People who read comic books remember Steve Gerber for a lot of very good books - including a long run on "Howard The Duck". Howard in Steve's hands was masterful satire and having great fun with the funny animal book genre and the super hero genre and was and is legendary in the comic book reading world.

However - Steve was also known for being sometimes a little bit late on deadline. One issue of Howard came out and was nothing but scraps and sketches and little bits of text that was very funny but made almost no sense at all.

In the middle of that Steve had written a one panel throwaway about a Las Vegas showgirl and an Ostrich doing battle with a floor lamp.

It was a joke right?

Except every time anyone met Steve they would ask him for more about the Las Vegas showgirl and her Ostrich.

"Nevada" is his answer.

It's messy and all over the place like a lot of Steve's work, but if you get into it, there are rewards aplenty.

Real characters in fantastic situations - that was Steve's metier. This one works for me. It may not work for you. Your milage may vary. ( )

I picked up Nevada primarily because I have a longstanding sentimental attachment to the state of Nevada and all its wacky cultural idiosyncracies. I didn't expect to like it, but I was pleasantly surprised. All of the cosmic conspiracy/heroic destiny stuff seemed sloppily thought out and poorly explained, but this is clearly not a comic that was ever meant to last long enough for continuity errors to be a problem, so that makes it a little easier to overlook. The dialogue is a bit stilted and the plot is a bit rough around the edges, but the characters are definitely unique if nothing else. All in all it's a profoundly silly story about a showgirl and her pet ostrich out to save the universe from...damned if I could tell you. This is the ultimate campy B-movie of comic books. Read it as such and you won't be disappointed. ( )