Can I Borrow Your Toilet?
Chances are that you’ve never wondered what goes on at a cardboard box factory. Actually, it would probably be called a recycling plant, as they smash cardboard boxes into little cubes and send them out, but the point remains the same. Gareth, with his uncanny ability to turn everything comics-related he touches into gold, manages to make a completely engaging story out of it. The story begins with Gareth taking in his surroundings, improvising for some breakfast (unless you think porridge in a stale ice cream cone is normal), and avoiding a conversation about football on the way to work. Once he gets there we need a list of the people he works with, and he doesn’t disappoint, telling us the stories of his three main workmates: Ticking Time Bomb Tom, Sleepy Roberto and Frightened John. From here Gareth also mentions other regulars that show up, the daily rituals that come from every mundane job in the world (like the daily eating contest, always involving the same people, food and winner, who always uses the same technique) and the daily appearance of the one woman who always walked by the factory at the same time of day. She was a plain woman, but most of the people in the factory had fallen in love with her anyway. It’s a thoroughly engaging “day in the life” type of story, as Gareth proves once again that he can make anything entertaining. The sample isn’t really representative of the style of the comic, as mostly it’s text on the left side and images on the right, but hey, this is a comics website after all, so I had to pick one that fit the “regular” comics standards. No price on this hefty thing, I’m guessing it’s around $5 US. And if you haven’t seen the rest of this page, you can’t move along without at least looking at Man Man…
