The Fez is, unsurprisingly, a lot of fun. The longest story in the issue has the Fez helping exorcize the queen of England. It comes in the middle of the comic, after Langridge has done some smaller stories establishing the Fez as something of a buffoon. There's a great Twitter-related joke to show just how out of it the Fez can get; he's an invisible man, so who knows what kind of stresses he's under.

But the Queen story moves fast and unexpectedly–The Fez is a very British comic, one of the most British things I've read from Langridge–and he doesn't slow down for the reader. The jokes get their own space, but Langridge doesn't make any extra.

The final story has the Fez versus a bunch of his foes, in something of a Spirit homage. It works out too.

It's just a solid little book from Langridge. Very pleasing.

B 

CREDITS

Writer, artist and letterer, Roger Langridge; publisher, Hotel Fred Press.

With nine to ten pages of actual content (the count depends on what constitutes content), Roger Langridge doesn’t have a lot of time in the first issue of The Fez. The cover, with its booming title design, vaguely reminds of The Spirit and the first page does have a recap of the Fez’s villains. They’re very funny villains.

None of them appear in the rest of the issue. The first story has the Fez haunting a thief–three glorious pages. Langridge turns nine very short lines of narration into a very amusing little story. The Fez, you see, is an invisible person wearing a fez, hence the title.

The bigger story involves the Fez doing experiments–to regain his visibility I assumed but Langridge doesn’t address it–and having a hallucinogenic journey.

The comic’s an art tour de force, but Langridge is so good at precise narrative, it’s sublime too.

CREDITS

Writer, artist and letterer, Roger Langridge; publisher, Hotel Fred Press.