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Axe Cop: Volume 1

Malachai Nicolle (Author), Ethan Nicolle (Illustrator)

Dark Horse Comics (Publisher)

Review by Diana Guild

Ethan was on a holiday visit with his family when five-year-old Malachai displayed a toy axe and insisted he play “cop” with it. The concept of Axe Cop was born in that discussion, and Ethan began to quickly sketch out comics with Malachai’s imaginative direction. Axe Cop Vol. 1 includes web comics that came from this foray, “ask Axe Cop” segments (answers to emails about what Axe Cop would do in a situation) and a longer story developed over the phone between the brothers. It’s chock full of twisted hilarity (I was literally LOL awkwardly in public; sorry, fellow coffee shop patrons). From a transgender Abraham Lincoln to a tyrannosaurus rex with Gatling guns for arms, kids say the darndest things (then Ethan draws them). Malachai’s naïve understanding of right and wrong—mostly the concept of good guys versus bad guys and the absolute lack of consideration the latter deserve—takes on a variety of insane forms, as do the bad guys themselves. A poison flower “turns you into a kid, then you die.” A villain made of dookie summons his minions by making the entire world poo. There’s some seriously dark comedy in these well-illustrated pages.

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