Prose (Story): In a lavish Hollywood mansion owned by a world-famous entertainment mogul named Grapevine meets The Privy Council, a clandestine and nefarious club of the famous and near-famous, led by Grapevine, whose latest grab to attain power, influence and wealth seems oddly simple: they must kill a garbage man. One who has something belonging to their ruthless leader that he wants back. As each member of the council (if he or she doesn't want to face Grapevine's wrath) systematically hunts down the hapless James - a burly and good-natured guy completely unaware of what's going on, who only wants to train his new route partner, Billy - little do the two Los Angeles-based garbage collectors understand the eventful day ahead of them, as one assassination attempt after another hunts their every move through Hollywood.
Don's (Review): This volume collects issues 1-5 of the comic, and while I normally wait a day or two (minimum) to write a review, all the negatvie reviews and bashing of this book - on Goodreads especally - spurred me to write ths literally minutes after finishing. The problem on GR seems to be that some are posting low, one-star reviews, and then complaining about how incomprehensible the book was to them. In fact, when reading on, the problem becomes obvious: the reviewer read one or two issues of the comic, jumping in on the middle of the story, whch of course means so, so very much won't make sense. Worse, they are posting these reviews on the page dedicated to the 118-page collected volume of the five issues and NOT for the individual issues, therefore badly skewering the numbers when, in fact, the reviews being left don't apply to this volume! All - inredibly - WRONG; for my taste, even a slap-dash, too-quick ending that left me a bit "Huh?" still didn't hurt the fact that this is an over-the-top, often funny, and beautifully-illustrated parody, of sorts, of a supervillain movie where the majority of the villains are genuinely inept. I loved James and Billy, both good guys just trying to do their job, and as each attempt to kill them ends in delicious disaster, the stakes rise and the reader becomes more invested in wondering just what could a garbage collector have, on some super-rich Hollywood mogul, that'd be worth being killed for? It's a lot of fun, and yes if you are reading the compendium it all DOES make sense (contrary to some GR reviews) by the end; in fact, this would make a great limited series for something like Adult Swim or even Fox; the visual style of the book, as well as the writing, would be ideal for either. Not sure what Oprah would think of all that, considering the very thinly-disguised version of her here, in the form of a major member of The Privy Council - but yeah, please don't listen to the negative reviews; at least not until you've read the full compilation volume, and enjoyed some great art and snarky humor tthat will keep you turning pages. 3.5/5 stars
NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.
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