Hillbilly Sex #4
OK, this is basically a review of #2-4, although I’ll probably go into more of the details of the individual issues when I have more time/when I feel less lazy. Reading three of these in a row is, frankly, an assault on the senses and I don’t have it in me to dissect three issues at once. Tastelessness is fine, going for the gross-out is fine, it’s just… after a while, wouldn’t it be funnier to NOT do the most offensive thing you can think of in a strip? Just make it bright and shiny to freak people out or something? Just a thought, but I’d love to see a children’s book from this guy to see some range, because there’s real talent here. He’s not anywhere near as bad as Jeff Johnston seems to think (the review is reprinted in #2) where he basically says that Nick is all that’s wrong with comics today. Not that I’m saying he’s the second coming or anything, but does it make me a total moron to find some of his stuff hilarious? At times he’s like a much less polished Ivan Brunetti, which isn’t his best stuff. His best stuff is his longer work, like the story where his character, Darwin Dong, confronts God (who actually turns out to be Burt Reynolds) and gets a lesson on love. Or there’s the story of Darwin befriending and eventually falling in love with a dog. Things I don’t like so much: most (but not all) of the four panel comics are stupid, but I mostly don’t like four panel strips, so take that with a grain of salt; same with most of the one panel gag strips. I like how he put the scathing review of his work on the inside cover and his biographies of various people (Lydia Lunch, Mike Diana and Gil-Scott Heron, so far) are short and informative. I’d say that #3 is your best bet if you just want to check one of them out, and #4 is probably the weakest overall. He also has a strange obsession with wrestling, not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s $2 per issue, contact info is above.
