Review -- The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs

The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs
Art by Lauren Monardo
Written by Stephen Lindsay
Brain Food Comics

Sometimes comic books today take themselves too seriously.
Certainly, the medium should be more respected as both an art form, and as a way to tell stories than it is in North America, especially as adult entertainment, but there is also room for just fun-loving comic efforts.
Who will ever forget Scrooge McDuck, or who didn’t love the concept of Dark Wing Duck, even though it started out as an animated series.
Credit the team of writer Stephen Lindsay and artist Lauren Monardo with remembering those simpler comic themes when they came up with The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs.
This is one of those tongue-in-cheek, highly entertaining, sort of spoof, and just plain fun efforts which really make comic books what they are at their heart.
Inspector Ham is a portly piggie who is a direct take on the famous Sherlock Holmes.
Now anytime you use the great Holmes as a template you’re on the right track in terms of doing a good story. Holmes is perhaps the greatest arch type private investigator ever created, and has permeated fiction in many ways. I mean the holodeck episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation with Data as Holmes were among the best of that super series.
Lindsay and Monardo use a world populated by cartoon style animals which is a long way from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original take on Holmes, but darned it’s so much fun it still works.
How can you go wrong with a wild boar bad guy, and his German accented second in command raccoon, and their legion of bad guy rabbits?
Mix in a snappy dressing gorilla thug and an overly enthusiastic hound cop, among the various characters and you start to see the fun.
As fun as it is, the story is for adults, as a few decapitated heads dripping with blood show rather clearly.
Against the backdrop of the characters Lindsay writes a pretty straight forward Holmes-style mystery, although the humour is thicker for obvious reasons.
Monardo said the idea for Inspector Ham just sort of emerged from conversations with Lindsay, and out of a need to do something.
“It's a funny story, actually, well to Stephen and I, anyway,” she said. “I was wrapping up work on Venture Bros. Season 3 storyboards and I knew I needed another job, and soon! Stephen and I tended to IM (instant message) each-other throughout the day and just joke around or discuss comic business, so I was talking to him about other jobs I might do. As a lark I said that maybe I'd become a spy, but not just any spy, a deli spy! I'd work for Boar's Head Brand and spy on other lunch meat companies like Hormel, Oscar Meyer and the like. And my code name would be Inspector Ham. To punctuate this I drew a tiny human detective body with a massive pig's head and a huge magnifying glass. The two of us instantly fell in love with the character and the idea and things just spiraled out from there.”
The characters ended up being designed over the Internet too.
“The character development took place mostly through Instant Messaging between the two of us,” said Lindsay. “We would drop a name and then build the character's personality around that. Lots of banter back and forth simply trying to make each other laugh. When it worked, we went with it! After that, the characters really develop further as the story progresses.
“I take a fairly organic approach to my writing. I don't plan out too far ahead. This way, as I'm writing and throwing the characters into various situations, they start to react almost on their own. It's those reactions that really further the development of them.”
Lindsay said his influences for writing are varied, making it easy to get into something a little off the norm such as Inspector Ham.
“I have a ton of comic writers whom I really respect and look upon as influences. Steve Niles, Robert Kirkman, Frank Miller; all the greats,” he said. “But, then I draw a lot from other areas of writing as well. Influences like Stephen King and Jack Kerouac, all the way back to Mark Twain.
“For this particular book, I draw a lot of influence from the old, campy Batman television series. Not so much with the humor, as Ham & Eggs is a bit more raw than the Batman TV show, but in the interactions and relationships. It sounds weird, but that show carries the same vibe through it that I try to instill within Ham & Eggs.”
Monardo said the first chat really laid the foundation for the book.
“As far as the character personalities and building the cast, I'd say about 85 per cent of the characters were created in that initial chat we had,” she said. “I drew Inspector Ham, then I said about having an evil black boar villain named Baron VonBlackforest. Then Stephen suggested a side-kick, which I opposed at first, until he said ‘No, no, it would be a chubby little chick named Eggs’. Ham & Eggs...how could I refuse?
“We then added, at Stephen's request, the character that became Colonel Strudel, who at first was just ‘a raccoon with an eye-patch and a monocle on the same eye.
“Aesthetically, they started out different than they are. If one were to look at the original designs, I had drawn them with Thomas Nast the political cartoonist on the brain. They all had almost caricature-esque heads and smaller bodies, but not anthropomorphized, just animal bodies standing on the back legs. As I drew the comic and got further into the issue, though, they sort of found their own way of being drawn. The characters started to change bit by bit until they found a comfort zone, and that's where they are now. And I think they're quite happy there.”
Artistically, Monardo could be working for Disney. It’s perfect for the title. The lines are sharp. The ability to instill emotion into the faces of animal characters wonderfully well-done.
Inspector Ham is particularly well-drawn, with the portly hero, memorable for the first look. The shot of him smoking the familiar pipe on the cover of issue one is a classic, and quite frankly I might have made it the entire cover rather than the main element of a collage.
Monardo said she ended up teaming with Lindsay on Inspector Ham after working together on a previous project.
“Well, we had just finished working together on Stephen's first book, "Jesus Hates Zombies: Those Slack-Jaw Blues" and we really had a great time of it,” said Monardo. “Through that I managed to trick Stephen into trusting me enough to do designs etc. I mean ... errr .... all kidding aside, we worked really well together! As far as storytelling, we both came from ‘film’ type backgrounds, he was an independent film-maker and I was an independent animator, so we had a lot of the same sensibilities as far as compositions, pacing, acting etc.
“The look of the series was originally meant to appear like a children's book, bright colors, cute characters, innocent and unsuspecting. Then, due to a major reveal via the splash page on page 4 of issue 1, the reader is quickly informed that it's anything but innocent and unsuspecting. We wanted to let the audience know right off the bat that there would be unexpected twists and turns, and that this wouldn't be your average animal cartoon.”
Like many comics today, Inspector Ham began online, building momentum before going to a print edition.
“We ran it as a web-comic for all of issue 1 and part of issue 2, and if I remember correctly we started doing two pages per week but went down to one since we both had real jobs, and didn't have the time to do both,” said Monardo. “But I'd say that if we came up with the idea in December, I did character designs and Stephen started scripting and we had the first three pages done in January. After that we shopped it around to a few publishers here and there but decided ultimately to self-publish, which is what we're doing now.”
Monardo said the response to Inspector Ham has been beyond expectations.
“I think in a lot of ways it surpassed our expectations,” she said. “Going into this we weren't sure if anybody but us would find it funny, but went ahead with it anyway. I think we both figured if we loved it so much it would come through the work and attract other people to it too and if not at least we had fun.
“I think the real test as far as acceptance and audience will be when the volume 1 trade paperback is released soon. Right now we have the individual booklet issues but they aren't cost effective and they're hard to get massive exposure from. People love buying Graphic Novels and Trades now, more and more people are choosing them over booklets, so we have high hopes for this one.”
Monardo added in some cases people have gone the extra mile in supporting the title.
“Also, I really have to thank our buddy Socko Jones and all the crew at Comic Book Jones for some of the success we have had so far with it,” she said. “They've been a massive support for us and we owe a lot to them. Plus we wouldn't have Detective Jack Valentine Jones if it weren't for them; he's Socko's real dog!”
The good news is there is more to come from the world of Inspector Ham.
“We actually have two Ham & Eggs side dishes in the works,” said Monardo. “One is the origin of Colonel Strudel, called ‘St. Severin's Day Murders’. It'll probably have some humor in it, but it'll be far darker in tone than the core series. I don't know if you've noticed but he's one messed up little dude.
“The side dishes are all drawn by different talented folks, too. For example, I'm plotting the SSDM book, Stephen's scripting, and our amazingly talented friend Daniel Thollin is doing all the artwork. He does amazing work, especially horror stuff, and his promo images have me floored, I can't wait to get this book done.
“The second book planned is actually a bit of an homage to the H&E origin, it's called ‘On the Trail With a Curly Tail, -- the caption I wrote on the very first Inspector Ham drawing-- and will be written half by Stephen and half by myself. We have 12 or so outstanding artists lined up to do five-page stories on this! One of them, Danilo Beyruth, has already completed his story and it is amazing. We're really blessed to know so many talented people.”
Overall, if you like comics that take you back to a simpler time in the medium this is it.
The book, the third issue just coming out now, also provides a darned fine story, coupled with great art. A definite winner of its type of comic.
www.inspectorham.com is the comic's official site, and www.brainfoodcomicsonline.com is their self-publishing site. The booklets can be purchased through their printer at www.indyplanet.com!
-- CALVIN DANIELS
-- Appeared on Yorkton This Week WebXtra