Dicks vol. 2

Ugh.  If you’ve ever wondered about the boundaries of my love for the work of Garth Ennis, you have them right here.  “Dicks” is his series with artist John McCrea about two nitwits from Belfast, Ivor and Dougie, who get into the most disgusting kind of sexual and scatalogical adventures you can imagine.  This volume has them trying to save the world from a bunch of penis-headed aliens known as the Dong, saving Christmas by having the antichrist baby chopped up by a oblivious Chinese chef, and stopping the revenge murders of a real piece of shit.  Actually, make that a literal piece of shit.  Along the way you’ll see them mix it up with a loan shark who’s into genital mutilation, a recording exec who likes to have sex with a blow-up doll of himself, George W. Bush pissing and then trying to shit himself, and a giant orgy between supporters of the I.R.A. and British Army.

Ennis certainly succeeds in consistently topping himself with how disgusting things can get, but it’s all just scatology for scatology’s sake in the end.  There are a few amusing moments scattered throughout and they don’t even begin to salvage this jizz-encrusted, fecal-laden trainwreck.  At least “The Boys” had a decent story and interesting characters to balance out its outrageous parts.  “Dicks” has none of these and it’s ultimately just an example of a talented writer and artist team wallowing in the freedom of being able to do whatever they want in a comic.  If you want to let Ennis and McCrea know how much you like their work, please, PLEASE go buy the “Hitman” trades instead of this.  As for me, I’ll just be here regretting that I rescued this from one of the half-off bins at Comic-Con.