American Blood

 

by Benjamin Marra

Publisher ‏: ‎ Fantagraphics; Illustrated edition (September 27, 2016)

Hardcover, 208 pages

Amazon Listing

This is a collection of independent comics by indie artist Benjamin Marra. For those who are unaware of his work, buckle up. These are weird, ultra-violent, foul-mouthed pieces of work, and I couldn’t put the book down. I feel as if many of these works have something very profound to say about American society and culture, I just don’t know what the hell it is. Seven stories are encapsulated here, each of varying skill and achievement. Some are well done, others are barely passable. Marra’s art may not be for everyone. Many have said that his style is stiff or amateurish, while that certainly can be seen in these early works, I still had a lot of fun reading this book.  

The first tale is that of the Gangsta Rap Posse - which is exactly what you might think- a gangster rap group who, for two issues, run about killing everyone in their path, smoking weed, selling crack, putting women out to be prostitutes, and almost recording an album. It treads the line between parody and insanity so closely, that I can’t tell. Next is the tale of Lincoln Washington a freeman who tries to start a farm in Butchergrass, SC after the Civil War and run afoul of a false rape accusation and the Klan. Violence ensues and our hero rips a few people in half. Next is Maureen Dowd, an investigative reporter, whom every man wants, looking into the Bush Jr. administration, while navigating a date with George Clooney. Ultra-violence ensues. This story proves that nothing goes staler faster than political humor or comment. Ten years ago, this was cutting edge. Now it’s old hat and ancient history. 

Ripper and Friends is a funny animal story with lots of shitting, pissing, drugs, sex, and violence. It reminds me most of the underground comix from the 1960s with its attempt to take what looks like kid’s fare and sexualize it. But again, I’ve seen it done better and becomes a little tedious after about ten pages. Zorion: The Sword Lord is perhaps the oddest one in style. First, it looks like I used to draw in the margins of my high school notebook, and then periodically the art gets worse and worse until it’s almost a doodle, as if the artist was rushing to get it done. This is not to say it isn’t fun, but it’s definitely indie fare. Essentially Zorion is a futuristic barbarian type who kills everything and has sex with all the women. Again, parody or insanity? You be the judge. 

The last two has some of the best art in the book, and may take place in the same universe as Zorion, but who knows? The Naked Heroes are a duo of interdimensional singers who get trapped up in a dimension where all the powers-that-be want to capture them and steal their souls. They solve the problem by shooting everyone. Blades and Lazers are a pair of bi-racial “Galacto-Demon Hunters” hired to destroy a massive demon which they do with blades and lasers. Not much to be said about these two, except you know it will be violent. 

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst

Neat Stuff (Humor)

 

By Peter Bagge

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books; Box edition (August 30, 2016)

Hardcover, 488 pages- 2 Volumes

Amazon Listing

This is the box edition of the complete series for Neat Stuff, collecting all 15 issues of the indie comic from the 1980s. For those of you who might know the name of Peter Bagge, it probably comes from his indie comic sensation Hate about the adventures of disaffected youth Buddy Bradley in Seattle in his early 20s. It was the right comic at the right time and dead-on hit Generation X just as they began to bloom. But before that, the comic was Neat Stuff. It was an anthology comic. Each issue varied between a collection of wildly different characters, and that might have been its flaw. The reader was never sure what to expect. One issue might feature a variety of small bits, while the next would be dominated by a single story. 

The features for Neat Stuff are: Girly Girl - a leering troublemaker who finds humor in dead animals, festering sores and clobbering child psychologists with baseball bats. True to form, her first strip appearance ended with her being squashed underfoot by her unseen "biggest fan". Studs Kirby - a reactionary talk radio host who lives in the past, gets drunk, rants on with his ill-informed opinions. Junior - a hulking wimp social inadequate who lives with his mother and is terrified of the outside world. The Goon On The Moon - a pornography obsessed, friendless loser who lives on the moon. Chet and Bunny Leeway - a young couple who are dissatisfied with their increasingly tedious lives.

The standouts, however, were The Bradleys - a dysfunctional family, apparently based on Bagge's own family. Brad Bradley, the father, is an overweight, perpetually complaining slob. Betty Bradley, the mother, is a God-fearing, occasionally foul-tempered 'woman of the eighties', whilst their children, Butch (a gullible, war-mad pre-teen), Babs (a plain, self-absorbed teenage girl with retainers on her teeth) and Buddy (a retro music-loving slacker) alternate between fighting each other and their own parents. These characters carried onto Hate.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst

Ubu Roi (Humor)

 

by Alfred Jarry  (Author), Beverly Keith (Translator), G. Legman (Translator)

Publisher : Dover Publications; Illustrated edition (January 13, 2003)

Softcover, 80 pages

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This is  a play which, upon its first performance, caused much outcry, riotous behavior, and walk-outs. Not surprisingly, it ended up closing after that initial night. But the playwright was respected enough, and amused his peers enough, so the infamous play was kept around and referenced from time to time. It is simply dumb luck this occurred. Ubu Roi simply came out at the right time and right place. Had it been produced by any other person at any other time, it would be forgotten, rather than a faded footnote.

The absurdist content and scatological references, which caused all the trouble, are extremely tame by today’s standards. I’m sure there are plenty of people who, upon reading this play, wonder what the fuss was about. Remember however that this play came out in 1896, long before the surrealists, dadists, theater of the absurd, or even theater of the cruel were conceived. And in a very real sense Ubu Roi with its ridiculously evil characters, yet effective parody of the world, anticipates all of these movements.

Scene from Ubu Roi

This version translates the title as King Turd. However, the word "Ubu" is really simply a babble word evolved from the French pronunciation of the name "Hebert”. The language of the play is a unique mix of slang code-words, puns and near-gutter vocabulary, set to strange speech patternsAs the play begins, Ubu's wife convinces him to lead a revolution, and kills the King of Poland and most of the royal family. The King's son, Bougrelas, and the Queen escape, but the latter later dies. Ubu, now King, begins heavily taxing the people and killing the nobles for their wealth. Ubu's henchman is thrown into prison; who then escapes to Russia, where he has the Tsar declare war on Ubu.

As Ubu heads out to confront the invading Russians, his wife tries to steal the money and treasures in the palace. She is driven out by a popular revolt of Poles. She runs away to her husband, Ubu, who has, in the meantime, been defeated by the Russians, been abandoned by his followers, and been attacked by a bear. Ubu's wife pretends to be the angel Gabriel, in order to try to scare Ubu into forgiving her for her attempt to steal from him. They fight, and she is rescued by the entrance of Bougrelas, who is after Ubu. He knocks down the attackers with the body of the dead bear, after which he and his wife flee to France.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.

Alfred Jarry

R. Crumb's: Bible of Filth (Humor)

 

by Robert Crumb

Publisher : David Zwirner Books (December 12, 2017)

Softcover, 336 pages

AmazonListing

This is technically a reprint - or reedition - of a 1990s French collection of Robert Crumb’s work. A “worst of” collection, showing his most shocking, sexual, or brutal material. This reedition adds about a hundred pages of further Crumb material. I was amazed that they managed to weed it down to only 325 pages, as there was so much to choose from. The presentation of the book is a work of art in itself. Leather bound, printed in gold-edged onion-skinned Bible paper, and attached red bookmark. Takes me back to the type of Bible my grandmother would tote around everywhere, except it’s filled with material I actually want to read.

To me it was such a breath of fresh air and reminded me why I became a fan of Crumb in the first place. It is unadulterated pornographic material created without restraint or consideration of outraging the puritan mob. Of course, when much of this material was first created the puritans tended to be conservative Christian republicans, now the pendulum has swung and all the censorious wailing is stemming from the Left. Many of the activist types would have heart attacks at the material here, crying every kind of “ism”, or they might let it go since he’s ostensibly “one of them”, but they often don’t shy away from eating their own. Let that stand as the trigger warning - If you read this book and become offended, then it’s your own fault.

The only recurring characters are Mr. Natural, Flakey Foont, and Devil Girl - who have about three stories together. In them Crumb diagnosis the standard dilemma many men find themselves in today. That of the alpha, beta orbiter (or incell), and female passive antagonist. Well before terms like red pill and cuck were common, we see Crumb basically using those ideas in his art. Mr Natural has the Devil Girl in his pocket, but Foont lusts after her. Upset that this nasty woman openly despises him, Font pretends to be disgusted by all of the horrible sexual things Natural does to her, but is really just upset that he isn’t in the driving chair. A perpetual weakling, who wants to be taken care of, but lusts after women who aren’t willing to do that.

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst

A Man Named Ove (Humor)

 

by Fredrik Backman

Publisher: Washington Square Press; Reprint Edition (May 5, 2015)

Softcover, 337 pages

Amazon Listing

“It was a time of change in the country. People moved and found new jobs and bought televisions, and the newspapers started talking about a ‘middle class’. Ove didn’t quite know what this was, but he was well aware that he was not a part of it. The middle classes moved into new housing developments with straight laws and carefully trimmed laws, and it soon grew clear to Ove that his parental home stood in the way of progress. And if there was anything the middle class was not enamored of, it was whatever stood in the way of progress.”

The tale of a neighborhood and changing times, focusing on that cranky old man down at the end of the street. The one who terrorizes the neighborhood children, screams, “keep off the grass”, and seemingly takes no joy in life except in denouncing others for minor infractions. This is our protagonist - someone which I’m sure nearly every man has run across at least once in their life. This is our protagonist. This is the lens through which we see his world: A once rural, now suburban, area in Norway.

From the Film Version

He’s an old man whose values and sense of rigid proportion never stepped in line with the rest of the world, or at least he was unwilling to mute them to fit in with others. As the book opens, he is a man near the end of his life - at least the life he cared about. His wife is dead. They had no children. And all that is left to him is the bitterness from looking at the world outside. He attempts suicide several times, but is always interrupted.

Slowly, little by little from interacting with the new people around him, this curmudgeon begins to discover a new reason for living. If only to confound those people from the social services department. He is the perceived villain become hero. Still, I understand why many of the people who gave it low stars also admit to not finishing the book. He is not a likeable character -at first- and I’m sure spending close to 350 pages with this man, might seem to be more of a chore than joy. Also this is not a concise novel governed by Chekov’s Gun, you gain a full perspective of Ove and his troubles, some useful to the plot, some useful to understanding the character, some simply part of ordinary life.

Author Fredrik Backman

This is a good read. Easy to get through without much reflection or difficulty. I’m not sure what these people who complained about the book are talking about. If anything it seems a bit dumbed down in its use of vocabulary, but that might be due to the translation. A Man Called Ove is not a difficult read, just a slightly long one - leading to a satisfying conclusion.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.

Alias the Cat (Humor)

by Kim Deitch

Publisher: Pantheon (April 17, 2007)

Hardcover, 136 pages

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This is a weird one. The author is Kim Deitch, the best underground cartoonist you’ve never heard of. He won a ton of awards for Boulevard of Broken Dreams back in 2000-whenever, and now everyone claims they always liked his work, even though two-years before Boulevard came out none of them knew who he was. Still this is his follow up to Boulevard, where the author places himself in the center of the action.

Deitch’s main character for the majority of his stories is Waldo, an anthropomorphic cat with evil intent and a noticeably dangling penis. While Waldo is not the protagonist of this graphic novel, he is the (mostly) unseen antagonist, as the author begins to feel that the character has dipped into his reality and - worst of all- has always been there. This leads to a long, weird rambling tale, mostly set in the first quarter of the 20th Century.

The author digs through his past, comes across a series of images of Waldo (or Felix the cat whom Waldo is the darker image of) and discovers a series of bizarre coincidences regard some ancient film cans, a comic strip from the 1910s, and a bakery run by little people. It sounds insane, but makes sense when laid out in the book. Apart from intriguing me with the semi-wandering narrative, I actually learned a few details on how things were done back in the olden days. Well worth a look for the right price.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.

Herbie Archives Volume 3 (Humor) (Graphic Novel)

by Shane O'Shea (Author), Ogden Whitney (Artist) 

Publisher: Dark Horse (April 29, 2009)

Hardcover, 232 pages

Amazon Listing

“It’s a bit difficult to consider Herbie volume by volume. After all, each story is self-contained - there are no ongoing subplots or themes. Each issue is instead a marvel of cartoon engineering: hermetically sealed entertaining. In fact, it’s the relentless imagination of writer Richard Hughes and artist Ogden Whitney that provides the engine here. Both veterans of comic books for almost three decades, by 1967 the due had written and drawn every conceivable kind of comic-book story… In Herbie, the duo found the ideal vehicle for their talents, combining, via Herbie’s godlike powers, all their seemingly favorite themes in single stories.”

-                       Dan Nadel from the introduction.

This final volume, which took me forever to find at a reasonable price, collects the final group of issues, 15 - 23. It’s not poor Herbie’s fault that he was cancelled. His entire publisher, American Comics Group, went belly up a month after issue 23. In fact, there were rumors of some lost Herbie stories floating around, but they’ve never been anything but rumors as far as I can tell. Thank goodness Dark Horse made these archive editions.

Herbie Popnecker is a squat round boy with coke-bottle glasses and a lollypop addiction. While simultaneously being irresistible to women, the lollypops give him special powers to beat foes up, travel through time, etc. Essentially any power he needs is wrapped up in a lollypop on his special belt- think 1960s Batman TV show utility belt. His father, on the other hand, is drawn like as a standard handsome protagonist of comic stories, but is revealed to be stupid, cowardly, and arrogant, who enjoys bullying his own son. A sort of revenge by the authors on all the pretty boys jocks from their past.

Humor books are not unusual for the comic industry (or weren’t unusual), but Herbie stands apart from them in style. That is, a dead-pan style. Normally I would’ve thought that it was impossible to achieve in sequential art, but Herbie is a perfect example of it. Because, while the events in stories are ridiculous beyond belief, the art is not done in a comic or “wacky” style. Instead it is drawn straight as it would be for any normal comic. It’s almost bland and casts the entire Compare the art to any 1960s superhero story and you will see it’s done as straight-forward as anyone of them. No little comic additions in the panel, just stark, minimalist art which accentuates the insanity of the script.

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Low Moon (Humor) (Graphic Novel)

By Jason  

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books; 1st edition (June 30, 2009)

Hardcover, 216 pages

Amazon Listing

A collection of five short stories, none have printed in any other format. Jason, for those who don’t know, is a French- Norwegian artist known for unemotive, nearly silent, tales of a bizarre and sardonic nature. It is often difficult to form an emotional commentary on Jason’s work as there is often no emotion to derive, every panel exists in an emotional vacuum.  Everything is flat and plainly flopped out for the viewer to decode with their own personal vector and biases.

That is not to say the work is bad. It’s simply to say that the stories can be as complicated or uncomplicated as the person reading them. In a sense, they are an emotional mirror of the reader. Or maybe I’m going way too far here.

The center of the author’s of humor is the use protracted silences—the hilariously uncomfortable flashes when the protagonist are waiting for disaster to strike. A couple of these stories are one-joke twist-ending pieces about the intersection of lust and murder, ala Twilight Zone. But all are interesting to read.

The first story, “Emily Says Hello”, is about a woman who is paying a hit man with varying increasingly intense sexual acts to kill various men, whose pictures she then tapes on her wall. The second, the titular “Low Moon” is a Wild West actioneer (sort of) revolving around chess and nerve. Next is “&” which revolves around two men with different paths in life forced to commit violent acts in order to gain or help the person that they love. The fourth, “Proto Film Noir”, is the strangest and one I can barely describe. Let’s say it’s a caveman film noir with a twist of Groundhog’s Day, and I’m pretty sure the author was just making it up as he went along with an almost nonsensical ending. Last is “You are Here” a space alien hijacks a woman and a man spends his life building a spaceship to track her down and rescue her.

     For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Weird Love: That's the Way I Like It (Humor) (Graphic Novels)

by Various (Author), Bob Powell (Artist), Bill Ward (Artist), Ogden Whitney (Artist)
Publisher: IDW Publishing (December 29, 2015)Hardcover, 168 pages
Amazon Listing 



“The vast majority of the stories were written, drawn, and edited by men- middle-aged men, at that - and many of those stories were, indeed, readable, just as the more than 7,000 romance pulps produced from the 1920s to the 1950s were readable. But they weren’t read by the boys and men who made up most of the first generation of comics fandom. They were read almost entirely by post-pubescent girls and young women, who weren’t noted for saving comics but were very much aware how much they were beginning to seek love in their lives. Indeed, my guess is that romance comics were among those most frequently passed around by young readers. But they were seldom saved.” 

                  Michelle Nolan- from the introduction.

This is a collection of twenty old-time romance stories from the silver age of comics. It is easy to forget that romance comics, like westerns, were a viable comic genre on par with war and superheroes. In fact, when the genre was created by Kirby and Simon, superheroes were the weak sister of the comic world.

Most of the stories are not from Marvel and DC, indeed those two had not come into full dominance of the comic market and had to compete with the likes of Harvey, Charleton, Archie Comics Group (ACG) and so on. What stands out to me, and as is pointed out in the introduction is that romance comics, once flourishing, are incredibly rare to find. I’ve been to many many comic conventions and shops, dug through thousands of long boxes- from cheapo 25 cent racks to high dollar encased-in-carbonite issues- and never run across a single one. Never. They just weren’t collected by those people who built the market. And probably I would’ve never thought to buy one if I had.  

The nature of these stories cover the 1950s to the early 1970s and vary in style, The earlier ones are more action oriented with titles such as “Love Slaves” or “Stay Away from Married Men”. Probably because those who wrote such stories didn’t know exactly how to relay a purely romance tale. As the decades rolled on, however, the stories changed to almost silly tales directly relatable to the target audience. Most of the characters are around the same age as their readers and have “relatable” issues- mostly about boys and fitting in. As exampled in the stories “Too Fat to Frug” - Frug is a type of dance from the 60s you perverts - and “A Monster’s Kisses” - about a newlywed who can’t stand her husband’s new beard.

Two standouts among these are “Men You Shouldn’t Marry” from Romantic Adventures # 11, which gives some good advice on types of guys to avoid. And “Heart Clinic” which discusses how our attitude to love and what makes a good mate changes and matures over time. Like the others you can take these stories with the campiness that they have become, as well. Perhaps they were camp back in the 50s, and 60s, and 70s, but they must’ve been devoured by their readership. Now camp value and our laughter will keep them from being forgotten forever.

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Mazes and Monsters: A Novel (Humor) (Fiction)

by Rona Jaffe 

Publisher: Delacorte Press (September 1, 1981)

Hardcover, 329 pages

Amazon Listing 

“The days dragged by. The police were still looking in the caverns and questioning students. The Pequod newspaper picked up the story of the missing student, and of course The Grant Gazette did, and then the wire services got hold of it. Suddenly the press aws fascinated by the game. The idea that a game was supposed to be a fantasy could have taken on such reality as to cause the disappearance - and possible death- of a player was thrilling. Sales of mazes and Monsters soared. It was inevitable that someone would finally advance the theory that the game had caused Robbie to flip out. But it was all conjecture. The fact that Robbie had been so normal: an athlete, good grades, popular, friendly pleasant, attractive, made the story even more intriguing to the press. It seemed as if reporters were interviewing everyone on campus.”

This, of course, is the infamous supposed anti-RPG novel where college students playing a Dungeons and Dragons like game get too involved in the fantasy and one of them loses touch with reality. He adopts the persona of his character and drifts off looking for adventure, eventually stabbing a guy who mistakes him for a male prostitute.

Poster for the film version of this novel.

This came out just after the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons boomed in the late 1970s, and was based on an actual event where some college students got lost playing the game in some steam tunnels beneath their university. They essentially were the first LARPers. With typical journalistic zeal for exploitation, the story was seized upon and D&D was eventually roped in with the Satanic Panic which was beginning to pick up steam. The “activist” group B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons) praised the novel and a cheap CBS Movie of the Week was produced starring a young Tom Hanks in one of his first roles. The entire film is embedded below. For bad films aficionados only.

I did research on the literature of the Satanic Panic for my upcoming novel, but I didn’t not include this book among them, due to the fact that this is listed as a work of fiction, while all of the others, Michelle Remembers, Turmoil in the Toybox, etc, claim to be real. Strange as this may sound out of all of them, Mazes and Monsters is the most grounded, down-to-earth, book of them all. The so-called “real” material spins off into ridiculous claims which no critical thinking person could believe.

In fact, one of the novel’s drawbacks it’s that it’s too real. So real that it’s actually kind of boring. We see the four protagonists with their various social dramas and brief romances and various backgrounds, most of which feels like padding. This book was published in 1980 so the stereotypical image of the social leper gamer had not been established. Back at that time, everyone was trying D&D, but most stopped after college. The action, such as it is, is crammed in the last forty pages and even that is thin. It’s mostly about people about to graduate college, worrying about their life and future. Almost a college version of The Breakfast Club or the gamer version of Diner.

Despite most of the fervent criticism against Mazes and Monsters by gamers over the last few decades, it doesn’t paint all gamers as mentally unstable loners. In fact, the book doesn’t really discusses the game much at all. It’s always present in the background, but there are entire chapters where it isn’t mentioned. Three of the four protagonists have no problem playing the game and find it a fun distraction, and the kid who does flip out is already shown to have a terrible home life and previous mental issues. The movie below did take things to more of an extreme in its depiction of the game and its “effects”. The reasons the one character does lapse into his character are pretty dubious. I don’t buy it, and it almost comes out of nowhere.

Essentially though, this novel is a character study of some mild and slightly troubled characters in a story in which almost nothing happens. A pretty boring piece of work.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Full Film is Here 

Terror Assaulter (O.M.W.O.T) (Action) (Humor) (Graphic Novel)

by Benjamin Marra     

 
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (September 22, 2015)
 
Softcover, 100 pages
 
Amazon Listing 


 

In this case the acronym O.M.W.O.T. stands for “one man war on terror”, and is sort of a sixties throwback to the days of U.N.C.L.E. and S.H.I.E.L.D. where acronyms were all the rage. This story is one of the most bizarre send-ups of the terrorism, hyper-action genre that I have ever read. At first, I just thought it was ridiculous and stupid, but the more I read the more it grew on me - the humor stood up and waved and I was sucked in.

The plot goes that a group of disavowed ultra-violent agents, called Terror Assaulters, are unleashed on a world rife with terrorism. There are four tales here and they get increasingly bizarre. The first one almost seems standard, O.M.W.O.T. goes undercover to get some stolen information, ends up killing everyone and doesn’t recover it, but bangs a hot woman in the end. The ridiculous violence is everywhere in the story, but after this it goes off the rails.

In the second episode, O.M.W.O.T. is on a plane which is subsequently high jacked by terrorists. He kills most of them with an assault rifle, along with several of the passengers (I can’t tell if he did this deliberately or not). He then has a homosexual sexual encounter while trying to land the plane, which is about to crash as OMWOT missed a terrorist who managed to blow off the back end of the plane, causing most of the passengers to fly out the other end.

In the third, Terrorists have taken over America and OMWOT has to shoot and fuck his way through hordes of them, only to find the ringleader was one of his own, a Terror Assaulter. In the last and strangest tale, OMWOT is forced to marry a woman who turns out to be the villain from the previous story after a sex change and the entire thing devolves into a series of trans-sex scenes that ends with our hero staring off at a vision of King Arthur in the distance- Don’t ask, I don’t know why.

This book is an absurdist reaction to the War on Terror from the early 2000s. The action is deliberately ridiculous and made to put the real world into perspective. Adding to the absurdity is all the expository dialogue. Many of the characters scream out what is being shown in the scene. “Ahh, you’ve cut my throat and killed me.” “You shot my arms off.” “I’m immediately experiencing orgasm.” “”We’re coming at the same time as you crash land the plane.” All of these are actual lines from the book. Again, at first it all seems stupid, but the oddity grows on you.

The art is maybe the weakest part. It is awkward, many stiff limbs and, what seems like, hastily drawn action scenes. The artist has talent, but needs to develop it more- or else this was deliberate to coincide with the material- I don’t know. The coloring is minimalistic- less than four color comics, but that also seems to be a stylistic choice. However it does obscure some of the lines, so it may have been a poor choice.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (Humor) (Grapic Novels)

by Daniel Clowes  

Publisher: Fantagraphics (February 24, 2015)

Softcover, 144 pages

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This story was originally serialized in the first ten issues of the author's indie Fantagraphics comic Eightball. I own all the issues, yet decided to buy a copy of this book anyway (albeit at a heavily discounted price) which should tell you about the quality of the story, me being naturally cheap.

To say the story is odd is putting it lightly. There is very little rhyme or rhythm to it. It seems perfectly clear the author was making it up as he went along and tied it all together in the last chapter- sort of. Despite this there it is a compelling take that I couldn't put down, despite having it read it before.

Ostensibly it is about a man named Clay who sees his former wife starring in a bizarre BDSM porno. Still being hung up on her, he tries to find out who made the film and discover why she left- all with a semi-tragic conclusion. The narrative is designed to not make sense. The end here is not the important part, it is the journey through a wasteland America populated exclusively by ugly maniacs, deformed madmen, deranged substance abusers, weird gender bashing cultists, pipe smoking children, dogs with no orifices, and gay psychotic policemen.

 

Nearly every page, every character, has some oddity to them. That’s all who populate this nearly empty world. The only normal one is our protagonist, which is why his wife leaves him. It is a place where normal people cannot exist or thrive, which isn’t until the brutal end that Clay finally finds a place in the world.

The effect of the narrative is doubled with the author’s nightmarish style and zest for grotesque caricatures. You can feel the loneliness, desperation, the idiocy, the hate in their faces. If there’s one thing Clowes does well is create memorable and horrible faces.  And they are all over this vaguely early 1960’s esthetic universe.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

 

The Ultimate Gnatrat (Humor) (Superhero) (Graphic Novel)

by Mark Martin  

Publisher: Fantagraphic Books (January 1, 1990).

Softcover, 167 pages
 

This is a collection of the three Gnatrat comics, a parody superhero book, which picks mostly on Frank Miller, but not in a bad way. The main character is an anthropomorphic rat who dresses up like a gnat to fight crime. The main action of the story is based around Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (Batman) and Born Again (Daredevil). Both are solid choices. These Gnatrat issues came out around 1988 and both of the Miller books were some of the best available at the time. The author also rags on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, their popularity and the host of imitators- ironic as the author went on to work on the series.

The problem with this book is that the action is disjointed, almost stream on consciousness from page to page, and thus you don’t care at all about any of the characters. This is a problem most parody comics have. The story isn’t interesting if you haven’t read the material it’s poking fun at. This is doubly true in Gnatrat where the plot is almost indecipherable unless you've read the previous two books.

The two most successful parody books, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Cerebus the Aardvark, both dropped the parody aspect in a relatively short time and created their own mythology from the stories. All of the humor eventually gave way to a serious (or at least semi-serious) dramatic work. Not so much here. It does not go beyond the material it is making fun of.

The art is good, but not so good as to override the material. As parody’s go, there doesn’t seem much of a point to it. Apart from commenting on the popularity of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its copycats, the only point seems to make a disjointed rat version of the Dark Knight Returns with Daredevil mixed in. I found it for three bucks, don’t pay anything higher for it.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.