Buddy cop films may have died down to the point where they’re one-in-a-million, but some genres do try to do something with it. In fact, comic creators Damon Gentry and Troy Nixey came together to create “Vinegar Teeth,†a sort of buddy cop comic book that makes fun of the whole thing, and the first issue doesn’t disappoint.
Bad cop Detective Arthur Buckle has had his biggest sting foiled when some kind of alien comes along. In a strange twist of fate, the alien has amnesia, gets named “Vinegar Teeth†and is now Buckle’s partner. As usual, hilarity ensues.
This is a new spin on the buddy cop genre. So far, it’s actually a pretty cool comic. Buckle isn’t some good cop who’s treated like a bad cop. He is a bad cop to the Nth degree. He drinks, he makes fun of people, he’s always angry and he even falls asleep during a sting. Vinegar Teeth is the perfect polar opposite of this character and that just makes the entire comic that much funnier.
The tone of the comic may come across as a bit too mean-spirited for some seeing as Buckle is basically one of the worst human beings on the planet. VT does, however, balance things out and you do feel sympathy for him.
Nixey’s art can be best described as “gross-out humor†in the same vein as ‘Ren and Stimpy†and “Duckman.†Everything about this comic is ugly. The characters are ugly, the backgrounds are ugly, VT is ugly and even the colors are ugly. In a strange way, this style fits seeing how this is an ugly world with ugly characters. If this were done in another style, the point of the comic would be lost.
“Vinegar Teeth†takes the buddy cop genre and rips it a new with a story that, while mean-spirited, it has a dark humor vibe to it. Combine that with ugly art and you have a comic that just works in all the weirdest ways.
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