Grizzlyshark TP
(Collects Grizzlyshark #1-3)
Written and Illustrated by Ryan Ottley
Published by Image Comics
ISBN-13: 9781632158840
$12.99
Grizzlyshark is a graphic novel about a bunch of people being killed by sharks in the woods. It’s supposedly meant to be humorous.
What can I say about Grizzlyshark?
In spite of a couple of encouraging cover blurbs from the likes of Robert Kirkman, I found very little redeeming value in the entire book.
But then, I’m not in its intended demographic. It’s made for the folks who binge watch the Sharknado movies, the folks who found the mindless gore of watching beloved characters get disemboweled in Archie vs. Sharknado side-splitting rather than nauseating.
It’s not just the violence that bothers me. I go back a long way with Herschel Gordon Lewis movies and I’ve seen my share of Troma flicks over the years. My main problem with Grizzlyshark is that it claims to be funny but then it spends an awful lot of time on maimed children and babies, which simply are NOT funny.
When I read or watch these kinds of things, I feel as though spending my time doing just about anything else would be more productive. And what’s the attraction with sharks anyway? Jaws worked but that was four decades ago and everything from Jaws II to today has just seemed redundant.
Is there anything at all good about Grizzlyshark? Well the good and the bad both fall to Ryan Ottley.
Credited with writing, art, and letters, his writing is too juvenile for the level of violence involved and his lettering is haphazard and amateurish looking. Ottley’s art is the sole saving grace of the book, though. If one can distance one’s self from the tasteless subject matter that runs non-stop for nearly a hundred bloody pages, you might discover a very talented cartoonist, with a particular gift for expressive faces. Ryan Ottley is a name I want to remember in the hopes that he’ll eventually get some projects actually worthy of his efforts rather than just cashing in on current trends.
But I could do without seeing any more of Grizzlyshark.
