“God Hates Astronauts” #1 is really fucking funny, I had a big shit eating grin plastered across my face the entire read. Comedy can be a real hit or miss in comics, especially outside of the funny pages. They generally come off as trying way too hard, as dry as the Mojave or break the 4th wall like a crutch. God Hates Astronauts sidesteps these potholes with ease and is as fresh as grandma’s apple pie, were she not dead.
WRITTEN BY: Ryan Browne
ART BY: Ryan Browne
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: September 3, 2014
Reviewed By: Torbin Chimners
First, a little GHA backstory: if I’ve got my facts straight GHA started as a webcomic that then had a massively successful Kickstarter to bring it all together in a nice hardcover book. Now I’ve never read the original webcomic and didn’t actually know about it until after I read the issue. Don’t worry, the story is easy to follow and even spends a couple pages bringing you up to speed on the world and its characters.
Our heroes are The Power Persons Five, a group of superheroes who work for a heavily fictionalized NASA to stop sexually deviant Astro-Farmers from launching themselves into space. The Astro-Farmers have been converting their silos into space ships so they can go to The Great Space God’s Moon Mansion and live there in peace and with total sexual freedom. As you’d expect these hillbilly Astro-Farmers are not rocket scientists and they basically end up arbitrarily firing themselves off into space and eventually colliding with other space ships. One of these ships happens to be Admiral Tiger Eating A Cheeseburger’s who’s killed in the space collision. His father, King Tiger Eating A Cheeseburger, is outraged and will be trouble in the future for The Power Persons Five.
Speaking of The PPF, they consist of a fat ex-cop with robot arms named Gnarled Winslow, an upside-down faced woman who can do almost anything named The Impossible and their cybernetic flaming goat headed leader: Star Grass. That’s only three people and they call themselves The Power Persons Five, you’ll figure it out as you read.
And while you read and laugh and read and laugh you’ve got some of the prettiest pictures around to accompany all of those laughs. Ryan Browne is one damn fine artist in addition to his comedy chops; I fell in love with each page more than the last. There’s a huge amount of detail on some of the pages, make sure you really take it all in because Browne has hidden numerous jokes in the background. Also be sure to read the quotes on back cover, they don’t disappoint.
God Hates Astronauts gave me some real hardy guttural laughs and if that isn’t worth 3.50 what is?
—
Torbin Chimners AKA Torin Chambers is a rad dude from the nineties who does film stuff or something. Thomas the Tank Engine is his favorite transformer. Find him on Twitter@Vulgar_Rhombus