Sky Ape

Written by Phil Amara, Tim McCarney, and Mike Russo, drawn by Richard Jenkins.

Bizarre, surrealistic comic series about Kirk Madge, a talking millionaire gorilla inventor who may just be a Boston Red Sox player named Jack Von Schiller. Who knows. He certainly doesn't. He plays Risk and drinks with his friends Francis Bird, Pirate Steve, Mr. the Fake Lion and Paper Bob. The art is a functional stylistic black-and-white full of subtle details, but it's the writing that makes your brain sit up and salute. It's very random humor, full of non sequitors and a dash of pop culture references. Reminds me of The Tick (think the comic, not the Fox series), but less cheesy, and a little more Zippy the Pinhead-ish, but with its own unique charm.

Sky Ape was originally a four issue series from Slave Labor Graphics in 1997, and reprinted in graphic novel form as Sky Ape: The Collection in 1998. This early story of aerial gorilla vigilante law enforcement revolves around Peyton Fenway and his search for the mysterious Suspense Jacket, capable of allowing one to see backwords and forwards through time, as long as it's a Thursday. This was itself reprinted in 2001 by AIT/PlanetLar simply as Sky Ape with some new pinups and the addition of a lost issue. Sky Ape: Waiting for Crime also came out in 2001. Kirk Madge has tired of saving the world and become a CPA, but the evils of O'Donnelly's Roofing draw him out of the delight of accountanthood. Fighting ensues.

The Sky Ape webpage is at, shocks and horrors, www.skyape.com - it's amusing.