"Let the Man Eat!"

Southpark kills me like Kenny. I will take out stupid DVD's from the library just to open the end credits to see Bad Robot. I have the first two issues (were there ever more, I hope to God not?) of War Sluts, which may be arguably the worst comic book ever printed, not to say committed (as in crime) to paper.

And I read them.

There is Dumb, and there is Good Dumb. Crater On The Moon, published by Keith Curtis's Cyclops Unlimited, is Very Good Dumb.

Southpark is Good Dumb. War Sluts edges into Good Dumb when its writer allows a tongue-in-cheek hint that he knows how Dumb his stuff is (then again, that guy sells those World War Two catalogs that at one time featured the green concentration camp soap -- pocketed by pilfering GI's --for $6.00 a bar - not exactly value-added product). Hey Mister would like to pass as Dumb, but it's not dumb.

Crater On The Moon is so dumb. It's black-and-white fumetti - photos of the publisher and his friends, with word balloons. It has green-toned monsters on the cover, hybrid creatures with the wings and toothy faces of barely-developed dinosaur-birds, and the breasts and butts of some pretty sexy women (who posed for those? The publisher's girlfriend? Telephotos shots on a nude beach? Should Playboy's lawyers be checking out Fair Use guidelines?).

They're called space harpies. They're mostly in there as an excuse for an all-guy cast to aim big cylindrical weapons at naked booty.

Flip open these slick and well-produced little booklets ("Nice production values") and you'll run into names like Athena, Jason and Idemen. I thought this space opera was just following astronomy's and the space program's liking for Greco/Roman religions, until I ran into the Clashing Rocks.

Yes, warned readers, Crater On The Moon is another version of The Argosy. Conscious reference? It's as dumb as that creepy old men's magazine we used to sneak out of our dads' closets, but it's saved by its own goofball self-mockery, almost to the point of Cool (self-conscious Cool? Some Hipsters heads may explode). There's even a line involving pudding, which, if you're a Goon Show or Spike Milligan fan will put you in the right frame of mind.

Fumetti has a bad rap in comics, something I've never understood from a group of readers who slaver over Gary Milledge's Strangehaven. Gary managed to sqeeze something fresh from Twin Peaks with photos converted into pencil drawings. Even Roberta Gregory has been pussy-footing with a possible new fumetti series (You'll just have to keep an eye on her site [www.robertagregory.com], maybe beg her to share hints).

Before you think COTM is too ridiculous, especially in that portrayal of the harpies, go back and read the classics - that's the way the harpies are described in the original. All-guy casts shooting at half-naked feathered shit-bitches isn't something the Crater guys invented.

Keith gave me the three issues of Crater. I don't know if I could slog my way through more than those three, but if you like send-ups of the original golden age, a world so all-guy you'll think you're in the uniformed end of a gay bar, and some good, dirty slap-up fun, check out these minis. If nothing else, you can always claim you're studying Greek mythology. How smart will you look?

If you love Good Dumb, you're going to overload. If your head explodes, it may be because of the Harpy Ass.

$5.00 a 36-page (including covers) pop at www.crateronthemoon.com

And Keith plays bad-ass harmonica.