Hello friends, sorry if you've gotten burned out on the Disney coverage over the past couple of weeks. I'm still on a comic book kick though and for that I'm not apologizing. I'd like to share with you a couple of books that had caught my eye over the past couple of weeks. Big Daddy Danger by Adam Pollina and Tyson McAdoo and Strongest Dad, a romantic monthly by Minoru Hiramatsu were some fun reads that you should be aware of.
The books were from a few years ago and covered some oddly similar territory. Big Daddy Danger was a short series published by DC featuring a masked wrestling character that doubled as a secret agent. Strongest Dad was a comedy about an undefeated MMA fighter trying to raise a family. The manga series was featured in Big Spirits from Japan. The story was collected in a three-part anthology.
Both titles had fun art, clever designs and plenty of nods to pop culture and the troubles of raising a family. For the Strongest Dad his troubles were compounded by the fact that he could not accept defeat or decline any challenge. Even if it meant having to test his mettle against an elephant at the nearby animal park.
Big Daddy Danger was just as absurd but equally fun. Big Daddy was both a championship wrestler and secret agent. His manager / trainer looked like Col. Sanders and got secret messages printed out of his cane. Big Daddy had a son and wife whom he often had to spend lots of time away from. In fact his son had no idea that his father was moonlighting as an agent.
The Strongest Dad lead a more normal life where the biggest challenges were more about raising two daughters and fulfilling his wife's expectations.
Both main characters had older brothers which wanted nothing more that to see the main characters defeated and humiliated. In Big Daddy Danger the brother tried to move in and become a surrogate father to the Danger son and even steal away the Danger wife.
In Strongest Dad the brother wanted to find the man or beast alive that could dethrone his kin. He even had his brother fight against a gorilla when he tried to humble him! Eventually he found a Russian bruiser, an ex solder that was built like a tank and was obsessed with drawing manga girls. When "Dad" wasn't dealing with animals he was busy beating up on a unscrupulous fight promoter that dressed like a dictator and drove a copy of the Batmobile!
The art provided by Polina and McAdoo in BDD was very cartoonish, there were great splash pages and hilarious expressions featured on the cast. The characters interacted with all sorts of goons and even demons. Possibly the funniest part was that Big Daddy would continuously peel off his mask and have a different one underneath for whatever challenge he was facing. It certainly would make for an interesting videogame mechanic in a title other than NiGHTS.
Not to be outdone, Mr. Hiramatsu was a king of facial expressions. The characters in his books have always had memorable takes. He featured some of his panels in a blog about the series.
Both issues wrapped up rather quickly, BDD in 9 months and Strongest Dad within a year. If I wanted to see a series continue however it would have to be Strongest Dad. As much of a fan as I am of lucha libre, the Big Daddy series seemed flat. Big Daddy seemed to walk through opponents and there was no real sense of drama or tension in the issues, worse there was no resolution for his brother. Strongest Dad on the other hand made every little activity into a challenge, whether it was learning to play piano or escorting his daughters on a field trip. The Strongest Dad seemed a more three dimensional character that readers could root for. It was a fun series and almost matched the greatness of Mr. Hiramatsu's magnum opus. The Japanese wrestling, parable known as Agnes Kamen.
