There’s this unwritten rule in cinema that a monkey makes even the most terrible movies watchable. They can be dressed in baseball uniforms, stealing wristwatches, riling the formidable feathers of Tony Danza, gleaming the cube – it doesn’t matter. Just stick an ape in a movie and even the most hardened critic has to admit a slight blip on the entertainometer. (Yes, even if Richard Karn is in it, too.)
But print is another story. Unless you have a whole planet of them, it’s just inadvisable. That goes for comics, too, including Tim Eldred’s GREASE MONKEY, a sprawling, years-in-the-making graphic novel about space, female astronauts and a talking simian. Even though it’s clearly geared toward younger audiences, I should be able to enjoy it, too.
Though it’s wrapped up in an astro-battle bow, GREASE MONKEY has its heart in the relationship between young cadet Robin and Mac, the upright, toothpicking-chewing, “NO CRAP” T-shirt-wearing, cranky gorilla mechanic he’s assigned to work under. Eldred infuses this 350-page tale with lots of Heartfelt Life Lessons, including burgeoning romances for both man and monkey, and reminders to be nice to people who are different than you. This “aw, shucks” naivete may work with readers in the throes of adolesence, but to me, it came off as cloying.
I actually like the look of Eldred’s art, which gets better as it goes along (this book was started in 1992 and finished roughly a decade later, and he’s to be commended for sticking to his vision); I just wished the story was able to match it (or that I were 12 years old again – I’m not picky). This is not the equivalent of flung poo at the zoo, but more like a spoiled banana. –Rod Lott
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