The Goon is Eric Powell's award-winning fantasy comic book series, published by
Dark Horse Comics. Goon, a musclebound former freak circus assistant, is the top enforcer of the secretive mob boss Labrazzio, and he is in war for the control of the city with the Nameless Zombie Priest, who directs zombie hordes from his citadel at Lonely Street. Together with his loudmouthed sidekick Frankie, Goon battles zombies, robots, aliens and mad scientists. Mostly with his fists.
A
Genre Busting epic of pitch-black humor, tragedy and utterly grotesque monsters getting punched in the face, any description pales in comparison to the real thing.
The Goon is a comic where a vampire gets set on fire while being tied on the hood of a car zooming around the town.
The Goon is a comic where a Wild West zombie hunter must eat the flesh of his prey.
The Goon is a comic where the main character must blow up a burlesque but is diverted by a giant, violent transvestite.
Eric is working with
David Fincher and the crew down at Blur Studios to turn the Goon into an animated feature film. A proof of concept preview
came out
around Comic-Con 2010. A
Kickstarter to fund a feature length story reel to pitch to studios is has been fully funded.
This series provides examples of:
- All Myths Are True: There are multiple types of vampires, zombies, ghouls, Kaiju... and the nameless priest is Rumpelstiltskin.
- Anti-Villain: Dr. Alloy, a Well Intentioned
ExtremistKlutz - The Atoner: Buzzard. He wasn't able to stop the Zombie Priest from killing and enslaving the town he was sheriff of so he intends to kill the Priest no matter the cost.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Rather often.
- Bears Are Bad News
- Bi the Way: Roxi Dlite.
- Big Bad: The Nameless Man, The Zombie Priest.
- Blank White Eyes: Frankie.
- Call Forward: Young Goon hitting the Zombie Priest in the face with a rock because he "didn't like the look of 'im".
- Cerebus Syndrome: The tone of the series after Chinatown, to a certain extent. Vol. 11 takes things back into silly territory, though.
- Cross Over: With Hellboy and Metalocalypse.
- Department of Redundancy Department: "They glued it back together... With Glue!"
- Development Hell: The teaser for the film was compiled in an effort to get funding for a full feature. Despite the internet generally agreeing that it's pretty damn awesome, they still don't have any yet. Eric Powell/Dark Horse and their fans are crossing their fingers, though and the Kickstarter to help fund a story reel to ship around to studios just might help.
- Doomy Dooms of Doom
- Driven to Suicide
- Driving Question: What happened in Chinatown? Eventually explained in the titular arc.
- Eldritch Abomination: Parodied.
- Eye Scream: Franky's infamous "Knife to the Eye" attack.
- Fastball Special: The Goon does this with Frankie, naturally.
- The Film of the Book: Currently in preproduction.
- First Episode Spoiler: At the end of the first series (which is only three issues long), it is revealed that, Labrazio was Dead All Along, and The Goon is the real man in charge.
- Funny Animal: Spider...a spider in a derby with a gambling problem.
- Genre Busting: Action comedy-urban fantasy-Pulp adventure pastiche-Noir crime fiction-dramedy
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Though hidden most of the time. But how does this work with a Sociopathic Hero?
- Guile Hero: The Goon.
- Heterosexual Life Partners: Goon and Franky
- Hey, It's That Voice!: Hey Lex Luthor, don'cha have any of them high-tech gadgets to bust slackjaws with instead of just punchin' 'em?
- Hobos: Are treated as a re-occuring race of creatures, basically comparable to a Cannibal Tribe.
- The Hunter: Buzzard
- I Know Your True Name: The Zombie Priest
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Isabella. Twice.
- Kaiju: El Lagarto Hombre
- Karmic Death: Issue 37 A factory owner and his shoddy policies accidentally cause the death of 142 (mostly female) factory workers. When the survivors go on strike and get the Goon and union help, the factory owner gets the help of demonic forces. While in the middle of a "The Reason You Suck" Speech while staring at the riot down below, he sees the face of a widow that worked in his factory that he saw at the trial. She disappears and appears in his room, explaining how while she died, she will have justice.
- King Of The Homeless
- Love Makes You Evil: Buzzard converses with a ghost who killed several people-including his own wife and child- to feed a mistress he lusted after. The mistress however, didn't return the favor and left him to starve.
- Mood Whiplash: The series is as good at drama as it is at comedy, and often switches between the two.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The man who would become Buzzard was content drinking himself into a shallow grave, until the Zombie Priest came by to taunt him and lord his takeover of the town over him, spurring the man to his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Noodle Incident/Noodle Implements: Many of them. Frankie uses this trope when he talks about his sexual escapades, or describes the action in the metacomic, "The Goon and Satan's Sodomy Baby." There's also a character named Charlie (ahem) Noodles, who is always discussed in stories but never seen. There's also a few other ones here and there.
- Chinatown was one until it had an arc devoted to it.
- One-Winged Angel: Xiang Yao does this at the end of Chinatown.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Buzzard is a human being from the days of the Wild West placed under a curse by the Zombie Priest that basically makes him a Ghoul or an "Anti Zombie"- a living person condemned to wander the earth feeding on the flesh of the (preferably walking) dead. Of course, seeing as this makes Buzzard effectively immortal (at the very least, he doesn't age any more), causes him to hate the Zombie Priest, and compels him to devour both the Zombie Priest's followers and the corpses he uses to make new ones... this essentially makes Buzzard a fine example of The Punishment. At least in the sense of wanting to ask the one who gave him the curse "You thought this was a good idea... why?" Because it was an accident. Buzzard was about to shoot him in the face and the Priest used zombification magic on him, even though it's only supposed to be used on dead people.
- Re Tool: The first volume of the comic (released as a volume 0: "Rough Stuff") had a busier art style and less direction, and Powell's comments on it clearly paint it as almost an Old Shame.
- Real Person Cameo: Burlesque performer Roxi Dlite in issue #36.
- Running Gag: The dinglepiper
- Shout Out: Atticus Finch shows up for a page to take a shot at a rabid transvestite.
- The circus where the Goon grew up is populated by the cast of Freaks, who serenade his birthday dinner with the "One of us" chant.
- A scene in a bar has Frank Booth screaming about "Paps" Blue Ribbon.
- Sociopathic Hero: Goon and Franky
- Silence Is Golden: Issue #33 has no dialogue, just sound effects and one thought balloon that said "Censor".
- Sure, Let's Go with That: In an early issue, federal agents investigating Labrazzio uncover one of the Goon's most closely-kept secrets. In a dramatic climactic scene, they confront the Goon with what they've discovered, and announce the obvious conclusion: that all the evidence they've uncovered was planted by the Goon to send them off on a false trail. The Goon concurs with their conclusion, while making a mental note to destroy the evidence before somebody smarter finds it.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Often enough. Most of them are from Frankie
- Take That: Against South Park, Oprah, Anne Rice...
- Top Heavy Guy: Guess.
- Totempole Trench: The orphans do this.
- Unsound Effect: KNIFE TO THE EYE!
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Issue 37 is actually based on a real life tragedy although obviously with some events fictionalized.
- Wham Line: In Chinatown.
"I don't want you."
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Spoofed in one short.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: The Goon himself
- Although as he points out to a female vampire (a spoof of Ann Rice vampires), she was the manliest person there until the Goon and Frankie showed up.
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