Max Acts Out

I may be wrong, but I’m assuming the kid in the metal costume with a pointy nose and an empty chest is dressed as the Tin Woodman. That’s enough Ozzy content for a Tuesday, I decided.

These panels come from this August 2010 installment of Max Overacts, a webcomic about a theatrically minded (i.e., loud, egocentric, and usually irrepressible) nine-year-old. Yesterday I received my copy of the first collected volume of the strip, subtitled Hold On to Your Stubs, mailed to me direct from Calgary.

The comic’s creator, Caanan, published the book in part by soliciting advance orders through Indiegogo last year. The paperback volume is nicely printed in full color. There are previously unseen strips about Max’s older sister, Andi. The only thing I feel is missing is some sort of introduction or commentary.

The book has the horizontal format specified by DC Comics’s Zuda initiative years back. That’s designed for reading on a computer screen, a format that goes back to the movie screen via TV. A lot of other webcomics have adopted the same aspect ratio. Zuda is no more, but its specs live on. As I wrote back here, that's a less common format for books and comics, but I expect we’ll see more of it.

Also from Caanan, a convention sketch of the New Teen Titans, disco era: