I had no idea what the hell Ape Entertainment’s
Pocket God #1 was going to be when I started reading it. At
the end it felt both familiar yet different and something I wouldn’t
mind picking up again.
Pocket God is in
fact a game for the iPhone and Ape has been tasked with creating a
comic book version of the game. In Pocket God a group of
pygmies go about their daily life praying and worshipping their god.
At the same time a meteor is racing towards their island. One of the
smarter pygmies notices the meteor and realizes it’s going to land
where he’s sitting. He convinces one of the others to switch places
with him. The other pygmy is then squished to death by the meteor.
So begins this twisted little story about a group of pygmies who are
in fact immortal and rather careless about their lives, it’s not
like they are going to run out at any stage that is, until the gem
that gives them their immortal life begins to die.
This twist that the pygmies die a lot but don’t
stay dead was totally unexpected as I’d never played or even heard
of the game. The comic does have that real Saturday morning cartoon
feel to it with the design of the pygmies and the use of a lot of
color but the relative lack of care when it comes to death was a
little macabre. It also didn’t have as much laugh out loud humor as
I was expecting. The death and injury was done in a way that wasn’t
quite Looney Tunes over the top (because they died) but it wasn’t
serious either (even before you knew about the immortality you
didn’t quite believe they died). I also struggled to see where it
would go in future issues.
I also found it hard to differentiate between the
different pygmies. They didn’t differ too greatly in their design (a
misshaped bone or different color skirt) and I actually thought
several of them sounded the same as well even though they were
supposed to have some sort of defining personality (surfer/stoner,
intellectual etc). It made it hard to keep track of them and the
rate they were dying didn’t help either. Their eyes were also really
creepy and kind of unsettling.
What I did enjoy was the bit at the end. It told
the story of how the shark, with a laser on its head, that randomly
appears gets the laser on its head. That story had a lot of wise
cracks and a lot of sight gags that I thought worked really well
plus it was fun to see the creators take the time out to explain
such a random and relatively inconsequential character as the shark.
On the whole Pocket God #1 was a fun,
twisted little comic reminiscent of a Looney Tunes cartoon gone
wrong. The bulk of the story was okay and easy enough for someone
who hasn’t played the game to understand but the highlight was the
extra story at the end.
