Wacky Raceland continues to be a zany, antisocial, mildly disturbing wondrous mess. There’s action all over the place, but Manco keeps it all in check. It’s like he can do wild, but it’s contained wild. It’s the perfect mix.

But Pontac comes through on the story too. He’s got this depressing, awful flashback into one of the racers’ pre-apocalypse lives. Turns out being sympathetic to the characters might be a mistake. This issue’s flashback is for Dick Dastardly and it’s part of the main story instead of a back-up. It works better this way; it makes Pontac have to do expository about the setting and it means Manco gets to draw different things in combination with one another. Manco has a very classical style and his uniform application of it–sci-fi and horror, for example–brings disparate visual elements beautifully. It’s fun to look at Wacky Raceland. It’s well done, but it’s also fun to see this stuff.

There’s also the Hanna-Barbera element. You never take Wacky Raceland too seriously, you never worry about some development being a disappointment. It’s a prime gig as far as reader expectation (if it were bad, it’d be the reader’s fault for buying it–come on, DC doing grim and gritty Hanna Barbara titles), but Pontac and Manco are still doing a great job with it.