Angels chronicles the relationship between a woman and her imaginary friend over the course of three chapters, each taking place at a different age in the woman's life. The first chapter takes place when the protagonist Clemente is a young girl, and serves as an introduction to the complex world in which the story takes place. Clemente has been born in a world like our own, but one steeped in fantasy elements -- this world is less populated, and the implication is that humans are spread far apart, existing in a territorial, almost tribal manner. Clemente's people live in an elaborate treehouse village built into the forest. McCann explains this to the reader by having an elementary-school-age Clemente give a tour of the village to her imaginary friend, Basil. Clemente also introduces Basil to her father, who warns her to stay away from the lower levels of the village as she gives her friend the tour.

In chapter two, the reader finds the teenage Clemente hanging out on these forbidden lower levels with her friends. The reader discovers why the lower levels are forbidden, as Clemente explains to Basil that she and her friends are watching the zombies that populate the forest floor. The reader learns that in this world death comes in two stages: In the first, the dead walk below the living as mindless, violent zombies. When people progress from the zombie stage, they shed their undead bodies and become angels, beings of pure light. These angels, far more cunning and dangerous than their zombie forbearers, live deep in the forest and visit the village only occasionally. A male friend of Clemente makes their intentions clear, "The angels eat people. They come and take someone whenever they feel like it."

This rush of detail is delivered in a far more digestible manner than in the introductory chapter. While Clemente does spend some time talking to Basil, the juiciest details are gleaned from the types of conversations teenagers would be expected to have in a world like this one. One character points to a zombie and says, "I had him for math last year!" A girls tells the story of the time she saw a zombie that used to be the village grocer turn into an angel. One boy talks of how one time an angel came and stole a boy standing just a few feet away from him. Basil's presence is acknowledged by Clemente, but the meat of this chapter comes from conversation that Basil is privy to, not involved in.

The third and final chapter takes up half of the book. It is here that McCann's story gains momentum. Having spent 20 pages establishing setting, conflict is introduced when a neighboring people, appalled by the way the humans in Clemente's village let the undead live below them, move in and start shooting the zombies. Clemente is now a young woman with a boyfriend. As the situation grows dire and the invaders, having killed all the zombies, turn their force on the humans, both Basil and the angels turn out to be more than they appeared to be.

While the decision to tell the story through Basil's point of view does produce a payoff in the end, it is not a big enough pay off to make up for the awkward point of view problems it creates. Having characters talk directly to Basil means having characters talk directly to the reader in a Ferris Bueller sort of way. This technique is far less effective in a story that takes itself as seriously as Angels than it is in a smarmy teen comedy film. That problem is compounded by the fact that while Clemente believes in Basil, other characters do not but choose to talk to him anyway under the guise of humoring Clemente. Having characters humor another character while also relating vital details is jarring, and draws the reader's attention out of the story at key points, like seeing a boom mike at the top of the screen, or an inch long slash in the canvas.

The fact that the point of view becomes less unsettling as the book progresses would seem irreconcilable with the fact that the opening sequences are comprised of McCann's best drawings. In truth, the two issues are independent from one another. The strip's point of view becomes less of a problem because the further along the story moves, the more it becomes about action and the less it becomes about explaining this world to the reader. McCann becomes more comfortable in the narrative once he feels that the reader understands his world sufficiently. He seems, however, to be less confident in his ability to portray narrative action visually than in his ability to visually catalog the world in which his story takes place. Once he learns to trust his reader to fill in the gaps, and to trust himself to press forward and tell a story, McCann could be dangerous.

My copy of Whole New Drag came with a post-it note addressed to Tom Spurgeon expressing the author's enjoyment of the former TCJ editor's minicomics reviews and promising "Free cheap laffs [sic]."

I've never met Tom Spurgeon. I don't know how he gets his laffs. But if Tom Spurgeon finds high-school notebook doodles of genitalia hilarious, then Tom Spurgeon is going to love Whole New Drag.

That's not to say that Whole New Drag is terrible. One page is kind of good. Most of that page is taken up by a doodle of a penis and testicles drawn as a winged elf. The drawing hangs like a painting above three guys at a bar. One guy stares at his hands in silent awe while the second guy tells the third, "Someone tell that sonofabitch to stop looking at his hands." The third man lights his cigarette and pays no attention to either of them.

If only the rest of Whole New Drag were this good. There are a few other gag strips -- newscaster soaking in rat urine, fat lady on a scooter -- but none that even approach the genius of three guys with an elf penis painting. Most of this book is made up not of comics, but of doodles. There is a two-page spread of badly drawn faces. Some of the doodles would be worth consideration in the proper context (Hamil actually has something of a knack with horrifically mutated genitalia) but reading a one-page text gag made up to look like a page from the personal ads in an Afghan newspaper kills one's mood for considering almost anything in Whole New Drag.

Toxic Comics makes no Post-it note claims. This is fortunate, because the only claim Toxic Comics could possibly live up to would be, "More women with white-trash haircuts and exposed midriffs than any other 12-page comic around."

Southworth draws 15 different characters in 12 pages. Only four are women. To his credit, Southworth's women are each central to their respective strips. To his discredit, each of these women appears to be the work of someone who sees all women as Amazons who need to stand around in their underwear while brandishing swords, wielding lightning bolts or working at fast-food restaurants. To his even further discredit, Southworth draws some pretty ugly Amazons. The only character that he attempts to develop in any small way, Lynn the fast-food Amazon, has hair so uniquely hideous that one wishes that the restaurant in which she works would erupt into a flurry of gunfire at each turn of the page.

There is, however, hope. The very last strip in the comic is a charming five-panel gag that ends with an homage to Dan Clowes' staring-at-the-shit-in-the-toilet-bowl scene in Caricature. That's not enough to save Toxic Comics, but perhaps there is still hope for saving Barry Southworth.

Although the note included with the review copy states the it is a one-shot, Great Ape reads like the opening chapter in what the author perceives as a long continuing story. If this is the case, then Great Ape is a success because it functions as an introduction while telling an autonomous story. The author has sense enough to know that he can not merely unveil his concepts and walk away, expecting the reader to come back for more the next day. Especially when those concepts are such high ones.

Jenny Lamplighter is a primatologist and whip-smart girl hero studying at a zoo in New York with her mentor, the absent-minded genius Professor Pace, and Ulu, a mischievous monkey. Enter agents Smith and Jones, black-suited agents from the U.S. Department of Cryptozoology. A few days prior to the story's beginning, the government found an ape of unknown species in the Congo region. Agents Smith and Jones would like Miss Lamplighter to look after it for a few days and see if she can figure out what it is, where it came from. On cue, a tiny, ragged looking chimp steps out of a holding pen towards Jenny and Ulu. Trouble ensues quickly. Adam, the newest member of the gang, shocks everyone when he causes bananas to appear at lunch. Later he walks across water to retrieve a ball from the middle of the pool. A lethal potion is mixed, a dead man is resurrected, and by page 17, Professor Pace has an announcement -- Adam the ape is God.

Neighly advances toward this revelation at such a breakneck pace that he stumbles along the way, but the reader is better off for it. The real fun in Great Ape begins when the G-men come to collect their monkey and God escapes into New York City.

Great Ape has the feel of a book that is striving for commercial appeal. If one had to guess the target market, it would appear that it is intended for the type of reader that heads straight for Bone or Scary Godmother. Great Ape is not as good as those comics, not yet. Neighly has a serious addiction to tired animal puns ("There's a snake in my pants and I need your help!" "Good Lord! He's trying to beat the monkey!") and obvious plot gags (Neighly is so self conscious about his Empire State Building finale that the characters constantly comment on the obvious monkey-movie allusion). But Neighly is also an author who knows when to damn the torpedoes and move ahead at full steam. He stays a half step ahead of the reader by keeping the action moving at all costs. Even when Neighly takes the story somewhere obvious, like the Empire State Building, the reader doesn't see it coming because he or she has not had time to think about it.

Brahma is a cartoonist who is as frustrating as he is delightful. His art is clean, cute and expressive. His style is obviously well practiced, and it is perfectly suited to the material. His transitions, however, are a nightmare. He seems to have trouble at times keeping up with pace at which Neighly moves the story. Characters move impossible physical distances in the time between sentences. Brahma also suffers from the notion that in order to keep things interesting he must constantly change the angle of perspective. The result is unnerving. The technique gives the impression that the characters are unable to sit still for even a moment, even when they are doing nothing but sitting still. The distraction this causes is a shame, because Brahma's cartooning is so enjoyable to look at it on its own. But reading it is painful.

Problems aside, Neighly and Brahma work well enough together that by the time the book reaches its appropriately feel-good ending, the reader reacts to it with what one assumes was exactly the creators' intension; the feeling that a new world has opened up, and the story that will take place in it just may be worth following.