Tim Eldred's indie comic book Grease Monkey — a great, funny space adventure comic — has been collected by Tor and has just hit the shelves. Grease Monkey is the story of a post-alien-invasion space-station where crack pilots drill ceaselessly to train for the rematch with the aliens — like Ender's Game, but wicked funny.
The Barbarian squadron are the all-woman leaders of the fleet, thanks in no small part to their mechanic Mac, who is an uplifted gibbon (part of a tribe of sentient apes that mixes with human society). The story is told from the PoV of Robin, Mac's young assistant, who is taken under Mac's hairy arm and treated to a crash-course in beating the system.
It's got space-battles, human-gorilla political clashes, and military humor: part Catch 22, part Planet of the Apes, and charming as hell. This is one of the rare fine comics that is a truly satisfying read for adults, but which contains nothing too racy for the average precocious twelve-year-old (said twelve-year-old will surely love this as much as her parents, by the way).
Kitchen Sink press published the first couple issues of this, but regrettably cancelled it. Eldred finished the series anyway, it being the sort of thing that you have to finish writing once you get started, and with the Tor edition, we get to read the whole story.
Update: Jim points out that the author's site has the first chapter up for free.
