Cripes, I think the review up there was one of the first things I did for this website and here it is, 3/22/04, and I finally got something else to comment on. Well, I think this book is brilliant. So much so that I wonder if reading the previous book again would give me a better opinion of it, although I’ll have to get settled and have all my comics out of boxes to tell you for sure. Graham’s art is deceptively simple, but there’s plenty going on in every panel. I’m breaking with tradition here slightly to give you two samples. It’s two pages in a row, so I hope I’m not breaking any unwritten rules here, but follow the character on the far right of the panel. He’s trying to get to a party, see, but the only way to get there is through a friend of a friend who makes this other guy want to kill people. The beauty of this book is in the facial expressions of the characters. I don’t know how he conveys so much with so little, but it works. In this story you have a precocious cat who wanders into some genuinely heart-wrenching conversations, Billy Joel trying to kill a wombat, a hacking cough and a quack, and a couple of other short pieces. I think I said the other book was a bit pricey for what it was, but with this one (priced the same at $14.95) I have to say that you’re getting a deal. Check it out, if you don’t already know who this guy is, and tell your friends if you do, because everybody could use some more funny in their lives. Oh, and sorry about the corners of the samples, but you try scanning a graphic novel.
