Gear Paperback – 13 Feb 2007

One of Doug TenNapel's best, purchased for Reddit BookShare 2013. Great story, characters and art...get yourself a copy, it's brilliant!

Cats, dogs and insects fight each other using giant robots. There's lots of invention but the story's a little all over the place. The artwork's pretty cool.

I orginally decided to by this because I loved Catscratch and Earthworm Jim so much and was pleasantly surprised. The main characters are the cats used in Catscratch but I definately enjoy them in this carnation even better. The stroy has whimsy, beautiful artwork and an amazing storyline. Sometimes, hilarious sometimes tragic. It made me laugh and cry. Read it.

Doug Tennapel has always been a creative fellow. I've loved his games such as Earthworm Jim and Skull Monkeys. As well as his TV shows such as Earthworm Jim and Catscratch. Now this book is somehow the "dark side" of Catscratch. Like Catscratch, the characters are Mr. Blik (known as Mr. Black), Waffle, Gordon Quid, and a cat that wasn't introduced on the TV show named Simon. Same wacky cats I can remember, just with a darker and more brutal storyline. Gear is so far one of my favorite books from Doug Tennapel because it brings back memories of watching Catscratch as a kid. Too bad they only had one season... I thought it was a great show. Well anyways I recommend this book to any Doug Tenappel or Catscratch fan, and I plan to buy more of Doug Tenappel's creative books in the future.

The black and white Gear TPB was the first comic of TenNapel's that I ever read. It was the book that convinced me to pick up the rest of his stuff as it was released. The art, the characters, the story -- all of it seemed explicitly designed to cater to my own personal artistic sensibilities. In short, it tickled my fancy.Years later, he has seen fit to re-release this special book with a great lookin' new paint job. My appreciation for the art has waned a little (I still love a lot of it, but I noticed, having seen TenNapel's more recent work, that it isn't as strong), but I find myself still appreciating the story as much as I did back in 1998. I was surprised to find that there were still several moments of genuine poignancy in this book about cats in giant robots: Simon's words from Heaven during his funeral; Mr. Black's epilogue narration.Of course, the other things I loved about Gear remain as well: the character designs, the dialogue (Gordon singing and thrusting while piloting the Gear must be seen), the unique humor, and established universe and the epic feel.Regarding the color: it's good. While I'm always a fan of good black and white line-work sans color, the addition in Gear in no way harms it. In most cases, it actually enhances it for clarity of reading. There are a few pages that worked better in the original black and white (some of the art without contour lines, for example), but overall the color is welcome.I'd recommend this book to fans of TenNapel's other work, as well as fans of goofy cartoon work in general. This stuff is great. Gear

This is a typical TenNapel graphic novel. It’s full of fun, quirky adventure and has overarching themes of loyalty and friendship. As usual, there is self sacrifice and lots of mind bending twists. Always something fun for kids as well as adults.

I remember reading this a while back, to the point where it was destroyed beyond repair. Then I went through some sort of maturity phase, I guess, and did that thing where many parts of your childhood disappear from everywhere except the darkest recesses of your mind. I've been doing some excavating, and found that many of my favorite things, albeit video games, comics, art and albums have an inexplicable link to one Doug TenNapel. I'm pretty sure it all started with this book.While simpler and more straightforward than some of his other books, there still remains a complex and beautiful story, engaging characters, and some of the most unique artwork and vision I've seen. On many of the pages you can just FEEL the intensity and ferocity with which he drew, and the recklessness and broad stroke style that he shows in this book is one of many reasons that sets him apart artistically from others in my eye. I own them all now, and urge you to do the same, starting with this one.If you remain interested, check out his other stuff, as he's left imprints everywhere, whether it be his video games (neverhood, skullmonkeys, earthworm jim), cartoons (catscratch, ewj), online videos (sockbaby), or album designs (Terry S. Taylor, Five Iron Frenzy.) It's nice finding an artist with this kind of vision and seemingly endless supply of stories who somehow seems to enjoy what he's doing more than I do.

This review is from someone who mainly became a fan of Doug Tennapel only within the last couple years. Back when the Gear series first released, I only had a casual awareness of Doug, in the context of Earthworm Jim. A few video games and FIF covers later, I sought out his work and was an immediate fan of all his other graphic novels.Despite being a huge fan, Gear eluded me due to its rarity. Finally reading it now, I can certainly see the evolution of Doug's ideas and style. The art is frenetic, loose, and dirty.Catscratch is the most obvious offspring of Gear, but an observer can clearly see elements which would later be incorporated into Creature Tech, Earthboy Jacobus, Iron West, and even Robot B*stard.Even if you already own the original comics, pick this one up. It's in vibrant, creator-approved full color and looks gorgeous. The story is sillier and less epic than Doug's later works, but has an immense energy to it. Also, it's got an interesting afterword from Doug, describing where life has taken him since Gear's original release.