Because YOU Demanded It! Nibbling Around the Edges of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew (in 2026)

Home sick today, I thought to revisit a paper bag on the shelf, which turned out to contain a pile of comics I couldn't resist a couple months back. Reading these gently funny, harshly punny, books is a good use of a sick hour, if you have any affection for the conventions of VERY early 80s team superhero comics. What stuck out to me, though, was less fewer the mainline story or character elements and more the now-weird artifacts of comic books circa 1981. An example might be "do comic book panels need backgrounds Y/N".

Okay one thing I'm embarrassed to admit is that only this time did I get the joke that Yankee Poodle and Alley-Kat-Abra are fighting because ... they're a cat and dog. Duh. Hope you like that "Crashing Boars" joke, because it shows up in each of the first four issues, I think.

Also I remember at the time (roughly 1986 when I was reading this, so already in cheapo scavenged back issues) thinking Yankee Poodle was the better of these two characters, but I think now the clear creator fave is Alley-Kat-Abra, who gets most of the best lines—like such as "Pipe me aboard, Captain."—in addition to being the one all the boy characters like.

Sometimes your colorist maybe is thinking about something else.

I assume the letterer here had some beef with the great Scott Shaw! and denied him his bang deliberately. Of note: I have never seen this letterer's name anywhere else, ever. As the oldest aphorism in funny-animal comics has it, when you mess with Scott Shaw!, you best dig two graves, one for your top half, and one for your bottom half.

These ads are incredible.

This house ad is also incredible, at least for the last couple lines. I genuinely didn't know Detective Comics Comics had this degree of a sense of humor.

Was everybody liking this? No, not everybody was liking this.

You know, comic books. For kids.

With ... jokes like kids like, about production techniques and references to artists from 40 years before.

It's interesting to me that the main characters are drawn with so much less loving care and fun than this throwaway movie-director character, with a series of pretty good hat jokes and an absolutely perfect Three-Stooges-take panel. If there is any justice in the world, the next time you see me, I'll be wearing this "AUTEUR" hat. Also is it me or is "PERSON" in the context of a world where everyone is a non-human talking animal kind of fucked up?

I'm actually angry they missed the "fowl-up" joke here. They're birds FFS do I have to think of everything around here?

Also angry about what an incomprehensibly awful thing this is to say, in context. Look at the below, but only if you have a strong, strong stomach.

Okay this is the last chance—turn back close tab NOW if you want to keep thinking of Pig-Iron as a loveable goof, rather than a cruelly taunting predator.

Jesus god, man, you're talking to a duck! Do NOT talk about cooking eggs on your body and eating them!!!

Set My Seaman Free!!!

My my my, where has the time gone? My daily gaming fix for a good 6-7 weeks were derived from raising some Seamen, which died, then successfully raising some more - and setting them free. Yes. The game ends w/ you "setting yr seamen free." Its how "I beat Seaman." As brilliant as Seaman is as a game, the endless juvenile jokes derived from it ("I have to feed my seaman") garners it some sort of separate, special accolade.



6th grade humor aside, the most impressive facets of Seaman were:

1. Just how worried I would get I was going to run into a food shortage and that my Seaman would starve. Especially after my first attempt resulted in me booting up the 'Cast one day to find a floating-upside-down Seaman. This point underscores the actually quite stressful mechanics of trying to keep a creature alive w/ limited resources.

2. This was probably the missus' favorite game to watch.¹ This was attributed to the fact she liked that Seaman talked shit at me. Also, she liked the fact that he kept evolving, and would come running when a transformation began. I mention this only because I find the subject of "games people who don't play (many) games like" an interesting topic. The missus' fave game is Ms. Pac-Man (a fine choice), but she does have the distinction of having beat the original Zelda, which I can't say I have. She's also the one who found our Intellivision and like 10 games for about $6 at the Goodwill bins a year ago, and then proceeded to rock Popeye. She also enjoys kicking ass in Streets of Rage.

In other departments, the Shenmue Experience has progressed to the Forklift Operator Simulator stage, having graduated out of Harbor Loitering Community College.

I've never played a game where you go to work, and have to actually play out the work², but that said, I'm enjoying it immensely (I've made quota everyday!). Enjoying it so much, in fact, that the acceleration of the plot + increase in fist-fights is kind of disappointing seeing as I don't want the forklifting to end.

-d.d.


¹ A distinction previously held by Shenmue.
² Tho' Grandia does have a swabbing-the-decks mini-game.