Scurvy Dogs – Comic Buried Treasure

Look, a pirate reference in the title!!

Today’s “You Decide” is courtesy of Greg Hatcher.

Scurvy Dogs is about a group of pirates from the past who are trying to make their way in the modern world(not time travel, they just exist in the present).

The book is written by Andrew Boyd and Ryan Yount (with Yount also contributing the art and lettering).

The trade collection, Scurvy Dogs: Rags to Riches, collects the five issue series plus a short story featuring the guys and Vampirella (funny pairing, eh?).

The first two issues are by far my favorites of the collection.

The first issue opens with a story involving Portuguese lepers, and it is both my favorite story in the collection as well as a perfect introduction to the brand of humor Boyd and Yount are contributing here.

The other story in #1 involves the gang trying to get jobs on the land, with hilarious results.

#2 was a funny confrontation between the pirates and a group of monkeys.

#3-5, though, I think the humor got much less cooler. Essentially, #3-5 became Robot Chicken/Family Guy with the jokes being more pop culture references that people like Andrew Boyd and Ryan Yount will get.

You ever see those lame cable comedy shows? Where a guy will come out and say, “Remember Lite Brite?”

And everyone will laugh. But not because the joke was funny, but because they do, in fact, remember Lite Brite.

Well, the jokes in #3-5 were a lot like that (heck, they even had a joke involving Lite Brite!). Remember Menudo? Remember Anson Williams? Remember Welcome Back Kotter?

If so, you will laugh!

And hey, I will admit, I am Mr. Pop Culture, so I DO laugh at the references.

I am just saying that it is not as impressive of a form of comedy as the self-sufficient humor of the first two issues. The first two issues still had pop culture references (Like the classic “Not a doubloon, but a pog it be!” line from #1), but they were not the main jokes, unlike #3-5.

And just for the record, I do not think #3-5 are anywhere near the level of those lame cable comedy specials. Scurvy Dogs has actual jokes, not just references, and there is actual plot…but the resemblance IS there. So while it is still funny, I just much, much prefer the jokes from #1 and #2.

The Vampirella short story was a lot of fun (especially since it takes more after #1 and #2 than #3,4 and 5).

Ryan Yount’s art was good, and improved as the series went on, which is always good to see.

The pin-ups were awesome, as were the sketches.

The commentary confused me though. I think I would have preferred a 2-page bonus story more than FOURTEEN pages of commentary. Especially when there is commentary before each issue and commentary throughout the Vampirella story. And then fourteen MORE pages of commentary? Seemed silly. Especially when most of the commentary was in-jokes or stuff like “Look what Pappy is doing!”

All in all, though, I would easily recommend this series. For only $13, there is a lot of funny stuff in this collection. And heck, what with the FOURTEEN pages of commentary, there’s certainly a lot to of pages for your money…hehe.