Tag: Fantagraphics

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Visual White Noise on Paper: “Mome” is the word.

To be completely honest I bought these issues of “Mome” because Al Columbia had work in them, and for no other reason, that being said the comics and art in the rest of these issues is pretty damn good. “Mome” was edited by Gary Groth and featured cartoonists that were new to the game, with a few old school hands on deck. “Mome’s” content is varied but the same themes seem to repeat themselves in each issue, mainly dealing in philosophy, dreams, imagination and some autobiographical stuff thrown in. Gary interviews a different artist in each issue. I have five of them, all featuring some of Al Columbia’s work but I will go through them one by one and give some highlights not a run down of every story in each issue.

“Mome” issue 7, Spring 2007 is the first issue featuring the illusive Al Columbia’s work, its a series a of pieces titled “Chopped Up People” what you get is Al’s twisted sense of humor bleeding off the pages. You get Pluto, Mickey Mouse’s dog, chopped to hell smiling his head off, a portion of a comic strip featuring Al’s recurring characters Pim and Francine, a blue smiling man cut into pieces etc. you get the drift, in Al’s nightmare Fleischertoon world anything is possible even smiling cartoon corpses. Eleanor Davis’ “Seven Sacks” is another highlight, a ferryman takes seven different weird creatures across the river  with each getting bigger and bigger, each with a sack going to a gathering, at the end the ferryman sees a foreboding column of smoke in the distance and pushes off hurriedly to the other side. Sophie Crumb (daughter of (in)famous underground comix couple Robert and Aline Crumb) does “Lucid Nightmare Pt. 2” about a trio of kids that do “Z-9” which transports a person to the “Land of Sweet Dreams” but also has them waking up and not knowing where the hell they are with a really bad hang over, and thinking they might be kidnapped by predators. “Nothing Eve Part 3” about a group of guys in a bar who are deciding on what they want to do before the end of the world by Kurt Wolfgang. In “Al Loose Ends Part 2” Lewis Trondheim does the autobio thing which I normally hate but in this one he tries to find out from his fellow cartoonists (mostly French and Dutch) if the cartooning profession causes the cartoonist to age badly or cause more depression than other professions. “Hollow Leg” is a dream bout a girl having a hollow leg that talks to her by Anders Nilsen. And another dream (or nightmare) comic comes our way via David Heatley at a house party where September 11th, 2001 gets replayed in a absurd way.

“Mome” issue 8, summer 2007 has Al Columbia’s “Fucking Felix” and with this one we’re back in Columbia’s “Fleischertoon from hell” world. It is literally that, Felix the cat getting fucked in nine, single black and white pages, Felix awaits his lover, a bald man in a suit who gets some “pussy” and “makes” in Felix’s mouth, Felix spits out tadpoles. Again Al’s twisted, sick humor oozes through. Eleanor  Davis has a bard meet and enchant a woman of the wild in “Stick and String”, or is she the one doing the enchanting? Sophie Crumb does “Lucid Nightmare Part 3” where the kids wake up from the “Z-9” trip to be chased by a maniac and they have no idea where they are at. Tom Kaczynski has a character named “Cayce” who has a dream, he wakes up in the future in 10,000 years, and he watches a TV show with Karl Marx leading a zombie revolution on Mars. In “Young Americans” Emile Bravo does a comic strip taking place in the 1950’s and the strip proceeds innocently like a comic strip from that period with a intellectual father trying to relate to his jock/sports addict son but then the strips repeats the same panels and makes the dialogue more profane which gives you pause for thought. “Hide and Watch” by Joe Kimball is a surrealist comic where the sun gets attacked by light bulbs and various other, unexplained things happen. And Trondheim does “At Loose Ends Part 3” in which he further explores if cartoonists age worse than any other profession.

In “Mome” Fall 2007, Al Columbia actually follows through on a Pim and Francine strip! Normally, Pim and Francine are only featured in partial strips, one page art or scraps. In this one Pim and Francine get eaten by a bald headed butcher who bakes them into his pies. “Shhh!” Tim Hensley goes 1960’s art style with a tale of a guy trying to woo a girl with a band contract in a library. Jim Woodring does his weird, anamorphic squirrel character, Frank, in his weird, abstract, Buddhist/Hindu world in “The Lute String Pt. 1”. Joe Kimball tells the tale of vampire love in “The Lifer”. Then there is pages of Mike Scheer’s ballpoint pen drawings that are jaw dropping with an intro by Eric Reynolds. Tom Kaczynski has a new condo slowly drive people insane in the surrounding community in “976 Sq Ft.” Sophie Crumb does “Lucid Nightmare pt. 4” which is the final part were the addicts escape from their captors to join up with a bunch of hippies.

“Mome” issue 11, Summer 2008, Al Columbia goes off the “1930’s cartoon from hell” thing and paints a scene of a sad, lonely, empty and deteriorating house, the panels show and emote the loneliness of the house, near the end you see a older woman with a rope around her neck but the question is was it a suicide or foul play? In the comic “5:45 AM”. A woman sees every man looking pig like but when she comes across a man she likes she sees him looking like a male version of herself, but his penis has the head of the piggish man in “Einmall Ist Keinmal” by Killoffer. Eleanor Davis does “Its Dot and Louisa in the 10.000 Rescues” each panel features the aforementioned characters in different weird rescue situations. “In Million Year Boom” a man goes to help develop public relations for a  brand new “green community” that is a lot more than it seems and more horrific.

In “Mome” Vol. 12 2008,Al Columbia does the single art pages with “Invasion”, all the pages show is what looks like an empty, suburban street with empty houses and front lawns except for the blue cats, the title “Invasion” makes me think these cats aren’t of this world and maybe why no people are about. This is why Al is one of my favorite artists, some pieces leave more questions than answers. Sophie Crumb does portraits of an old west female outlaw named “Agnes Freeman”. Oliver Schrawuwen does a pretty fucking funny comic called “Hair Types” where a buffoon in an art class, when seeing an illustration of different types of hair made by a fellow bearded art student sees that his hairstyle is listed as “docile hair”, the bearded student says that he has “crazy hair” he is roasted by all the students with hilarious results. “Train” by Dash Shaw has a woman, who is a children’s therapist, go on jog after a therapy session and witnesses a train wreck where the survivors stampede towards her in fear and she doesn’t know what to do. Jon Vermilyea does a violent rip on children’s breakfast food ads in the “The Breakfast Crew”. David B. tells a tale of a man whose skin is made into a drum and whose spirit leads his men into battle through the beating of the drum, but love gets in the way in “The Drum Who Fell in Love”. Sophie Crumb does a “Tijuana Bible” take, old school style, in “Loopy Liza in “Tsk Tsk”.

So while I bought the issues for Columbia’s work the rest of these issues surprised me and were just as interesting and good. Maybe down the line I might try to buy the whole run of “Mome”. I didn’t list the issues with Al Columbia covers because I am more interested in his comic strips and art, less so about his covers. The interviews are pretty interesting in these issues, and “Mome” sure is the word, get it out and get into it.

To get into it you can read every “Mome” in digital form right here: https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Mome

To get physical copies which I recommend there is still cheap copies on Abesbooks, Amazon etc. out there so snap them up while you still can.

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White Noise on Paper: Lets go to the “Biologic Show” by Al Columbia

Al is one twisted motherfucker and from one twisted motherfucker to another he made me a fan. The “Biologic Show” is when he started to develop his style that he is famous for, the “Fleischertoons from Hell” art style, in “Biologic Show”, the art style is more drippy, sharp and edgy goth, not that there is anything wrong with that, his demented and twisted sense of humor is intact. The “Biologic Show” issues 0 and 1 are very rare and hard to find, they were collected with other odds and ends and put in a book by Hollow Press with a dembossed cover in Italy and now that is sold out. That is the book I read and I am reviewing

The first issue of “Biologic Show” was published by Fantagraphics in 1994, this was issue 0, why Al just didn’t call it issue 1 I can’t figure out. “Biologic Show” issue 0 features “No Tomorrow If I Must Return” featuring his recurring clown character, Seymour Sushine, this time embedded in what looks like the mouth of his hinged mouth character, Alfred the Great, featured in “Zero Zero”(get zeroed zeroed out here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/09/30/five-four-three-two-one-zero-zero-comix/), the next one up is self titled and its about a man who finds his girlfriend murdered so he commits suicide to find her in the afterlife, the problem is this afterlife is Hell and his girlfriend will have nothing to do with him, “Grinding Larry” is about Larry who gets in a car wreck and loses his brain and now he has to find it, “Over” is a nasty poem set to some horrific comic strip art, “Extinction” features a couple’s escalating fight on a park bench and a man nearby who fights his mutant dog, nothing goes right as you imagine, “Lowborn Peacock” has another one of Al’s weird poems being performed in Hell, “Lil” Saint Anthony” is a tale of a man in a semi catatonic state eating his own shit on the ground and a boy wanting to buy bullets for his gun to put the man out of his misery, “Bruja” is another nonsensical strip and poem, recurring characters Pim and Francine make their first appearance in “Tar Frogs” they look different, more goth like as opposed to the 1930′ Fleischer Brother’s style characters they’d become, Pim eats some tar shaped like frogs off of their pervert neighbor Mr. Crowley’s front porch and becomes horny, he rapes Francine who might be his sister while Mr. Crowley (I have Ozzy’s voice echoing in my head) leers and watches behind a curtain, Pim impregnates Francine and she gives birth very fast to a beaked monstrosity, Pim tries to kill it but realizes he’s been really stabbing his sister.

“Biologic Show” issue 1 is really issue 2 called “Peloria Part One” and features Pim and Francine only in their nightmare world being chased by Siamese twin girls who are trying to kill them, Francine runs away and Pim gets cornered, Francine grabs a ride in a car with a creepy old man who attempts to hit on her and she wants to be let off at the fountain in town where she meets another recurring character of Al’s, Knishkebibble the Monkey Boy and his vacant eyed goth girlfriend and asks Monkey Boy if he’s seen Pim, Monkey Boy says “no” while feeling up his girlfriend and Francine gets back in the car with the creepy guy, Pim in a daze emerges and asks Monkey Boy if he has seen Francine, he lies and says he hasn’t, Pim passes out and Monkey Boy tries to revive him, soon Francine in the car with the weird guy thinks she sees Monkey Boy and Pim sitting at the fountain, she decides not to get out of the car and drives away with the stranger. The story is supposed to continue in the next issue.

Al claimed he was gonna do “Biologic Show” issue 2 which was actually gonna be 3, the story “I Was Killing When Killing Wasn’t Cool”, was supposed to be appear in that issue but Al realized his style of drawing had changed and he’d changed it into the “Fleischer Brothers from Hell” style he is known for and didn’t think it would fit “Biologic Show”, the story ended up being put in “Zero Zero” which I reviewed (link above). Al got the title for his comic from William S. Burrough’s book “Exterminator”. After Al didn’t want to do “Biologic Show” anymore (Surprise! Surprise!) Fantagraphics said they were gonna expand “Peloria” into a graphic novel, but of course a lot of Al’s plans, it didn’t happen.

This book also features Seymour Sunshine “Debris”, bits and pieces of his recurring character in “Slow Machine”, “Casigian”, “The Hellbound Bellydancer”, and “Ersatz (A family name)” featuring two characters that look suspiciously like Pim and Francine, the book republishes the mini comic “23  Skidoo” the story “Orifi to Boreal” about a man who goes to a wishing well wishing for pussy and throws his coin down the well he gets more than he bargains for, in the next untitled story a man gets in a car crash and skids yards and features a poem about the man internally bleeding to death and the last piece is “Johnny 23” a piece published in the comix mag “Taboo” in 1992, a guy tries to suppress his murdering impulses by imagining he is a crooner while having his ex girlfriend tied up in his bathroom.

So there you have it, “Biologic Show” is nihilistic, bloody, violent and to be honest a bit juvenile, the thing is meant to convey pure black mortician humor. You can see the progress of Al’s style, from the drippy, jagged edged style to a more 1930’s cartoon from hell style. While the art style has changed, the humor and messed story lines have not. “Biologic Show” is not for the feint of heart, I do like his later art style better, it is more original and his own. A lot of people back in the day were doing the whole “goth jagged edges with drips” thing. I do wish Al was more prolific, people say he is a perfectionist, problem is there is very thin line between perfectionist and procrastinator. Finding the original issues and the compilation book from Hollow Press at a reasonable price is gonna be impossible, I know I looked. I have my copy and got it right before it went out of print. Good luck if your trying to find it.

If you want to find physical copies go look on ebay, but I got to warn you your wallet is going to be screaming to be put out of its misery.

To read the original “Biologic Show” issues digitally you can go here: https://comiconlinefree.net/the-biologic-show/issue-0

And here: https://comiconlinefree.net/the-biologic-show/issue-1

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White Noise on Paper: Five, Four, Three, Two, One, “Zero Zero” comix.

I remember people being afraid of an apocalyptic event as the 1990’s was wrapping up, some said it would be a huge computer crash via Y2K (anybody remember that?) that would destroy all systems politically and economically, an environmental disaster that the Greens kept predicting every ten years like their religious counterparts with the book of Revelation etc. of course none of that happened some would argue in September 11th, 2001 was an end to our way of life and now that the Coof is running rampant it looks like the end could be at hand and is being used by unscrupulous, authoritarian scumbags to push their various control freak agendas. The underground comics anthology series “Zero Zero” played on those fears tangentially and manipulated them into absurd humor by various artists.

The editor was Kim Thompson who was an editor on other Fantagraphics publications. This comic anthology series lasted from 1995-2000 with 27 issues. Kim got the name “Zero Zero” from artist J.R. Williams who is another recurring artist in the series, originally J.R. was gonna call his own series “Zero Zero” but instead ended  up calling his comic “Crap” instead (insert joke here). Not only that, “Zero Zero” is another way of saying the year 2000 which evoked hope in some and fear in others, the comics themselves in between the covers, mostly black n’ white except for some two color pieces looks like it takes place in a post apocalyptic, nightmare world. In the forward to the first issue Kim says “That balance of the new and established, of penthouse art and gutter art, of quantity (page count for RAW, frequency for Weirdo) and quality remains elusive. ‘Zero Zero’ is but the latest attempt a few steps down that path.”

David N. Holzman’s woodcut comic “Big Head” from issue one, March/April 1995.

 

Also Kim shit on the then current trend of “autobiographical” comics started by Robert Crumb’s wife, Aline, when she was editor of “Weirdo” and shit balled into a crap avalanche by countless artists. Kim said in the same forward “Zero Zero’ will be something of a refuge for those who are sick unto death of the autobio comics trend, not to mention its the cousin the graphic/lecture rant, although I will let my defenses down for the occasionally extraordinary piece (this (first issue) issue’s Bukowski/Moriarity collaboration being a case in point, ‘Zero Zero’ is about fiction in comics form.” Now of course Kim would go on to not really hold that editorial position with David Collier’s comics which were rants/autobiography, Collier’s art style is very close to Crumb’s, and while the art was good I often found his pieces to get too self involved, preachy and up their own ass. Though I have to say Joe Sacco’s piece on himself and a couple of journalists confronting a dictator on Christmas at an orthodox service in Serbia was interesting, so was J. Backderf’s story on hanging out with the infamous serial killer Jeffery Dahmer in high school which was expanded into an award winning graphic novel and into a feature length movie but its very rare that an autobio comic is interesting to me.

Two color contents page with Sof’ Boy who is in a hilarious S n’ M themed strip March/April 1996.

There is a few strips that are serialized and their all good, chief among them the late and great Richard Sala with his very retro “The Chuckling Whatsit” which was later gathered in a graphic novel, Max White’s tale of greek/Christian mythology “Homunculus”, Kim Deitch’s obsession with old pop culture in both his “Molly O’ Dare” and “Search for Smilin’ Ed” pieces, Dave Cooper’s space age/futuristic put down of the man hating butch brigade in “Crumple”, Kaz and Timothy Georgarakis’ collab on “Meat Box” a comic that takes place in some absurd dadaesque/abstract world, Ted Stearn’s adventures of a Teddy Bear and his chicken friend in “Fuzz and Pluck” and David Mazzucchelli’s “Pop. 66” that takes place in some hellish town in Italy or Spain, not one of these serials bored me they were all entertaining and I couldn’t wait for the next episode in each issue.

Richard Sala’s “Chuckling Whatsit” serial started in issue 2.

Some of the names that show up are the old guard of the underground comix scene mixed with the new, you’ll get some nastiness from Mike Diana, Henriette Valium, Max Andersson, Glenn Head, Skip Williamson, Blanquet, P. Revess, Chris Ware etc. You get a bunch of different art styles which makes the anthology overall interesting. Some pieces don’t hit, some fucking nail it. While the series is mostly black and white there is Al Columbia two color sections and that was my whole reason for searching out this thing, because Al Columbia hits the ball and the park for my money, in issue 4 Al has the two color Fleischer toon inspired nightmare “I was Killing When Killing Wasn’t Cool” with his two recurring characters Seymour Sunshine the clown and Knishkebibble the Monkey Boy which was supposed to appear in his own “Biologic Show” comic issue 2 until he canceled the series and gave this to “Zero Zero” the title is a play on the song title “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool”. Ole’ Al has a inside cover color job in issue 8 called “He Didn’t Wake Up”, issue 15 back cover has Al’s depiction of “Walpurgisnacht” that will send every safe space crybaby running for their mama, God I loved the Un PC 1990’s! Issue 16 has Al’s two color dark fairy tale “Blood Clot Boy” a boy born of, what else, a blood clot who goes on twisted adventures, issue 20 Al steps up his art game in the two color nightmare featuring Sunshine and the Monkeyboy called “Amnesia” not to be mixed up with his grotesque animated movie poster collection from the 1930’s comic, “Amnesia”, in this one Al out does himself by using photo realistic backgrounds and with his characters layered on top of them, no wonder Al’s issues sold out real fast, he’d continue this new artistic direction in issue 26 which is considered the “last” issue with “Alfred the Great” a hinged mouth freak who can juggle anything with his tongue, of course this goes south really fast and then the wrap up issue 27 Al does the cover of a monkey in front of an unappetizing plate of meat and he does back cover featuring his other recurring character “Cheapie the Guinea Pig”, he said this will be a character he is gonna use in future comics but with Al its “I’ll believe it when I see it”. But Al’s work shouldn’t overshadow anybody else in this series, the whole damn series is interesting, I’d even go as far as to say almost better than the classic “Weirdo” and “RAW”.

Al Columbia’s “Amnesia” from issue 20.

On the back of every issue was the feature “The Signs of the Impending Apocalypse” which has comical and satirical depictions of apocalyptic scenes done by the likes of Daniel Clowes, Marky Ramone (yes that Ramone) among many many others. Kim said the back covers were to suggest a Jack Chick comic tract.

So “Zero Zero” isn’t a zero, every issue is regular comic book size but even with a majority of black and white pages this is one of my favorite comic anthologies, this is one I will pull out and read again and will sometimes pick up an issue and just thumb through it and revel in the weirdness of it all. You won’t be bored by it either, some stuff is tear jerker funny and some of it is messed up. If you want to find issues, good luck, try amazon, and remember there is a total of 27 issues and the Al Columbia ones especially come at a high price, I was lucky enough to find a whole set and I am too embarrassed to tell you how much I paid for it, I will never pay that much for anything again but I don’t regret one bank emptying penny of it either. “Zero Zero” is an embodiment of the alternative “comix” and zine culture that spread through the 1990’s, whacky, surreal, weird, slackeristic (I made that word up), cynical, maniacal etc. Set them gauges to “Zero Zero”.

Charles Burn’s cover for issue 8.

To at least read the first issue with the awesome Gary Panter cover go here: https://archive.org/details/zerozero1/mode/2up

Marc Arsenault talks about his experience working on “Zero Zero” as an art director, how it was like to work with editor Kim Thompson and owning his own comic and zine shop here: https://wowcool.com/zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero/

To find copies go on amazon, ebay, abebooks etc. Get prepared to dig into your wallet and have your paypal account scream and cry like a little bitch. Good luck.

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White Noise on Paper: Watching some “Highbone Theater” by Joe Daly

 I don’t make it a secret that I like comics that take different paths, all the overblown “stuperhero” stuff bores the hell out of me, its been done to death and every variation of some caped schmoo has been tried, granted I am sure there is people out there that will never get burned out on Batman, Iron Man and company, but for some reason I have this weird thing where if something is just overdone I lose complete interest in it. I like when people go in a different direction with the comics format which is the reason why I review mainly independent and underground “comix”. If somebody puts a new, fresh and different spin on the superhero comic than I will be interested, until then I will be reading stuff like “Highbone Theater” by Joe Daly.

Joe Daly mainly studied animation at Cape Town’s City Varsity college, and also put out the awesome “Dungeon Quest” lampooning RPG players and the equally good “Red Monkey Double Happiness Book”, with “Highbone Theater” Joe goes into stoner territory with his muscular, bearded main character, Palmer, who is a intellectual, plays the Chubush, reads books, smokes weed and has weird dreams about 9/11, his room mates are macho meatheads who hunt sharks, drink, party and screw anything and everything that moves. The art reminds me a lot of Robert Crumb’s stuff, the men are all barrel chested, with thick arms, and legs, big hands and feet, all the women are hour glass shaped with big asses. Through this all, Palmer has strange dreams that have him questioning reality itself and Palmer meets a strange man at the paper mill he works at named Billy Boy who thinks that there is people who live under the earth that manipulate events on the surface.

And the art goes from black and white when Palmer isn’t dreaming, to color when he is dreaming or high which makes me think that this is the artist’s way of saying the so called whacky dream world of Palmer is almost more real than the mundane day to day existence world.  Conspiracy theories, the occult and Gnosticism get twirled in this heady brew of a comic, the humor is absurd and sometimes I think gets lost in translation because of the different humor and culture of South Africa.

This book is thick and collects all of the “Highbone Theater” comics in one place at 572 pages in hardcover and put out by the awesome Fantagraphics, it seems that whatever Fantagraphics touch turns to fucking gold. If you want something different in your comics I highly recommend Joe Daly’s stoner opus, it will make your brain bleed, guaranteed.

So get out your joint, its always “4/20” here: https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/joe-daly/products/highbone-theater

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White Noise on Paper: Welcome to “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn”! GRRRRRR!!!!

Open this comic compilation and the smell of cheap gin, cigarettes and even cheaper perfume wafts right off the page. You know exactly where you are: “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn”. Welcome to a world where the 1950’s to mid 1960’s pop culture is mixed together with no blurring lines, its a place where space travel and alien visitation is normal. A four eyed detective, Lloyd Llewellyn, hangs out in a bar “The Big White Dot” with his diminutive side kick, Ernie. Together they chase alien dames, beat up Ed Big Daddy Roth monster teenagers from Jupiter, battle man eating Beatniks etc. This was Daniel Clowes first foray into doing his own comic book.

Daniel says all up until the point of Lloyd Llewellyn he had only done 25 pages of actual comics and single illustrations until he sent an Lloyd Llewellyn page in color to Fantagraphics, Fantagraphics gave him his own comic, except it was in black and white, the cover and back being colored which fits the whole aesthetic of the magazine and the time period its paying homage to. Its like reading a black and white sci fi noir film.

Dan says he isn’t particularly proud of his work in “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn” it was one of his first projects and he says he was working himself up to “Triple A Baseball”. He said writing Lloyd Llewellyn was a way of exorcising pop culture demons and trivia he’d gathered, pop culture from 1948-1966. He thought there was a market for comics that referenced “Dragnet” and Mickey Spillane novels, he said the target audience turned out to be ex hippies who thought it was a satire of the pre 1967 culture they hated and younger kids who were into “Hep Cat” culture and hated anything post 1966.

The series lasted from 1985 to 1994, in it he pays homage to various pop culture relics from the 1950-1966 period including  Red Sovine and Burl Ives lyrics, DC comics of the early 1960’s, characters that are similar to Lee Hazlewood, Esquerita, Alfred E. Newman, Sylvester P. Smythe, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth monsters, 1950’s “Super Duck” and “Plastic Man”, movies like “Detour”, “Devil Thumbs A Ride”, “Touch of Evil”, “Brainac”, “Thrill Killers”, “Homicidal”, “Straight Jacket” and “Psycho” and TV shows like “Dragnet”. Despite what Clowes says (and his later stuff is better) I wasn’t bored one minute with this thing. I loved this world, I’ve read worse and won’t review those on here.

In this book is the foreword and afterward to the first version of this collection called simply “#$@&! Parts one and two”. This book is a must for Daniel Clowes fans, problem is this book is out of print and rare. While “Fantagraphics” is one of my favorite companies out there, their refusal to republish past stuff, even in limited quantities makes me insanely mad. The prices are utterly fucking ridiculous, I was lucky to get this copy for 150 bucks from Australia. Utterly ridiculous. From “Fantagraphics” point of view they probably wonder why they should reprint something barely anybody knows or cares about but the problem is they do it all the time. I wish they’d give Lloyd Llewellyn the same treatment as Dan’s other work like “Velvet Glove Cast In Iron” and “Eight Ball”. There is stuff released that is selling on ebay and various sites for insane amounts of money I would never pay, no matter how much I want it. Until I started searching I didn’t think I’d ever read “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn” and I despaired of ever seeing this visual white noise. There is a lot out there I want to see but never will because of insane fucking collectors and sellers who drive the price of something way the fuck up, sure scarcity causes the costs to sky rocket but c’mon, some of these sellers are just ripping desperate schmucks off. (RANT OVER. LOL!)

“The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn” was released in a limited print run of 2000 copies, wish they’d do another so all of you out there could experience Clowes’ strange noir, sci fi, retro world. If you want a copy I say do a search on your favorite internet search engine, the physical copies like I have are gonna straight up rape your wallet raw, and on amazon right now the cheapest available copy is 727 bucks! EEEEK!!! When I searched I could find no download links, if you want to search for a copy good luck to you and good luck hunting!