All-Ages Reviews - The Intrepid EscapeGoat
Have you ever wanted to read a story about a main character that combines Harry Houdini and Indiana Jones?
If so, then Thomas Fleet is the man for you!
…or the goat for you.
Yes, the title does not lie, the Intrepid EscapeGoat is, in fact, a goat. Why is our main character a goat man? Well, I’ll talk about that a bit later in the review (spoiler: the answer is I don’t know why).
The story of The Intrepid EscapeGoat by Brian Smith follows escape artist Thomas Fleet as he travels the globe to wow audiences with his act and solve various bizarre mysteries involving amazing ancient artifacts along the way. The first collection tells two tales of his adventures. The first being a one-shot explaining why the EscapeGoat’s sidekick is a child version of the goddess Isis. (No, I’m not kidding.) The second story follows him as he tries to uncover the truth behind a mysterious necklace that seems to have unearthly powers, including the ability to raise the dead.
There’s not much else to explain about the story, it’s adventure in the vein of 1930’s film serials, like Indiana Jones was. While EscapeGoat doesn’t particularly seek out relics, his world travels and chosen occupation bring him in contact with plenty of them.
Thomas Fleet himself is an interesting chararcter. Though clearly inspired by Harry Houdini, he expresses disgust with mediums and fortune tellers, which were something that Houdini was fascinated by. It’s not that he disbelieves in the paranormal, though. It’d be pretty hard having an Egyptian Goddess for a sidekick. He just views most mediums as fakes and when the real thing comes along believes that that much power should be kept a secret. He’s shown to be a good escape artist, a skill which comes in handy on his adventures, and he can be pretty snarky. All-in-all a pretty great main character. The only thing that really bothers me about him is a pretty small pet peeve. Take a look at this panel:
Did you head his dialogue in an accent? Specifically a British one? With the combination of the way he’s designed and the way he speaks I can’t help but hear him that way. He’s supposed to be American, but I hear all of his dialogue with a British accent, so it throws me for a loop whenever they refer to him as “The American.” Haha, I guess I don’t expect Americans to sound that smart. A minor issue though, I overall really like the character.
Only a true showman could turn a train crash into a great entrance.
The only other character that seems to be a recurring one is Isis, and she’s a little too over the top to really get a read on what her character is like. She talked in a very blunt, coarse way, probably to contrast her with Fleet who speaks in a refined way, and to make a little joke since she’s a princess and you’d expect her to be the refined one. She’s okay, I can’t really work up strong feelings about her one way or the other, though having a goddess hanging around does add an extra spice to the story.
So not kidding about the goddess thing.
The only remaining character I can talk about is Princess Jayani, who is the owner of the necklace in the second story. It feels like she’s supposed to have a big part and a big connection to the EscapeGoat, but there’s just not much to her. Also, she’s a cat.
So I guess I need to address this. There are animal people in this world alongside regular humans. No mention is made of this fact, no one seems terribly surprised by it. It’s just sort of the way things are. Some people are just animal people. Now this is actually a pretty minor nitpick overall, but it bugs me when stories do this. I like anthropomorphized animals, I honestly do, they can make for neat character designs, but I expect you to either give me a reason for it, or recognize the fact that they have animal attributes (like having Fleet headbutt something or Jayani claw something) because otherwise they’re just dressed up humans, and I can’t really see the point. It’s a minor nitpick because it never ruins a story for me, but it’s a bit nagging all the same. Why make them animals if you’re not going to do something with it?
To be fair, he does headbutt...it's just a human one instead of goat one, so it doesn't really count...
The art in general I go back and forth on a lot. It’s a pretty simplified cartoony style, which seems to suit this story perfectly. It can sometimes get a bit stiff though, which is especially noticeable in fight scenes. The characters expressions sometimes throw me for a loop too. Fleet looks great pretty much all the time, with a wide variety of expressions, but a lot of the background characters seem to be much more limited and end up looking very samey. Jayani only has like 3 expressions I think, which is really noticeable when she and Fleet are talking. And yet, for all it seems like I’m complaining, I think the art really works. I can’t really single anything out as bad, again, it’s minor nitpicks which are more distracting than anything, and it’s easy to overlook because EscapeGoat himself comes across so well.
Her face never changes!
Also? The coloring in this is really good. It’s not something I generally remark on. Color is one of those things where when it’s good, you usually don’t notice it, but it really stuck out to me here, how the subtle tones really set the mood for each scene. Likely it was because with really cartoony styles, you expect a bright, simple color palate, so it stands out to me a bit that it’s so subtle and varied.
Obviously evil snake dude is pretty fun, though...
The Intrepid EscapeGoat is pretty much exactly the kind of book I’m looking for when I pick up all-ages comics. The three previous books I reviewed were all pretty clearly written with children in mind, but this one just feels like a good old adventure story which just happens to not include any “adult” themes, thus putting it into the all-ages category. It was intended for anyone who wants to read it. While this one isn’t the most perfect example of this that I’ve ever read - it's definitely pretty flawed and on most points I'd rate it at "okay" - it was a heck of a lot of fun, and I’d recommend it to anyone who was interested in this type of adventure story. I know I’ll be on the lookout for it if they ever release another collection.
Next time we’ll look at Rascal Raccoon’s Raging Revenge.
If so, then Thomas Fleet is the man for you!
…or the goat for you.
Yes, the title does not lie, the Intrepid EscapeGoat is, in fact, a goat. Why is our main character a goat man? Well, I’ll talk about that a bit later in the review (spoiler: the answer is I don’t know why).
The story of The Intrepid EscapeGoat by Brian Smith follows escape artist Thomas Fleet as he travels the globe to wow audiences with his act and solve various bizarre mysteries involving amazing ancient artifacts along the way. The first collection tells two tales of his adventures. The first being a one-shot explaining why the EscapeGoat’s sidekick is a child version of the goddess Isis. (No, I’m not kidding.) The second story follows him as he tries to uncover the truth behind a mysterious necklace that seems to have unearthly powers, including the ability to raise the dead.
There’s not much else to explain about the story, it’s adventure in the vein of 1930’s film serials, like Indiana Jones was. While EscapeGoat doesn’t particularly seek out relics, his world travels and chosen occupation bring him in contact with plenty of them.
Thomas Fleet himself is an interesting chararcter. Though clearly inspired by Harry Houdini, he expresses disgust with mediums and fortune tellers, which were something that Houdini was fascinated by. It’s not that he disbelieves in the paranormal, though. It’d be pretty hard having an Egyptian Goddess for a sidekick. He just views most mediums as fakes and when the real thing comes along believes that that much power should be kept a secret. He’s shown to be a good escape artist, a skill which comes in handy on his adventures, and he can be pretty snarky. All-in-all a pretty great main character. The only thing that really bothers me about him is a pretty small pet peeve. Take a look at this panel:
Did you head his dialogue in an accent? Specifically a British one? With the combination of the way he’s designed and the way he speaks I can’t help but hear him that way. He’s supposed to be American, but I hear all of his dialogue with a British accent, so it throws me for a loop whenever they refer to him as “The American.” Haha, I guess I don’t expect Americans to sound that smart. A minor issue though, I overall really like the character.
Only a true showman could turn a train crash into a great entrance.
The only other character that seems to be a recurring one is Isis, and she’s a little too over the top to really get a read on what her character is like. She talked in a very blunt, coarse way, probably to contrast her with Fleet who speaks in a refined way, and to make a little joke since she’s a princess and you’d expect her to be the refined one. She’s okay, I can’t really work up strong feelings about her one way or the other, though having a goddess hanging around does add an extra spice to the story.
So not kidding about the goddess thing.
The only remaining character I can talk about is Princess Jayani, who is the owner of the necklace in the second story. It feels like she’s supposed to have a big part and a big connection to the EscapeGoat, but there’s just not much to her. Also, she’s a cat.
So I guess I need to address this. There are animal people in this world alongside regular humans. No mention is made of this fact, no one seems terribly surprised by it. It’s just sort of the way things are. Some people are just animal people. Now this is actually a pretty minor nitpick overall, but it bugs me when stories do this. I like anthropomorphized animals, I honestly do, they can make for neat character designs, but I expect you to either give me a reason for it, or recognize the fact that they have animal attributes (like having Fleet headbutt something or Jayani claw something) because otherwise they’re just dressed up humans, and I can’t really see the point. It’s a minor nitpick because it never ruins a story for me, but it’s a bit nagging all the same. Why make them animals if you’re not going to do something with it?
To be fair, he does headbutt...it's just a human one instead of goat one, so it doesn't really count...
The art in general I go back and forth on a lot. It’s a pretty simplified cartoony style, which seems to suit this story perfectly. It can sometimes get a bit stiff though, which is especially noticeable in fight scenes. The characters expressions sometimes throw me for a loop too. Fleet looks great pretty much all the time, with a wide variety of expressions, but a lot of the background characters seem to be much more limited and end up looking very samey. Jayani only has like 3 expressions I think, which is really noticeable when she and Fleet are talking. And yet, for all it seems like I’m complaining, I think the art really works. I can’t really single anything out as bad, again, it’s minor nitpicks which are more distracting than anything, and it’s easy to overlook because EscapeGoat himself comes across so well.
Her face never changes!
Also? The coloring in this is really good. It’s not something I generally remark on. Color is one of those things where when it’s good, you usually don’t notice it, but it really stuck out to me here, how the subtle tones really set the mood for each scene. Likely it was because with really cartoony styles, you expect a bright, simple color palate, so it stands out to me a bit that it’s so subtle and varied.
Obviously evil snake dude is pretty fun, though...
The Intrepid EscapeGoat is pretty much exactly the kind of book I’m looking for when I pick up all-ages comics. The three previous books I reviewed were all pretty clearly written with children in mind, but this one just feels like a good old adventure story which just happens to not include any “adult” themes, thus putting it into the all-ages category. It was intended for anyone who wants to read it. While this one isn’t the most perfect example of this that I’ve ever read - it's definitely pretty flawed and on most points I'd rate it at "okay" - it was a heck of a lot of fun, and I’d recommend it to anyone who was interested in this type of adventure story. I know I’ll be on the lookout for it if they ever release another collection.
Next time we’ll look at Rascal Raccoon’s Raging Revenge.