MISC. MANGA, *Cereal

Having already done comedic revisions of stapled pieces of nostalgia such as The Flintstones and Snagglepuss, the creator of the Jesus/Superman crossover Second Coming did a series of short stories for Edgar Allen Poe comics published by Ahoy Comics. Cereal was an anthology of connenected stories set in the same world where old breakfast cereal mascots are constantly battling for power. It is like what Universal had in mind for their failed Dark Universe but actually pretty good with tongue in cheek satire. The macabre look by Starman artist adds to the dark humor.

In a land made of several strange characters like anthropomorphic animals and monsters, the Marquis de Cocoa got turned into a vampire by one of his subjects, and he tries to keep this secret from his neighboring allies who frequently come to his castle for a big cereal-filled breakfast. Meanwhile the Leprechaun King's enchanted Crown Of The Four Wisdoms has been stolen by a traitor to the throne who is trying to keep it away from the maniacal General Post, a warlord whose army of bizarre creatures is rampaging the countryside, including the reanimated body of the now pink-colored Franken Barrie. All this has the various leaders trying to monopolize on their own personal crusade of dominating breakfast which they believe is this most overwhelming force in the world. This concludes with a showdown of the surviving mascots at Post's Fortress Honeycomb.

The trade paperback collects all the original chapters from Edgar Allen Poe including three new installments that complete the story. There are some dark takes on classic cartoon characters like the Sugar Smacks frog being a gravedigger, the Rice Crispies elves as a crew trio of barflies, and Cap'n Crunch as a ruthless cutthroat. Cereal might seem like nothing more than a dark spoof of Saturday Morning commercials, but it is engaging take on familiar faces blended into a Game Of Thrones fantasy world.