Zuda Week: NIGHT OWLS

NIGHT OWLS is another of the Zuda titles you see talked about in the blogosphere. As much as I'm loathe to give attention to something that is already getting plenty of it, Peter & Robert Timony's creation was one of the most attractive options that had a sizable sampling. Who knew it would be this good?

I'm going to start sounding like a broken record here, but the clean, crisp cartooning is what sucked me in and kept me around. It's just so very easy on the eyes and works so well for a supernatural comedy set in the 1920s. You're immediately put in the right frame of mind.

If you're going to have an old man astral projecting, an arch-nemesis without a face and an owl beast that is five stories tall, I'm pretty sure you've thrown out realism from your possible style choices (well, at least with a comedy). Not that there is anything wrong with that.

All things supernatural wind up popping up in this webcomic, but it's never treated as being weird and really isn't the focus of the tales being told. In truth, the supernatural is basically all set-up. Such a huge majority of the funny is rooted in playing upon the culture of 1920s America or other conventional humor.

Mindy Markus, for instance, is a flapper...and probably the most astute practitioner of fisticuffs. This, of course, is to set up all the jokes based around her flying in the face of 1920s standards for behavior by the fairer sex. There are a lot of jokes based around her being thought to need help or protection and her feeling insulted by such behavior. For Pete's sake, they have a small gargoyle on the team and it is much more important that he talks pretty much like the everlovin' Thing before times got so politically correct.

The Timony Bros have put together a highly entertaining, absurd comedy about a supernatural detective agency during the 1920s. In some ways, it feels a bit like ANGEL in the 1920s, minus most of the dramatic moments. That's meant as a compliment. Strongly recommend checking it out.