narrative via a self-aware narrator and different levels of reality through which our ‘Zaucer’ stepped, chasing evil sorcerer(?) Errol Raines…  The jokes and nonsense reigned supreme, thanks to writer Al Ewing’s handling of whatever concepts McCarthy threw his way.  It comes together, surprisingly, to an actual conclusion for issue 2 – although more space for games with that narrator would’ve been fun – and I was left truly feeling like I had gotten more than I paid for with each issue, stocked as they are with this robust, unique story, each half bringing fresh elements to the table.  Recommended for fans of nonsense, but you can’t expect too much more from it than that.