| Title: | Born Of Nifty | |
| Author: | Pete Abrams | |
| Rating: |  |
Do you read Sluggy Freelance? No? You mean you read my review of Dangerous Days and didn't follow my instructions then? Really?
Well, let me repeat myself:
Go, now! Drop everything for the next few hours, go here:
http://www.sluggy.com/
and get reading! Do it now. Don't wait. You're only falling farther behind with each passing day, and you don't want to do that.
Born Of Nifty is a reprint of the first three Sluggy books in one, hard bound volume, with a few add-ons thrown in. It's wonderful. Color strips are presented in color, the format is large, and the quality of the book is excellent. Add to that the ongoing, serialized adventures of Torg, Riff, Zoe (with an umlaut), Gwen, Kiki, Bun-bun, and a host of others, and you've got a great time.
Consider this a graphic novel. It's not quite that since the original presentation was in daily comic strip format, but the story lines arc over long periods of time, and the overall presentation is similar. (Abrams work gets even more like a graphic novel in more recent years, with many daily strips approaching the length of one or two full pages in a book.)
The humor here is twisted, and the characters are silly, but it all works, and works well. Reading this book - and thus rereading the first two years or so of Sluggy - was great fun. Lots of plot elements and foreshadowing that I didn't remember are here, and still affecting the story line years later. The parodies are hilarious, and the characters are wonderful.
By the time you read this it may not be possible to buy Born Of Nifty any more. It's a limited printing and available only from http://www.sluggy.com/. But you can always read the strip archives on the web site, and you should. If you like what you see there and can afford it, please buy a copy of Born Of Nifty - if you can - to help support Pete and give you a copy you can snuggle up with in a comfy chair.
Spend some time with Sluggy Freelance. You'll really enjoy it!
