My Little Browns Fan

Jeff Steinberg: Champion of Earth by by Joshua Hale Fialkov (Author), Tony Fleecs  (Illustrator), Luigi Anderson (Illustrator). One Press, 2017. 9781620104316. 176 pp.

Gene: Fialkov wrote The Life After — the book that takes place in Heaven, but it’s kind of virtual reality. I thought you liked it?

Sarah: I don’t remember it.

G: Well he’s written a bunch of stuff. Tony Fleecs used to draw My Little Pony, and David Luigi Anderson, the colorist, this is from his bio: “Luigi ran away to the heathen metropolis of Atlanta when he heard there was a way to get paid coloring inside the lines for a living. Upon his magical quest to find the cushiest job in the world he met a strange man with a large red beard who spoke to him of a comic book that featured a guy chosen to save the universe because he took a really tremendous dump.”

S: Ha!

G: That’s the pitch.

It opens up, there’s a loser, Jeff Steinberg. There’s some kind of bet that involves him, there’s a pool. We don’t know what it is. He lives with two people. He works at a video store (still). Everyone is waiting for this thing to happen. He goes to work. Then it’s time and he runs home.  He runs into the bathroom which has a sign on it: Reserved Parking Browns Fans Only.

Close on Steinberg: “Alright, asshole, lets do this.”

While he’s in there, aliens invade. Earth is going to be judged by the Intergalactic Council on Planetary Relations. If we pass we enter the brotherhood of planets, if we fail, we all die. And the aliens have a champion picker, a program that runs on WindowsME. Jeff is still in the bathroom. And then the aliens choose our champion based on the most powerful force in the universe, willpower. “Not unlike your excellent Green Lantern movie featuring Ryan Reynolds.”  From all the people all over the world it picks the person with the most willpower who happens to be Jeff, because he’s trying to force out a really difficult poo. He ends up on every TV.  (A flashback then shows why it took him 18 days, 16 hours, and 14 minutes and 30 second to have a bowel movement.)

S: Oh no! (laughing, groaning)

G: And look!

(cue gasping)

And then he’s transported to an alien ship without his pants on.

“That guy with the tiny dick has doomed us all!”

His terrible girlfriend is having an affair. A hot alien is going to teach him how to fight using a giant robot. And there’s a funny Barak Obama cameo.  This one has it all. It’s an adult book teens will love.