Grease Monkey by Tim Eldred

While perusing the stacks in my local used book store, I ran across a book in the graphic novel section called "Grease Monkey" by Tim Eldred (produced by Tor Books). Pulling the book from the shelf, I looked at the cover and immediatly started laughing. The image of a humanoid gorilla wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a no crap symbol on it struck me as hilariously funny. Flipping through the book, I was struck by the high quality of the artwork. I started reading it and found myself engrossed in the story. I knew I had to buy it, so I did. It was worth every penny.

I was also pleasantly surprised that it was relatively clean as well. It's been my belief that the best writers have a tendency to be the ones who can write a good story without resorting to sex or gratuitous violence. It's too easy to use either one to pad out a story or to cover up other deficiencies such as a mind-numbingly boring plots, poor characters, etc. The majority of the current output from Hollywood seems to back up my argument. In any event, "Grease Monkey" has neither of these and manages to tell a great story, with plenty of humor, interesting characters and a decent art style.

The author has the first six chapters available on his web site  as well as an electronic first draft of  the sequel called "Grease Monkey: Book 2 - A Tale of Two Species" (The sequel is planned for print publication but a release date has yet to be announced.)

My friend Mike, who doesn't really like comics or graphic novels, was bored one day and decided to try "Grease Monkey". He LOVED it! Now he owns a copy of it too. You should pop on down to your local bookstore or head on over to Amazon.com and pick up a copy. You won't regret it.