Wonderland Never Looked So Good!

Escape from Wonderland #1 (of 6)
Writer: Raven Gregory
Artist: Daniel Leister
Publisher: Zenescope Entertainment

Rating: 3 Stars

Zenescope Entertainment is likely one of the smartest small publishers in comics. Upon hearing that, you might respond, "Please explain, Geoff." Okay, I think I will...

1. They appeal to men and women.
I know. You're sitting there thinking, "How the hell can they appeal to women? Just look at the sexy Halloweeny costumes the chicks are wearing to the right of this paragraph." I didn't say they appeal to ALL women, but they do appeal to girls who like to dress up for their boyfriends. That, and girls who have tattoos. That, and the types of girls who are sexually liberated. You could very easily turn a classic phrase into "If she likes to read Zenescope, she likes to poke." (Sorry, I thought that rhymed better than it did.) What kinds of guys like Zenescope? Straight dudes. 'Nuff said.

2. Though, in many ways, similar, Zenescope's comics are better than most horror flicks out there right now.
The Wonderland minis more or less spin off of Zenescope's flagship title, Grimm Fairy Tales. Both titles have very formulaic premises - girl dressed in impossibly tight and short clothing has a dick boyfriend or douche father, learns a lesson though some seriously batshit crazy situations, may or may not survive in the end, but, oh man, did she learn her lesson. Really, Wonderland works more off of a sleak and sexy kind of idea that Alice Liddle's family is cursed, but there are still some seriously batshit crazy tight clothes. I can already tell you the last four words in the last sentence is already better than any of the Saw movies. These books aren't rocket science, but every now and then, you come across something like Grimm Fairy Tales or [insert horror movie title here] and you say to yourself or the dude next to you, "Hey that wasn't half bad. I had fun and that one girl in the story was cute/hot/sexy/etc." That's how I feel everytime I read one of Zenescope's comics. And dammit, if it isn't addictive in a purely innocent and subtle way.

3. Good, consistent art.
Granted, they aren't hiring John Byrne, or George Perez or Jim Lee, but hey, the cover above was done by J. Scott Campbell! That's gotta be something to at least take a look at, right? On the inside, it's definitely geared toward getting a reaction in a guy's trousers (and sometimes a tattooed chick's panties - tee hee), but it's not Rob Liefeld-esque ridiculocity. It's pretty clean and, well, just pretty. I imagine the art editor sat in a strip club and had all the artists there and said, "Look at that girl on stage there... Everyone draw her and make sure it looks basically the same and make sure it is boner-ific." Well, maybe he wasn't in a strip club and he probably didn't use the word "boner-ific" but he probably did say "hard on inducing".

4. Convention presence.
What better way to get guys who are both under and over-sexed to your booth to look at your goods than having sexy booth babes dressing up even sexier as characters like Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood and Alice in Wonderland? I'm sure I could go further into this topic, but, really, do I have to?

Now, as far as their Wonderland minis (Escape is the third in this epic saga) are concerned, they are trippy and gory. Oh, like I have to mention it, sexy too. Alice's daughter, Calie, often finds herself nearly eaten by some kind of uber-monsterous version of one of the creatures in Wonderland on an issue-by-issue basis. She's covered by blood a lot of the time and this time, she carries a bitchin' axe. So, it's not too bad at all!

Between the Grimm Fairy Tales ongoing series and the Wonderland miniseries, I have to admit that Zenescope has my biggest guilty pleasure in comics. It's not quite porn, but it's definitely like watching Megan Fox movie - you don't give a shit what's going on as long as you can stare at her.

Speaking of Megan Fox, she might be one of those tattooed girls that would get into Zenescope's stuff. I mean, she had to probably agree to this:

Alright. That's it for tonight. Thanks for reading. Look for more comic goodness tomorrow!