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• Price: $2.99
• Rating: 15+
• Pages: 36
• On Sale: Sept 20, 2017
• Writer: Matt Entin / Edward Kuehnel
  
• Artist: Dan Schkade
  
• Color: Marissa Louise
• Letterer: A Larger World
• Editor: Mariah Huehner
• Publisher: Suspicious Behavior Productions

From the publisher – A Date With Destiny. When a disgruntled professional wrestler declares himself “Galactic Champion of the Universe,” Earth is invaded by a planet of wrestling aliens who view it as an act of war!

A whopping THIRTY-PAGE page megaextravaganza with art by the incomparable Dan “the Body” Schkade, colors by Marissa “the Human Torture Chamber” Louise and lettering by A Larger World Studios (AKA the North Hollywood Nightmares). Written & Created by Ed Kuehnel & Matt Entin.

Our We Talk Comics WeView – There’s a couple of old expressions you’re probably familiar with. One is “Do what you love”. The other is “Write what you know”. If you’re at all wondering the wisdom of those statements you need to check out Invasion From Planet Wrestletopia.

The story is fairly simple to explain. Wrestler “Rock n’ Roll” Rory Landell is about to have the biggest match of his life against the “Boy Scout” Bob Schultz. Here, Landell expects to win the AWF championship. But on the day of the show the promoter changes his mind, and decides that Schultz will be keeping the title.

Landell retaliates by going into business for himself on his pre-match interview. He takes an old box from someplace called Galactic Pizza and tapes it to a belt. He then goes on to disparage the AWF, and declares himself the holder of a bigger crown as “The New Galactic Champion of the Universe”. Unfortunately the real Galactic Champion, from the aforementioned planet Wrestletopia, learns of Landell’s boast. And let’s just say it doesn’t exactly sit well with him. If that concept sounds a little bit crazy, it is. If it doesn’t also sound like a boatload of fun, then I’d suggest you’re crazy too.

Invasion From Planet Wrestletopia is crafted by veteran storytellers, even if some of them are new to the comic book medium. Writers Matt Entin & Edward Kuehnel have written on such video games as Agents of Mayhem and Leisure Suit Larry: Magnum Cum Laude. They clearly know how to craft an entertaining tale and create compelling characters. They make the bold choice here to have their lead character Landell be, well, a real dick. It somehow doesn’t make him completely unlikable though, maybe because he doesn’t feel totally irredeemable.

The story is littered with easter eggs for us wrestling fans, but not in an inside, annoyingly smart way that would turn off non fans. It just feels like a wink to those of us aware of what they’re doing, but never at the expense of the story. Sure, they clearly love wrestling, but they love telling a good adventure even more.

Artist Dan Schkade has some impressive comic credits on his resume. He’s drawn Will Eisner’s The Spirit and Battlestar Galactica: Gods and Monsters, and he’s an ideal match for this comic. Wrestling by it’s nature is a pumped up, larger than life world and Schkade captures that perfectly, enhancing the fun. Throw in the energetic work provided by the colorist Marissa Louise and the lettering of A Larger World and you have have some snappy visuals to suit the story.

If I did have one critique it would be on the cover. While it is representative of the style in the interiors, I wonder if it stands out enough? Invasion From Planet Wrestletopia is a small press book that is not typical of small press books, in that it has grade A talent across the board. Often you read an independent book with different expectations, not in thinking that it can’t be excellent quality, but often it’s made in early stages of a creators career, or by people doing a passion project learning the craft. I wished the cover popped a little bit more for me or was different from the usual comic in some way, to break down that stigma since it doesn’t really apply here.

Issue #1 of Invasion From Planet Wrestletopia, subtitled “Date With Destiny”, is straight up good times. Issue #2, “Two Worlds Enter, One Leaves!” just dropped and continues the trend. The babyface stable editor Mariah Huehner has assembled looks like they will continue to provide a rip-roaring experience as the tale plays out. Here’s hoping they can up their production rate a little so I can get to reading it all (It was a several months wait between the first two issues). This is a book well worth your time if you want some laughs and action, and is hopefully a gateway to more comic book stories from Matt Entin & Edward Kuehnel in the future. It’s available all over the place, but I’ll give a little suggestion you go get it from ComixCentral, because they deserve it.

Recommended for: Fans of Jeff Martin’s Space Heat, the online webcomic Lucha Liberty.

Rating – Very Fine+ (VF+) or 8.5/10

Review by Mo

Love the review? Hate the review? Disagree with me? I’m happy to talk comics on twitter @Mo_WeTalk

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