Code Monkey Like You, You Like Code Monkey
Code Monkey Save World
So there’s these two dudes, Greg Pak and Jonathan Coulton. Pak is a comic book writer, and he’s written awesome stuff like Planet Hulk, World War Hulk, Hercules, and lots of other stuff. Coulton is basically the Internet’s Favorite Musician, and he written lots of cool, geeky, tuneful songs, like “Re: Your Brains,” “Skullcrusher Mountain,” “Code Monkey,” “Still Alive,” and tons more. And a while back, Pak mentioned to Coulton on Twitter that he could probably write a comic book filled with the characters from Coulton’s songs. Coulton said go for it, and Kickstarter said yes, please, here’s some money, and here we are now.
So basically, we’ve got Charles, the lovestruck Code Monkey. We’ve got the robot invasion forces of Chiron Beta Prime, who kidnap Charles’ love interest Matilde. We’ve got sad-sack supervillain Skullcrusher, driven by jealousy and unrequited love. We’ve got Jorgensen, a champion curler who works for the government. We’ve got Villainy Affiliated, LLC — Zombie Bob, Creepy Doll, and Architeuthis, the giant squid. Can Charles save Matilde? Will Earth fall to Chiron Beta Prime? Can anyone stop the zombie apocalypse?
Verdict: Thumbs up. For a story based around a bunch of fairly goofy sci-fi songs, the plot holds together very well. It’s basically about a couple of guys in love with women who are hopelessly out of their league — and it’s about a couple women learning they’re good enough to take on the world and win.
The characters are insanely fun, at least partly because they’re so wonderfully created. The personalities and characterization are really strong and in many cases, actually end up being pretty consistent with Coulton’s songs, too. Not in all cases — Skullcrusher is less competent, and his love Laura is the exact opposite of a damsel in distress — but the story is a lot more fun this way.
And big ups to the third major creator in this musical comic cake (It’s so delicious and moist), Takeshi Miyazawa, whose artwork is the perfect blend of funny cartoons, action adventure, and emotional heart-tugging.
This is available digitally or you can try to find the print collection — which may mostly be available for Kickstarter backers, but ya never know. Maybe it’ll be available in stores in the future soon.