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I know what you’re thinking: who in the hell is Clint the Hamster? what is he so jubilant about? and where did this character come from?

Well, lets answer these questions one at a time, starting with who created Clint the Hamster Triumphant. That glorious claim to fame goes to Donald Chin who published this 2 issue mini-series in 1986 through Eclipse Comics. Clint was one of the four leading brothers in the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters series which Chin created 8 months earlier in the same year. The issue was spotlighted last month here at Wacky Comic Wednesday, so check out that review for Clint’s origin and a brief bio on Don Chin. Clint’s penciler is Ken Meyer Jr., who just so happens to be the writer of the Ink Stains column here at ComicAttack.net! Ken has also drawn Negative Burn, Jinx, and the Kilroy line of comics. Recently, he has done cover art for Alan Moore’s Songbook, Vampire the Masquerade, Zoomies, and The Atheist. Ken has also been the artist for various Magic the Gathering CCG cards (like Kird Ape and Erhnam Djinn) and White Wolf properties (like the CCG Rage). Considering this issue of Clint is in black and white, inker Mike Dringenberg should be mentioned for doing a bang up job on the issue. Dringenberg’s best known credentials include inking the first five issues and penciling 11 issues of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, illustrating novel covers of works by J.R.R. Tolkien, and like our resident staff member Ken he produced art for the Magic the Gathering CCG.

Now that we have some background on the masterminds behind the triumphant hamster, lets take a closer look at Clint and this first part of a two issue miniseries. Clint looks like an 80s punker, complete with a mohawk, big dangly earrings, and a visor a la Geordi La Forge, with an ego that rivals David Hasselhoff.

The story begins at a peaceful Buddhist monastery in Tibet where the last Weisnauppt’s Finch is seen soaring through a serene sky. The rare bird singsongs past Clint’s window- where it is then blasted out of the sky by the hamster as he exclaims, “QUIET!!! This is a monastery, fer cryin’ out loud!!” This all happens in the opening page of the comic, and sets the tone for the rest of the story; a schtiky, corny, bang’em up comedy piece about a hamster on a mission (which we’ll get to in a minute). Clint and his brothers Chuck, Bruce, and Jackie are all training at the monastery to become black belt ninjas. Clint, however, is reduced to performing the most mundane of tasks like carrying bags of rice and cleaning the toilets. Frustrated with the monks, he goes to them and demands more “oomph” in his curriculum, to which the drunken sagacious ones eventually comply.

Enter the villain Wilhemina Fisk, the Queenpin of Bangkok. Not only is Fisk the cities crime boss, but ‘she’ is a ruthless transvestite! Previously the monks have sent 50 highly trained ninja warriors to take her down, but unfortunately they were never able to succeed in their mission as they too were all turned into transvestites themselves. Yikes. Clint, however, is up for the mission and declares that he’ll be the one to take Wilhemina down!

To start, he goes to Bangkok and comically interrogates everyone he sees be they man, woman, or feline, and usually ends up blasting them all with a six shooter. However, when two innocent looking Thai girls ask Clint to buy some cookies, they knock him out with a block of wood and reveal themselves to be cross dressing agents of Wilhemina Fisk! Trapped in a dank, nasty prison cell, Clint breaks free when he is aided by Curly, a member of the rat version of The Three Stooges. Curly decides that he wants a change in his life, so he joins Clint on his crusade, donning ninja garb and adopting the name Curlektra. In their hunt for Wilhemina, the duo engage in combat against girl scouts, sumo wrestlers, CIA Agents, and Rovers – giant metallic cat/dog-like creatures, in this silly yet highly entertaining adventure story.

Clint is loaded with pop culture references of the day, including The Munsters, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Nicky Fury, Fin Fang Foom, and old school Batman. It’s also ad free, 30 pages long, and worthy of a few quotes:

“You mean he’s a… she’s a… it’s a… TRANSVESTITE!? I hate transvestites!!!” – Clint

“C’mere Mr. Businessman! You gonna finger Fisk or do I make you wish you were born in the U.S.A?” – Clint

“Women- Can’t live with ’em! Can’t shoot ’em!” – Clint

“I was lonely. I was depressed. I was getting terrible gas from all those damn wafers.” – Clint

So now that the ‘who’ and ‘where’ of this comic has been addressed, we are left to wonder about the ‘what’; what does Clint have to be triumphant about? Well, that’s something which is most likely answered in issue #2 as #1 ends when the penultimate battle between Clint and Wilhelmina is about to go down. The large tranny takes off in her personal helicopter with Clint dangling from it’s landing gear from a grappling hook, exclaiming that she can’t go anywhere on Earth without him!

Oh, and when you get a chance click the “About” tab at the top of the ComicAttack.net tool bar. In the CA.net logo on that page you may recognize a familiar hamster face! At a later date you can catch the conclusion to this dramatic tale here at Wacky Comic Wednesday, but until then, stay tuned!

Andy Liegl
andy@comicattack.net