Grillo-Marxauch writes for “Lost,” which actually isn’t emblazoned across any of The Middle Man’s covers. Lots of TV writers are either coming out as huge comic fans who can’t wait to write comic books or they just say something along those lines and collect a few (a few) extra bucks writing the comics. I’m not sure what publishing plan The Middle Man is under, but I imagine Grillo-Marxauch is doing it for love, not for money.
You can’t tell the “Lost” connection from Middle Man. There are a handful of characters in the comic’s four issues, probably less than fifteen speaking parts, and “Lost” has a lot of human conflict, which Middle Man does not. Middle Man is a fun comic book. It has talking monkeys and stoners who like Shaft. It’s not a serious work, it’s a goof.
Even as a goof, Grillo-Marxauch does make a couple major character mistakes... Primarily, he makes the reader hate a character, revel in this character’s humiliation, then reintroduces the chooch an issue later as sympathetic. There are a few other little annoyances through-out--the constant, quasi-retro pop culture references--but it’s the lack of character continuity that really bugs the shit out of me. There’s no reason for it and no excuse.
The artist, Les McClaine, does a good job--especially illustrating what will undoubtedly also be the monster in “Lost.” It’s a huge blob, with a butt-hole on it. McClaine’s cartoonish style has a lot of movement in it, which the comic needs, since--for the first few issues--it’s obvious the comic is coming from a screenwriter. By the last issue, Grillo-Marxauch (who’s got way too long of a name to keep repeating and I’m too lazy for copying and pasting) has got a good style going and The Middle Man is a good comic book. It doesn’t even fail coming from ‘a writer and supervising producer of “Lost,”’ it disappoints coming from the guy who wrote the first couple issues (but the fourth is really nice).