Maintenance by Jim Massey & Robbi Rodriguez

by Chriss Cornish published: December 12, 2007 No Comments

This Book Is About

You think your job is bad? Doug and Manny have you beat! These guys are janitors! But they’re not your typical custodial crew-no, sir! They’re the guys who keep things shiny and clean at TerrorMax Inc., the world’s biggest and best evil science think tank! When they’re not dealing with toxic spill monsters and talking mansharks, they still have to worry about mad scientists, crazy would-be dictators, and the cute girl who works at reception!

My Thoughts On This Book

I picked Maintenance up at the Oni Press booth during the 2007 ComiCon. It’s a fun little today-at-work-we-did-x graphic novel about two guys who work as janitors at a lab catering to evil scientists and monomaniacs.

I assume that’s why there’s a zombie kitten trapped in their break room’s vending machine.

Unlike most graphic novels that contain a single story line that was originally spread across multiple individual issues, Maintenance volume 1: It’s a Dirty Job has several separate stories. The effect is a short story anthology graphic novel. Later volumes, though, follow a single plot line.

I think my favorite story is the one where a legacy-project time machine accidentally sends Doug and Manny back to the stone age where they’re accosted by angry, jet-pack wearing cave dwellers who are sick of the useless high technology that one of the TerrorMax scientists keeps bringing them with the goal of making an unstoppable army of flying cavemen. They just want something practical they can use, like peanut butter.

Shade-tastic of Blankcity: How Well This B&W Comic Was Shaded

Maintenance has pretty good shading. It’s really more of a grayscale rather than a black-and-white comic, which I like because it’s easier to read. As I’ve mentioned in other reviews, I have a lot of trouble reading most B&W comics because they usually have minimal-to-nil shading that doesn’t give my abstract brain anything to focus on.

I didn’t have that problem at all with this graphic novel, thanks to it’s grayscale nature. I did feel, however, that the grays were almost too close in luminosity in some places, resulting in an occasional slight feeling of lack-of-contrast that my attempts at black-and-white photography always suffer from.

All in all, Maintenance is a fun graphic novel that anyone who likes comic science-fiction is sure to enjoy.