Groom Lake is a four part miniseries from IDW. The series is written by IDW publisher Chris Ryall, whose previous work includes the fantastic Zombies vs. Robots, and Zombies vs. Robots vs. Amazons, with collaborator Ashley Wood. The art on the series is by Ben Templesmith, famed artist of 30 Days of Night, Fell, Wormwood: Gentleman’s Corpse, Welcome to Hoxford, and much more. This series is the first time that Ryall and Templesmith have ever collaborated on a project, but once you have read the comic, you’ll be asking yourself why they haven’t collaborated before, and be begging them to produce more comics together!

Groom Lake is a tale of alien abduction, reverse engineering, gigantic killer robots, star-crossed lovers, and a chain-smoking alien called… Archibald? Groom Lake is a quirky sci-fi, action-adventure full of irreverent humour, and sick and twisted hilarity.

The protagonist of the story is Karl Bauer, a hapless redneck nobody, whose crazy father was supposedly abducted by aliens. The thing is though, Karl’s father wasn’t crazy at all, which Karl discovers when government black ops agents beat down his door and take him away to a top secret government facility known as Groom Lake. If you are up on your alien conspiracy theory then you will known that Groom Lake is where they *really* have the UFOs and Greys, Area 51 was just a front! Karl soon finds himself in a weird, secretive government research facility where there are EETEEs, a psychotic killer robot named Barada-2, and the aforementioned Archibald – the original Grey that crash landed in New Mexico all those years ago. Bored of life after so many years in isolation Archibald is keen to try anything new that will stimulate his dulled senses, and to that end eats, drinks, and smokes like a chimney! The weirdest thing of all that Karl discovers though is what project black book wants with him. It seems that when the Greys abducted his father, they had far more in mind than just some fun anal probing, and they had performed experiments on his family’s genetic line. All this experimentation came to a culmination in Karl, who contains within him the ultimate destructive weapon, which may or may not have something to do with crotch explosions.

This Wednesday sees the release of the fourth and final issue of Groom Lake, and I have been fortunate enough to get an advance review copy of the comic. If you have not read Groom Lake #1 through #4 then be warned that the following review may contain some spoilers, but if you don’t mind that sort of thing… read on!

[Slight Spoilers]

In issue #3 we followed Karl, Roberta, Archibald, and the rest of the alien menagerie on the run from the U.S. air force, who were chasing them in bleeding edge aircraft technology, reverse engineered form salvaged alien crafts. Having evaded Project Black Book with a last minute trick up his sleeve, Archibald brought the team to France, to look for dark candies and smokes… mmm smokes! At the conclusion of the issue the team decided that they needed to return to the Groom Lake facility and destroy the weapon that the government were developing from Karl’s deadly DNA. One problem though, Barada-2’s dampeners have gone down, enabling him to send a signal to his homeworld, issuing a full scale invasion of Earth.

Issue #4 is the action packed, adrenaline pumping conclusion to the series. The issue kicks off with our crew of hapless aliens and humans completely at a loss to how to solve this situation. Project Black Book are closing in on their location, giant alien psycho robots are speeding towards the Earth, and they have a giant robot sized hole in the roof of their space craft. In a word, they’re screwed! Not to worry though, the odd little glowing beasties known as EETEEs have a plan, and decide to do the only thing they ever do -  “phone home”. Literally! They seem to summon a phone out of thin air and call for a ride home. So now there are two fleets of aliens bearing down on the Earth, and the crew still have to evade Project Blackbook. It’s a pickle alright!

I won’t tell you the ending of the tale, because I don’t want to ruin the story. However, I will say that there is a climatic battle, lovers are united, and two lost souls who have never truly experienced the world, realise in a poignant moment that they are not so different after all. Also, explosions, gore, dark chocolate, and smokes… lots of smokes!

[/Slight Spoilers]

Humour in comics is a hard thing to achieve. Many try, but often end up failing miserably. However, Chris Ryall has managed this feat with perfect aplomb. Obviously this isn’t the sort of humour that is going to appeal to everyone, there are some things in this book that are quite frankly, fucked up! For example, a man having his pet dog molecularly bonded to his penis, then said penis/dog exploding and spraying gore all over the man’s son. It *shouldn’t* be funny, but Christ did I guffaw when I read that scene. Every scene with Archibald in it had me laughing out loud, with his chain smoking, his strangely perverse innocence, his bizarre speech, his total reckless abandon, and his desire to experience life to the max!

I’m a huge fan of the Ben Templesmith, I love his art, his writing, and I love his sick & twisted sense of humour. Ben has a very distinctive and recognizable art style. That isn’t to say that his art is one dimensional, as he actually has a huge repository of techniques and methods. However, often you can see a piece of art and just know that it is a Templesmith, whether it be a fine illustration, a lycanthopic sex scene, or even a G.I. Joe Cover. Templesmith’s interior pencils on Groom Lake are a lot looser that some of the stuff he has being doing lately, which actually works in favour of the story, adding to the feeling of absurdity of the comic. His use of colour is, as always, creative and original, bringing the art to life through paints, and some inventive photoshoppery. It’s a really pretty book, except for the gory bits of course – those are deliciously gory and over the top!

Groom Lake has been one of my favourite series for the past few months that it has run. Comics tend to be so dark and grim these day, and it’s nice to be able to read something than doesn’t take itself all that seriously, and is content just to tell a great story and have a few laughs at the same time!

I’m sort of sad the story is over, and I’d love to see Ryall & Templesmith collaborate on future projects. They seem such a perfect match, like a marriage made in Hell!

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