Publisher: Dynamite
Writer: Roger Langridge
Artist: Roger Langridge
Release Date: 31st December 2013

So who remembers Evil Ernie, The genocidal mentalist from Chaos comics in the 90’s?, Well say good bye because gone is the Evil in favor of Lil’. This is being released through Dynamite’s child friendly Lil’ Dynamite imprint. A wise decision? well lets see…

First thing to note this is severely toned down as you would expect to suit a new younger audience. Ernie is no longer a ectoplasmic rotting fleshbag as before. He’s just a naughty boy. With a proclivity for hanging around graveyards, The character of Smiley who was previously Evil Ernie’s wisecracking badge/button that channeled his powers to the darkside as now a anthropomorphic smiley face with a skeleton body who acts as his companion getting him into all manners of scrapes.

It’s all very cute and has a slant to Archie kind of humor even the artwork has a Archie feel to it, But far too tame to appeal to die hard Ernie fans in my estimation. The character has always from his inception been overkill, trying to raise Armies of the dead to slaughter mankind… So it seems an odd choice to do as cute. But I get it, look at Deadpool times that by Skottie Young and you got a steaming pile of money… It works elsewhere, For me though not here.

This may appeal to those who like that kinda spooky but cute type feel, Otherwise this is totally a book for kids and that is how it would appear to be marketed. I don’t want to outright dismiss it but I feel this is a step too far for the Ernie character. Even though Ernie books have always had a quirky sense of humor to them this is dumped in favor of farts, using toothpaste to make graffiti and the three bears in Goldilocks being replaced with zombies.

Buy it and give to the kids if you have any, otherwise best to avoid this one.

Rating: 4/10.

The writer of this piece was:
Gary Kane aka (GK)
Article: Where are They Now (Prev: Under The Influence)
GK tweets from @Kanoclassic