“What other two caballeros?”
Kotto Kotorra
Arcana Studio (2003)
“Legend Of Sweetfoot”
(plus a series of one or half-page short strips I won’t be reviewing individually)
WRITERS: Dave Alvarez & Sean O’Reilly
ARTIST: Dave Alvarez
Kotto is a parrot who runs a food truck in San Manati, Puerto Rico…while trying to convince tourists and shippers that Puerto Rico is technically part of the United States (not an actual state as of this writing though). In the main story Kotto takes his nephew Kotty, niece Kitty, and girlfriend(?) Katty camping but they’d rather hang out at their friend Chickenduck’s site because he has an RV and wifi. While there, Chickenduck tells the story of Sweetfoot, a bigfoot type creature who just wants to give people makeovers, which is confirmed when they actually meet her. After helping her escape our cast’s hunting acquittance Wilber (possibly a business rival given one of the shorts), who thinks she’s worth a lot of money, Katty comes up with the idea of having Sweetfoot open her own salon in town.
I really don’t have any complaints outside of making me guess what Kotty, Kitty, and Katty’s relationship to Kotto is. In one of the shorts Kotty refers to him as “Unca’ Kotto” but I’m not convinced Splinter and Knothead were Woody Woodpecker’s actual niece and nephew in some versions. And as you can guess from the cover the art style does invoke Walter Lantz style artwork, though Kotto is not the mischievous trickster type despite helping Sweetfoot escape Wilbur. There is a love for classic cartoons in this work. Filmation even gets referenced while the main story opens with an homage to old theatrical shorts in how they introduce the main character.
I can’t say I was laughing the whole time, but that’s just me being me. The comic is amusing, the artwork is fantastic, and it’s something kids and adults can both enjoy. It’s also a fun throwback to classic cartoon characters and worth checking out all around. There is at least one graphic novel out right now from Arcana.
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