John Layman and Dave Crosland's Puffed is a three-issue limited series from Image.  Or, to use Image's terminology, it's a three-issue finite series.  I'm not sure what Image have against the words "limited series" but their solicitations are pretty adamant these days that an Image series is finite and not limited.

Presumably that means that Spawn is an infinite series.  An alarming concept if ever there was one.

Anyway.  Puffed is one of those ridiculously simple ideas that I feel must have been done before, yet I can't actually remember anywhere specific.  Amusement park worker Aaron Owens is having the worst day of his life.  As punishment for turning up late, he's been saddled with the Puff dragon costume.  A huge, cumbersome beast of a costume which you can't actually take off without outside assistance.

You can see where this is heading, can't you?

But with farcical ideas like this, that's a positive strength.  Books like this work precisely because you can see the catastrophe coming a mile off.  And even though this issue is really entirely about setting up the premise which is, well, already evident from the front cover, it still works because it's so ridiculously inexorable.  And also, just generally, so ridiculous.

This is artist Dave Crosland's first major work in comics; judging from his website, his work before this seems to comprise a few mini-comics and some contributions to Digital Webbing Presents.  On the letters page, he cites Jim Mahfood as an inspiration.  That's clearly an influence, but Crosland seems to think much more in terms of page layout and pacing than Mahfood's more strip-oriented approach.  Occasionally there are lapses of clarity (there are a couple of one-panel scenes I don't quite get), but generally it's an enjoyable mix of chaotic exaggeration and energy.

Completely ridiculous, of course, but very funny.

Rating: A

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