📜The brief, spoiler-free backstory:
✨STORY TIME✨ I’ve been working on Mr. Guy since the nineteen nineties. So clearly I LOVE this character. But, if you know my work you probably know not to take anything I create at face value. So let me tell you a little about him. He’s a halfwit half-goblin f-boy who funds his love of casual encounters with all sorts of noncommittal odd jobs.
During one such gig, which was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill cow-sitting gig, in Arc 1, illustrated by Yours Truly, Mr. Guy gets bit by some decomposing jerk! Instead of becoming a zombie himself, he somehow gets infected with the ghost of the undead fella who bit him.
As we discover in Arc 2, illustrated by Walter Ostlie, the whole world is imperiled by the spread of the shambling, and now they’re cursed to spend eternity together…unless they can stop zombie-ism for everyone! First steps first: they gotta fight their way to safety, and they’re gonna need the right tools for the job as we see in Arc 3, illustrated by Diana Camero. As they stumble closer to their first clue, they also meet their first big obstacle, like bigger-than-zombies, in Arc 4, illustrated by Jacey Chase.
Being that he’s half-goblin, you may have guessed that he lives on a high-fantasy world. It is however a modern-day high fantasy world. So for example, an orc could be an attorney, but they could also now be a zombie. The possibilities are nearly limitless, and thus so are the obstacles to saving the world.
Now, in order to actually stop an apocalypse, ya gotta know what’s causing it. So what’s making these shamblers shamble? Well, 90% of the plot is Mr. Guy exploring all of the various Zombie Apocalypse tropes and lampooning the undead heck out of them while trying to see which shoe fits.
So yeah, if you LOVE zombies and zombie-apocalypse stories, this light-hearted and unique hat-tip the quintessential ingredients of the genre is definitely for you… However, if you hate zombies and zombie-apocalypse stories, this satirical deconstruction of the genre is also very much for you!
🧐A little spoiler-free overview:
✨MORE STORY TIME✨ In the first book, everyone’s favorite half-goblin mini-himbo, Mr. Guy, has been cursed with a sassy sidekick and a really exhausting-sounding mission… In the sequel, Mr. Guy Zombie Hunter – Act II – The Hecking Heck of It, our lovable hero follows Dante (of Inferno fame) straight to Heck to take on the Big D himself (illustrated by James Groeling)😈… Then he’s led by a coconut with glowing eyes through a deep dark bayou where meets the African God of Death (illustrated by Daniel Hooker)💀… Not skipping a beat in the abounding escalation of his plot, he meets none other than H.P. Lovecraft himself, who shows him the way to the voidspace. There, he confronts the almighty Cthulhu (illustrated by Michel Abstracto)🐙… And finally, on his quest to save us all (so that he can save himself), he sticks it to an all-powerful ancient necromancer(illustrated by Wren Rios)🧟 .
Meanwhile, in the bonus spinoff included in Act II, we meet King, a stylish ne’er-do-well who wakes up late after having one too many, and realizes that he was supposed to go shopping. Well, things outside are extra Monday-ish… TBH, it really bites. But King isn’t gonna let that get between him and his errands. Will he make it home? Find out in “Castle BigMart” (penciled and inked by ‘Skooba’ Steve Myers and colored by Whitney Cook).
😎Spoiler free review of Mr. Guy 1:
When I ordered Mr. Guy and the accompanying Oneshi Press anthology (#10), it was off of the strength of Pack and Tracey Queen, two titles from Oneshi which sounded right up my alley—and were!
Wisecracking zombie hunter is decidedly not up my alley, but you know what? I loved the first installment and will keep reading.
If you ended up here, you are already familiar with the basic premise: a somewhat cynical and fatalistic humanoid is cursed to find a cure for the Zombification virus after one of his one-off moneymaking gigs turns out to be a lot more dangerous than he expected. Tip for Mr. Guy from a worker bee: if the boss says you are the only applicant, the job is gonna suck.
Writer Jayel Draco took a few big risks here that pay off well. First, he tackles sarcasm and a cynical tone. It is really tough to pull off a “wisecracking” main character, because you risk people getting annoyed with your main dude a few pages in. Draco avoids turning Mr. Guy into a bad Kevin Smith movie by balancing the wisecracking with silliness and self deprecation, so you never feel like you have to root for an absolute smart-ass you would never hang out with for more than a night.
He also keeps the story tight. There is no zombie hunter training montage. There is no hand-wringing and pulling Mr. Guy kicking and screaming into accepting his fate. Like so many of our best moments in life, Mr. Guy just falls into a calamitous situation, and gets on with it.
The artwork is fantastic, with each story arc drawn by a different guest artist. It feels cohesive despite the differing styles, and even non artists will delight in seeing our hero go from dapper dude with some goblin ancestry (whether he knows it or not), to a more traditional looking superhero leading man and several steps in between.
I thought I was officially done with zombies, but Mr. Guy is endlessly charming, humorous without being mean, and so well edited so that one Act gets you fully immersed in the story. I found myself wondering why no one has noticed that he is missing, and what his home looks like, and whether or not his spectral sidekick will ever remember his pre-zombie life. Also, why is K.F. Katfish hanging out with Vincent Price?
It is a comic well worth investing in, and a stellar effort by Oneshi, who seem to be as good at curating as they are at publishing.
~Laurie Daniels, Reader
Grab Mr. Guy – Acts 1 & 2 now! CLICK HERE!
In Mr. Guy, Act 1 (Arcs 1-4) and Mr. Guy, Act 2 (Arcs 5-8 & Castle BigMart), we explore everything from defunct high-tech science labs in an urban wasteland, to eldritch gods out in voidspace, to the Big D down in Heck! Stay tuned as we get to the bottom of this. kickstarter.oneshipress.com🧟
📚Get the first 4 arcs in Mr. Guy, Act 1 and the next 4 arcs in Mr. Guy, Act 2 plus a special spinoff: Castle BigMart! That’s 9 arcs total, each one illustrated by a different fantastic artist, and piles of other fantastic exclusives right now, while you can! (Cards won’t be charged until October 6. That’s plenty of time to get ready!) Check it out at: kickstarter.oneshipress.com