{"id":669,"date":"2010-03-02T07:30:59","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T12:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbicmsblog.reedbusiness.com\/elogic_660000266\/2010\/03\/02\/axe-cop-kicks-axe\/"},"modified":"2010-03-02T07:30:59","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T12:30:59","slug":"axe-cop-kicks-axe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=669","title":{"rendered":"Axe Cop Kicks Axe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/axecop-2.jpg\" title=\"AxeCop\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/axecop-2.jpg\" alt=\"AxeCop\" title=\"AxeCop\" align=\"right\" vspace=\"7\" hspace=\"7\" \/><\/a>I am in love. With an axe-wielding police officer and his flute-wielding partner. Yes, I said &#8220;flute-wielding.&#8221; But really the flute is a recorder. And the flute-wielder is actually a dinosaur soldier. At least until he becomes an avocado. With a horn. And&#8230; Wait. What were we talking about again? Oh, yeah &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/axecop.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Axe Cop<\/a>. The awesomest web comic EVER.<br \/>\nAxe Cop is the brainchild of 29 year-old comics artist Ethan Nicolle and his 5-year-old brother Malachai. Yes, you read that right. Malachai is 5 years old. Which is half the reason this comic is so awesome. The other half is that Ethan has a brilliant sense of comic timing, mad drawing skills, and the ability to edit his brother&#8217;s stream of consciousness storytelling without losing the &#8220;my ideas are strung together with no filler&#8221; essence of being five.<br \/>\nSo, just how did Axe Cop come about? At one point Ethan was home visiting his parents, and (as he <a href=\"http:\/\/axecop.com\/index.php\/achome\/story\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">explains<\/a> on the Axe Cop website), &#8220;During the visit Malachai was running around with his toy fireman axe and he said he was playing &#8216;Axe Cop.&#8217; He asked me to play with him, and I asked what my weapon was&#8230; so he brought me a toy flute (actually a recorder). I told him I would rather be Axe Cop then Flute Cop, and he seemed just fine with being Flute Cop. The story that followed became more and more brilliant, until I couldn&#8217;t contain myself and I had to draw the whole thing into a one page comic.&#8221;<br \/>\nThat first page became five and then those five became several more after Ethan posted them online and the series gained a following. Today Malachai and Ethan are still collaborating on the comics and posting them to a dedicated (and deadpan) Axe Cop website where, for free, you can (and will) LAUGH uproariously at the madcap adventures that spring from Malachai&#8217;s very young mind and are expertly captured by Ethan. I recommend starting with <a href=\"http:\/\/axecop.com\/index.php\/acepisodes\/read\/episode_1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Episode 1<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/axecop.com\/index.php\/acepisodes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">continuing<\/a> from there. OR&#8230; you can watch Episode 1 as a &#8220;Motion Comic&#8221; right here, by way of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4ZquaoUMfIc&amp;feature=player_embedded\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube<\/a>.<br \/>\n<object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/4ZquaoUMfIc&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/4ZquaoUMfIc&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><\/embed><\/object>If you want to laugh still harder, be sure to read the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/axecop.com\/index.php\/acask\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ask Axe Cop<\/a>&#8221; section of the site too. If you like what you see, consider making a donation to Malachai&#8217;s college fund. A button on the Axe Cop front page directs you to the requisite page on PayPal.<br \/>\nCredit for the discovery of this genius goes to my colleague and office-mate Lorna Ruby, who learned about it from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.veryshortlist.com\/vsl\/daily.cfm\/review\/1491\/Current_cinema\/this-kid-is-alright\/?tp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Very Short List<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am in love. With an axe-wielding police officer and his flute-wielding partner. Yes, I said &ldquo;flute-wielding.&rdquo; But really the flute is a recorder. And the flute-wielder is actually a dinosaur soldier. At least until he becomes an avocado. With a horn. And&hellip; Wait. What were we talking about again? Oh, yeah &ndash; Axe Cop. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}