A truly great “dumb joke” is like a fart. You can hold it in all you want, but eventually you’re going to have to share it.
That’s sort of where we are with Moonshine Bigfoot. In the first two issues, the creative team (co-writer Mike Marlow, co-writer-inker Zach Howard, penciler Steve Ellis, colorist Nelson Daniel, and letterer/designer Thompson Knox) have been especially coy and cautious with what could have been a bonkers story about a moonshine-running Sasquatch and his super hot girlfriend causing small town chaos while being stalked by COBRA Lite. Instead, there’s been less immaturity and outright hilarity and much more effective world-building and character development.
But now the hijinks have really come to pass, and I’ve got to be honest, it’s a bona fide gas.
That’s not to say that we don’t get real happenings (and their corresponding stakes) in this issue of Moonshine Bigfoot. We actually get a decent backstory about Amethyst, which continues to make her a real person and not a prop as she’d be depicted in some other versions of this story. We also get some face-time with the nefarious Big Level and their plans that involve kidnapping Amethyst. Meanwhile, Dennis (the ghost who lives with the couple) may be in dire straits.
Courtesy of Image Comics.
And, of course, our own Moonshine Bigfoot ends the issue beaten and bloodied. (The bloody stuff, and really any action scene here, feel like they are elevated as the art team delivers something that’s precise, stark, and packed with energy and intention, including a fight scene between Moonshine Bigfoot and a newly-mechanized sheriff.)
But as serious as all that is, it’s also collectively heaps more goofy and strange. There’s been plenty of those sentiments across Moonshine Bigfoot #1 and #2, but it’s so far been quite strategic as to elevate this story beyond its rather goofy premise. In #3, there was lots of weird dialogue and general outbursts from the Big Level minions; way more quips than you’d expect in the cop-Moonshine Bigfoot battle; and generally a sense of outlandishness and sharp quirk prevailing most of this issue.
And it felt earned — that as this story develops, and things begin to coalesce, we needed this massive release of oddball energy. That if we’re going to honor the kooky world the creators have forged, part of that means getting fully, truly weird with it all. But weird in a way that we don’t forget that this book is trying to have legs and to be so much more than a mere excuse for more absurdity. It’s like they’ve hit the point where there’s enough truly solid groundwork, and the creators are free to relish some of the shiny peculiarity you’d want in a book like this one.
Courtesy of Image Comics.
Again, though, it never really takes you away from the story that’s developing here. It’s added color to show how weird everyone is, and that there’s this sensibility that defines the core world. It lets that personality shine through in a way that maintains the pacing that’s helped that book but pulls back just a little for us to really celebrate the silliness here. In that way, I think Moonshine Bigfoot maybe feels a little more relevant to here and now — that the world is a freaky place, indeed, and those who flourish are the ones who ride the weirdness toward something more meaningful/important.
If anything, that overt weirdness in this issue lets a huge moment land in a truly important way. As he trips on shrooms, Moonshine Bigfoot talks about casualty and if we’re all basically dominoes in some grand Rube Goldberg machine. It plays out like that one scene from Half Baked, but then you think about the larger confines of Moonshine Bigfoot’s speech, and you freak out more than when you realized all the “similarities” between Lincoln and Kennedy.
That moment, I’d reckon, is not only just more of this book’s expertly strategic work, but is also indicative of how it treats the balance between the truly deep and the mostly silly. What could have been a super intense moment in theory became a joke device, until you sat with it for a few minutes and realized Moonshine Bigfoot really is asking questions about his own life and story in a way that’s massively meta but never overly demonstrative with it, either.
So what we really get, then, is another way for this book to engage readers. Another level or approach to the genuine genius at the heart of Moonshine Bigfoot, and how whether it’s being mega silly or decidedly serious (or, perhaps more accurately, somewhere in between), this book is working hard to confront and poke/soothe us as readers to genuinely bring us into this storytelling experience.
Courtesy of Image Comics.
Are all of the added jokes or humor winners? Not necessarily — the stuff from the Big Level leader about Uncle Pineapple, for instance, were a touch overkill/mostly irksome. Even still, it all just shows the liveliness and energy this book maintains, and how it wants to use all of its tools (from blood and gore to dumb jokes) to make us feel deeply about this world.
And Moonshine Bigfoot has already earned that admiration for being big and bold enough to tell a story with real heft and potential longevity. Again, it all ain’t the most novel or groundbreaking (it’s basically The Dukes of Hazzard meets American Ultra), but that matters much less when the story just works in terms of its scope and intensity.
So, whether you come for Amethyst’s gymnast skills, robot-wood ape battles, and/or a surprisingly deep mediation about reality, Moonshine Bigfoot is more robust and compelling than ever before. Sure, it sucks there’s only one issue left, and that means plenty of dynamic story to fit in. But stop by to really soak it all in, and I promise this book will squeeze out a proper winner.
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