Grizzly Shark answers the question: what happens when a man-eating shark learns to live on land, and continues it’s killing spree amongst the dense forest of a US national park? It also answers the secondary question: what happens when a collaborator on one of the bestselling indie comics of the decade gets to cut loose on his own and write/draw whatever he wants for three issues, without the constraints of any editorial oversight or audience expectations?
It’s a bonkers concept, dreamed up by writer/artist Ryan Ottley, who was in the midst of a 127 issue long run as the artist on Robert Kirkman’s bestselling superhero series Invincible. This was effectively Ottley’s own side project; an absurd horror comedy miniseries that he pushed forward within his free time, finally publishing it with Image in 2016.
By this point, the whole ‘ridunculous creature-feature’ trope had been worn pretty thin by Sharknado and the countless other Sy-Fy channel movies. The difference with Grizzly Shark being that Ottley’s storytelling is not constrained by low budget or bad acting, and he runs wild through a sequence of set-pieces that are gruesome, hilarious and massively inventive.
Ottley’s artwork is loose and energetic; possibly a result of the limited time that he had available to spend on this. The characterisation also is not deep, with many protagonists appearing for only a few panels before getting chomped. But perhaps the biggest surprise for readers will be the seam of pathos that does run through the series. By the time that Grizzly Shark’s mortal nemesis Sea Bear pops out for a showdown in the blockbuster third issue, you will be absolutely rooting for the surviving human characters.
It’s a quick read for sure, but if you look to comics for good time not a long time, then I’d strongly recommend hunting down Grizzly Shark!