MBQ Volume 2

In the first volume of this relentlessly entertaining OEL manga, Smith took the reader on a dizzying ride through the multiethnic maze of contemporary Los Angeles. The new volume opens at a private fight club just as Kevin "Big Bro" Brody, a hulking and brutal fighter, is about to kill a man with one horrific punch. Later we catch up with rookie cop Aidan, remorseful after serving up a vicious beating to a gun-toting gangsta perp in the first book. Later still, the brutish Brody gets into an apocalyptic fistfight with Dee, an equally brutal drug dealer, after finding out that Dee beat the living crap out of Richie, Brody's skinny dope-dealing, money-stealing twin brother. And there's our hero, Omario, a self-proclaimed comics genius whose own pages feature a hilariously offensive combination of cheesecake manga, tongue-in-cheek mecha, fantasy and superhero comics, and a bit of dopey science fiction for good measure. Super-expressive in the manga manner, Smith's drawings are dynamic and comical in the extreme. Smith has produced a smart social satire about L.A. life that's also a hip meta-comic designed to deconstruct the contemporary comic book. Full of breathtaking violence, hot sexy chicks and an utterly absurd comic-within-a-comic, MBQ is almost too good to be true. (Apr.)