Scud: The Whole Shebang

Scud is a wild trip to the absurd that has your attention from start to finish. You stay dazzled by the insanity, the humour, the twists, and is a rollercoaster of emotions. This is a perfect distraction from the real world, and if anything is much more hopeful. It's fun! Enjoy this ride.

Comic books in my day where hard to come by in my neck of the woods, and if there were any, it was usually either Batman, Superman, or some other usual super hero book, and frankly, I couldn't get into them to save my life. I had heard about Scud, though for the life of me, I can't exactly remember when (that was 20 years ago give or take), and for the longest time, I tried finding even a single issue, with zero success, and my parents were too keen on driving all over the city just to "find some comic book", as they said. So for the longest time, I had all but forgotten it, until several years ago when I happened to watch a short film that was also from Rob Schrab (Robot Bastard). That's when my hunt started again, this time around yielding some, but not very promising results. Bummed that I wasn't going able to finish the collection, I found out that The Whole Shebang existed. I ordered one, which turned out to be a late birthday present, and since then, I've read The Whole Shebang more times than looking at my high school year books. Scud isn't your typical hero. In fact, he's pretty much a anti-hero. He looks very impressive in the vending machine, but once he gets out, he slumps over with a look on his face (if you can call it that) that he would rather be doing something else. Tasked to kill a monster, whom he decides to call her (yes, her) Jeff, he finds out through complete accident that once he finishes her off, he will go boom. Thinking "F that, I got better things to do", Scud dismembers this beast and decides to go freelance so he can keep paying her life support bill (almost sounds like a marriage to me). Throughout his entire adventure, he makes some friends, makes some enemies (probably makes more enemies than friends), nearly loses one of his appendages to a werewolf astronaut, does battle with Benjamin Franklin on a almost regular basis, and that's on his good days. At the end, there are a few unanswered questions, but for the most part, the story ends on a good and hilarious note. So if the usual fanfare of comic books doesn't do it for you, and if you like your comics or story a little on the weird side, then Scud the Disposable Assassin The Whole Shebang is the one for you.

Comic books (or graphic novels, if you want to sound like a sir) often get a bad rep. Seen as children's amusements, most people ignore them, never giving them a second thought. Their loss. Scud: The Disposable Assassin is a tour-de-force of art and word. Although it begins simply enough, it builds and builds, taking twists and turns and assaulting the reader with so much awesome by the end you'll no doubt be grabbing for a pen or pencil to start your series. The characters are original and inventive, the story line wild, almost totally out-of-control, but Rob Schrab keeps us hurtling towards a satisfying conclusion. Amazingly, despite being written in the 1990's, there is little to no outdated slang or obscure references to distract the reader. The series is presented in black-and-white on thick, glossy pages to make for a heavy, hardy tome to enjoy for years. Even if you've never read a comic book/graphic novel or heard of Scud before, you will be pleasantly surprised. It's hard to find anything bad to say about Scud. If the benchmark of true art is that it moves, inspires, awes, and touches one, Scud meets it. Hardly children's stuff at all (on a serious note, do not get this for your kid-trust me). Now, if you'll excuse me, it's a full moon and my werewolf arm is acting up.

When my friend told me his favorite comic was about a disposable robot assassin that will self destruct if he kills his first target a female plug head monster named Jeff with mouths for knees and mousetraps for hands, so he has to take on other jobs to keep her alive at the hospital, I raised an eyebrow, took a look and was like that's kinda out there man and sadly put the book down. Welp fast forward several years to now where I'm missing my friend. So I picked up Scud to see what it was all about. It's beautiful, funny, cool and soul filled. Beyond entertaining it really touched me. I fell for all the characters even Jeff. It made me feel closer to my friend too. Thanks Rob.

Ordered book as a Christmas gift which arrived in perfect condition!

I couldn't really tell you where I first heard about Scud: The Disposable Assassin, a cult favorite indie comic that ran for a few years in the late nineties before a long hiatus that culminated in an ending published nearly ten years later. But the premise was so good - a robotic assassin purchased from a vending machine discovers that it's going to self-destruct when it kills its primary target, so instead keeps it alive on life-support by taking odd jobs for the mob and anyone else who wants someone killed - and the bonkers tone so beloved that I knew I needed to check it out. So when Scud: The Disposable Assassin: The Whole Shebang, a collection of the entire series, went on sale, I decided it was time to pick it up. Nearly 800 pages long, The Whole Shebang covers all 24 issues of the comic - the original 20 and the 4 issue final arc - as well as two standalone episodes that provide backstory for a couple of characters. I had no idea what I was getting into, but what I got was absolutely, wonderfully, incredibly bonkers on almost every imaginable level. How bonkers, you ask? Let me give you a slight rundown of things that happen in this series: A horrific eldritch horror with a plug for a face, mousetraps for hands, and a piano sticking out of its back Scud getting a human arm that also turns out to be a werewolf arm that ends up making him speak in Elizabethan English Benjamin Franklin as an evil voodoo mastermind that's running his factory with kites attached to massive keys The ghost of Gus Grissom A sidekick named Drywall who appears to be a large sack covered in zippers that can pull out anything from the extradimensional space inside of him (and who, incidentally, becomes one of the series' most oddly heartbreaking characters) Scud placing a crown of barbed wire on his own head in a berserker rage and declaring himself "Jesus with a laser gun" (see below) An intergalactic he-man competition that includes zero-g bullfighting, jackhammer fencing contests, and more The severed head of Jayne Mansfield conjuring demonic entities courtesy of Anton LaVey An 8o's summer camp/slasher film pastiche Zombie dinosaurs And honestly, that doesn't even scratch the surface. (Did I mention it all takes place during the Rapture?) Taking that basic premise - Scud's efforts to keep his first target alive - creator Rob Schrab, along with writers including Dan Harmon, toss in every idea they could possibly have and then some, creating this unbelievably ridiculous saga that's satirical, funny, action-packed, wildly imaginative, and surprisingly engaging. Scud is undeniably a product of its times - it has a lot of the spirit of the indie comics boom, and an anarchic spirit that could easily be dismissed as "random" if it didn't hold together in its own wonderfully weird, incoherent way - but it's also engaging and well-told, delivering some great action sequences and a constant sense of escalation that never gets boring or old. And as it satirizes the world around it, from TV competitions to brand names to sitcom tropes to absurd masculinity to the (then deeply relevant and timely) worries of sampling replacing actual talent, Scud makes you laugh at the world as often as you're laughing at the book itself. Now, this is a book that never really stops moving, and that can definitely get exhausting at times. But Schrab and company know how to make things work, and it's a wonder that all of the many, many action sequences all work - they don't get old, they don't get redundant, and they all stay fun, inventive, and well-staged. This is a series about a robotic assassin, of course, and so it's all about combat. And for a long time, that's pretty much what it all appears to be - chaos, absurdity, and violence on a grand scale. But then, we get to the end of the original arc, and the final arc, and things...turn. The story about Scud goes like this: Rob Schrab was dealing with a breakup, and decided to impress the girl and get her back by drawing a comic. But the comic - Scud - got his mind off of her, and became a hit. And Rob was having fun. And then he got his heart broken again, and the thing he loved was becoming a burden...and Scud got dark. Really, really dark. And rather than ruin the thing he once loved - a thing Schrab was apparently worried he had already done - he left the original series on a bleak, depressing cliffhanger and a moment of violence that feels excessive even by the standards of the series, not in gore, but in terms of emotion. And then, nearly a decade later, Schrab returned, and not only ended his series, but did so in a surprisingly heartfelt and emotional way - maybe to a fault, but a way that feels like it both values the characters but also - and maybe more so - reflects a Schrab who's a lot happier in his life, but also wrestling with what it meant to leave this world behind for ten years for pretty petty reasons. All of that means that Scud is sometimes more interesting as a reflection of Schrab than it is as a comic, especially in those final five issues, as Schrab's own feelings are coming through more and more clearly. And yet, even so, none of it keeps the book from being compulsively readable and generally completely fascinating, even as the final arc cuts way back on the anarchy of the rest and instead focuses in on the characters making their peace with who they are and their own place in the world. Look, Scud is, whatever else I can say about it, absolutely unclassifiable. Part sci-fi picaresque journey, part satire of America, part gonzo comedy, part relationship allegory, part action film, part supernatural thriller, part Mob drama...the list goes on. And no, it doesn't all fit together, and the ending is a bit jarring and doesn't quite fit the rest of the series, and the tonal shifts towards the end are odd. All of that is true. But it's also true that what you're getting is wildly entertaining, very funny, completely bonkers, compulsively readable, and unlike anything else you've ever read. It's a wonderfully personal work that's undeniably idiosyncratic, ambitious, sprawling, and messy, but all of that just makes it more interesting and wonderful to unpack and talk about. It's funny, violent, introspective, interesting, weird, thoughtful, metaphysical, and constantly entertaining, flaws and all - what else can you want in one book?

An excellent comic series that is very funny and personable. It follows a humorous and relatable character over the course of a story that is gripping and makes you want to read it through. Would definitely recommend.

My only issue with this book is that only the cover is in color. I have a few issues of the original series and there’s not much color outside of the covers, but what there is is amazing and lurid- everyone involved with the series gives a million percent effort. I still remember the ad that got me interested in the series all those years ago.