Now that Boston Legal has officially closed its offices, where can the lover of ludicrous legal dramedy go for their fix of outrageous cases and sophistic arguments? Allow me to recommend Batton Lash's Supernatural Law. A long-running indy humor comic and current webcomic, Lash's series centers on an unlikely pair of lawyers, Alanna Wolff and Jeff Byrd, as these "Counselors of the Macabre" go about the day-to-day of defending literal monsters in court. Even long legetty beasties, it seems, need competent legal representation in these litigious times.
Collecting eight early issues of Lash's comic, The Soddysessy and Other Tales of Supernatural Law (Exhibit A Press), takes on the cause of vampires, swamp creatures, a rotting corpse who wants to sue the IRS - and other otherwordly denizens. In "Bad Blood," for instance, the counselors travel down to New Orleans to side with the vampire in a property dispute between Dracula and the popular horror writer Ayn Wrice. (The latter is written as a blend of the Interview with A Vampire and Atlas Shrugged authors, though Lash doesn't take this promising idea as far as he could.) In "The Littlest Loup Garou," cartoonist Lash imagines infamous big-eyed painter Walter Keene as a portrait-painting werewolf whose artistic powers only come to the fore when there's a full moon. As with his real-life counterpart, the lycanthropic artist gets challenged to a paint-off against his wife - to amusing results.
Our title leads don't always take the monsters' side, of course. In "Guardian Angels and Personal Injuries," they argue for a guardian angel sued for being insufficiently protective of his clumsy charge. Said angel resembles the late great Jack Benny, so Lash pulls in a variety of refs to the comedian. (Yup, there's a Horn Blows at Midnight joke.) And in one of the volume's more satirically daring outings, the legal eagles argue for a Pennsylvania housewife who is bearing Satan's unborn. Having learned that her husband has sold his soul to the Devil so the childless couple can have progeny, she strives to have her pregnancy terminated - only to have her soulless husband refuse to give his consent. In the ensuing court proceedings, Wolff & Byrd wind up calling Satan himself to the stands, in an attempt to trip the Prince of Lies over the terms of his contract.
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