It's a situation we can all identify with. Your best friends are: a redheaded warrior babe with "look at my boobs" battle armor, her partner (a beautiful tribal woman carrying a walking stick with a skull on top and a jungle-motif fur bikini) and a cranky green flying bat. On top of all that, you're a gingerbread man.

GUTWALLOW is very notable in that it's had a bit of a struggle in our sometimes cruel comic book industry. After a promising first issue, Diamond decreed it "Certified Cool" for issue number two, but after issue four stopped soliciting the book because it couldn't meet it's minimum sales requirements, which is a shame because it's a really charming, enjoyable book. So Dan Berger did what you're supposed to do when the going gets tough: he started selling the book through his Website, www.gutwallow.com.

guttwallow's world is full of fantasy staples: goblins, dwarves, wizards, warriors, etc, but it has something more. The star of the book is a gingerbread man. He gets his name from his job: he squibs guts in a large wooden tub for his master, The Necromancer. His speech is slow and sparse at first, but as the story grows so does gutty's character. Leafale and J'sika, the afore-mentioned warrior woman and shamaness, are part comic relief, part plot drivers, and part hardcore ass-kickers. Wyrmkiller the bat tends to, um, fly fast and complain. The story was obviously plotted as one long arc telling a story: elements from issue one carry all the way to number twelve, and several storylines converge to make good sense, even if the last few issues seem rushed in a few spots.

The world itself is rich with different races and creatures and plenty of subplots that will apparently be expanded on in Volume II. The main story of the book tells of the group's quest for a magical artifact and what they do when they find it. There's a lot of plot going on that we only get one or two-page glimpses of as issues go by, which is great for those of us in for the long haul, yet not essential to the main story. The art is simple, with a style that feels like a cartoon, but not skimpy on the detail. Backgrounds and buildings are well done, as we go from fantasy settings to rivers to forests to villages, and all have a real feel. gutty himself has wonderful character design, from his naïve expression to his ginger-soft body.

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Tom Spendlove is a regular contributor to PopImage

http://www.gutwallow.com
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