Axe Cop

Axe Cop
Author(s) Malachai Nicolle, drawn by Ethan Nicolle
Website www.axecop.com
Current status / schedule

Story episode every Tuesday and Thursday;

"Ask Axe Cop" every Wednesday
Launch date December 2009
Genre(s) Action, Parody

Axe Cop is a webcomic by brothers Malachai Nicolle (age 5 when the series began, now age 7) and Ethan Nicolle (age 29 when the series began). Malachai is responsible for the ideas and stories, while Ethan turns them into comics.[1][2][3][4][5] The first four comics were drawn in December 2009 and posted to Facebook; the website was not launched until January 2010.

The site also features Ask Axe Cop, a series of comics where Axe Cop responds to questions from readers.[6]

The webcomic has been highly praised, leading to a publishing deal with Dark Horse Comics for both a limited online and print run.

Contents

Synopsis

Axe Cop is about the adventures of a police officer who prefers to wield an axe in battle. He's a gruff, tough man dedicated to killing bad guys. The comic focuses on the times he's called away from the daily grind to help with more complex problems, such as rescuing a child from a zombie dog woman, helping Bat Warthog Man find his friends, or babysitting. This generally involves fighting bad guys from other planets. Axe Cop has gathered a loyal team. His first ally is Flute Cop, who goes on to become Dinosaur Soldier and various other things.

Axe Cop is nominally set in the present day, enlivened with dinosaurs, zombies, robots, etc., and with a propensity to feature whatever topic happens to be holding the writer's attention, such as sea creatures, brains, and especially babies. Little effort is made to keep track of backstories, powers, and equipment. This is not to say that the comic is entirely chaotic: the main characters and their relationships stay consistent, there are persistent world-building elements (most notably the shape-shifting properties of being splattered with blood), and a number of powers and items recur (e.g. the hypnotize button on Axe Cop's wrist has not been mentioned again, but the robot arms in his mustache are explained.)

Background

Ethan Nicolle was already fairly well known for his critically acclaimed graphic novel Chumble Spuzz when he got the idea to write Axe Cop.[7] The idea arose when Ethan was playing pretend with his brother, who invented the Axe Cop persona.[8] At the time, the elder Nicolle was working on a graphic novel that he wanted to release as a webcomic, and he intended to use Axe Cop as a way of practicing the medium.[7]

Characters

Critical reception

Entertainment Weekly listed the comic as their "Site of the Day" on January 28, 2010. In her review, Margaret Lyons described it as "all kinds of silly fun" and asked, "Are we looking at the next great comic franchise?"[10] Detroit News said in their review, "'Axe Cop' is a hoot."[11] GQ named the comic their "Time Waster of the Day" on February 4, 2010.[12]

In response to the success of the online comic, Nicolle was approached by several comic publishers to print an Axe Cop series. With help of the Gotham Entertainment Group, Nicolle found that both he and Dark Horse had the same level of interest in the publishing deal, and accepted their offer. Dark Horse published an ashcan copy of Axe Cop for the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, which included the first five episodes of the web comic and some of the "Ask Axe Cop" strips. Dark Horse published the 3-issue Axe Cop miniseries "Bad Guy Earth" in the second quarter of 2011.[13]

Collected editions

Dark Horse Comics are collecting the comics into individual volumes:

Other media

An expansion for Steve Jackson Games' "Munchkin" featuring Axe Cop, with art drawn by Ethan.[14]

References

  1. ^ Collins, Sean T. (January 29, 2010). "'My five-year-old could write that!': Bow before the blade of Axe Cop". Robot 6. Comic Book Resources. http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/01/my-five-year-old-could-write-that-bow-before-the-blade-of-axe-cop/. Retrieved February 3, 2010. 
  2. ^ Yerman, Jordan (January 28, 2010). "Axe Cop: Ethan & Malachi Nicolle's Webcomic Strikes Meme Gold". NowPublic. http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/axe-cop-ethan-malachi-nicolles-webcomic-strikes-meme-gold-2565702.html. Retrieved February 3, 2010. 
  3. ^ Hudson, Laura (January 29, 2010). "Axe Cop: The Comic Written by a 5-Year-Old, Drawn by a 29-Year-Old". ComicsAlliance. http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/01/29/axe-cop-the-comic-written-by-a-5-year-old-drawn-by-a-29-year-o/. Retrieved February 3, 2010. 
  4. ^ Rickmers, Dan (February 3, 2010). "Axe Cop: The Web Comic Written by a Five-Year-Old". NYU Local. http://nyulocal.com/entertainment/2010/02/03/axe-cop-the-web-comic-written-by-a-five-year-old/. Retrieved February 3, 2010. 
  5. ^ Banks, Dave (February 5, 2010). "Sockarangs, Pretzel Heads and Uni-Babies - A Glimpse Inside The World Of Axe Cop". Wired. http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/02/axe-cop/. Retrieved February 5, 2010. 
  6. ^ Hudson, Laura (February 2, 2010). "Axe Cop, The Interview: Talking with the 5 and 29-Year Old Creators, Malachai and Ethan Nicolle". ComicsAlliance. http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/02/02/axe-cop-the-interview/. Retrieved February 3, 2010. 
  7. ^ a b "Brother of Axe Cop!". Geekchicdaily. February 4, 2010. http://www.geekchicdaily.com/story/brother-axe-cop. Retrieved June 4, 2010. 
  8. ^ Lee, Landon (February 1, 2010). "5 year old's comic 'Axe Cop' sweeps the Web!". KXTV. http://www.news10.net/news/watercooler/story.aspx?storyid=74409&catid=335. Retrieved June 4, 2010. 
  9. ^ http://axecop.com/index.php/acepisodes/read/mal1/
  10. ^ Lyons, Margaret (January 28, 2010). "Site of the Day: Axe Cop". Entertainment Weekly. http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/01/28/site-of-the-day-axe-cop/. Retrieved February 3, 2010. 
  11. ^ Detroit News review
  12. ^ GQ Time Waster of the Day
  13. ^ Arrant, Chris (August 2, 2010). "Artist's Six Year-Old Brother Inspires DHC Series AXE COP". Newsarama. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/axe-cop-ethan-nicolle-100802.html. Retrieved August 2, 2010. 
  14. ^ Doctorow, Cory (2011-03-11). "Axe Cop meets Steve Jackson Games". Boing Boing. http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/11/axe-cop-meets-steve.html. Retrieved 2011-03-11. 

External links