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I really enjoy two things about movies and comics and the like: The blind buy and the easily recommended.  The blind buy is usually fulfilling for the purposes of being in a shop and finding a book or DVD that just leaps out at you and says, “Trust me. You’ll like it.”  To then turn around and pass that book or DVD on to someone else and actually be the ones to speak the words is also extremely enjoyable.  Many a time, I’ve had a pretty good streak of luck with being able to not only judge a book by its cover, but also keep the trust of a friend by adding my name to the recommendations strewn over said cover.

When I was in New York City for the first time back in 2000, I stumbled upon Jim Haney’s Comic Universe over by, of all places, the Empire State Building. The friends I was on vacation with had actually found the shop a few days prior and been hiding its location from me so that I wouldn’t end up spending 5 hrs and $200 inside it.  They failed.  At the tail end of my cathartic shopping spree, I caught the simple cover of a rather large omnibus for a series called, “Mister Blank.”  I stopped dead in my tracks.  There wasn’t much the outside and I had never heard of the author, Chris Hicks.  Something about the art style, though, spoke to my sensibilities.  Cartoony yet expressive with layout that was extremely thoughtful and experimental.  It was obvious Hicks had some formal training and being that he was also the writer of “Mister Blank” he could make every character moment work twice as well.

The story of “Mister Blank” follows everyday joe, Sam Smith, as he gets swept from his boring uneventful life into a thousand year old battle of wills against the daughter of creation and her immortal sons who have been secretly conquering the world for generations.  While this all may sound “epic” and “intense,” it’s not all played that way.  Sam’s every man status is played to the hilt.  He’s completely unprepared for robotic assassins, shape-shifting clones, and psychic mimes.  In the end, all Smith wants is to ask out Julie from his office and rescue his loyal dog, What.  When it counts, though, Sam steps up and stares down Russian gods of the wind and leads the charge against the potential end of the world.

Amazing and fresh illustration that holds up years after publication, fun and familiar character driven humor and action, and an epic saga collected for reading in one sitting in one tight omnibus.  “Mister Blank” is one of my all-time favorites and I highly recommend it.  Trust me, you’ll like it.