As always with gigantic anthology collections like this, I like to make it easy on the reader. See that list of contributors in the tags? How many of your favorites do you see in there? Probably quite a few, huh? Then what’s left to think about? For the rest of you, or if you’re just trying to kill time at work, now I’ll say some stuff, then we can both go about our days. Hm, that seems like a grim way to sum up reviewing. Anyway! This is a collection of stories from people who are at their lowest points in life, so if you’re going into this expecting a barrel of laughs, you’ll be disappointed. There are some laughs, sure, as laughter can be the only way to get through some truly horrific times, but mostly it’s just sad. My biggest fear going into this, honestly, was seeing the worst parts of the lives of some of my favorite artists, but outside of a few of them, the artists were drawing the tales of people who submitted their stories anonymously. No, I’m not going to reveal which artists told their own stories; if you’re that curious about them get your own copy. There are also websites in the back so that anybody going through a similar issue in their own lives can get some help, so if you’re seeing too much of yourself in any of these stories, please do so. Not that you need to hear it from me, but I thought I’d throw it out there, because who knows when it’ll start seeming like good advice. There are roughly 40 stories in here, so I’m not going to go through them one by one, but I’ll give you some “highlights.” Subjects deal with reaching out for the last time and having it work out, the first time taking crack, getting beat up by cops (this one pops up more than a few times, which sadly isn’t shocking), using whiskey in a bong, getting addicted to voyeurism, a series of bottoms (a recurring theme was that there was rarely just one lowest point), having an imaginary dog, and very, very many slow descents to the bottom. It’s grim stuff, but it can also show you that there’s hope in even the worst times, as all of these people are still here to tell their stories. Get help if you need it, and give this comic a shot to see that however bad your situation is, there are people out there who have gone through something similar. $15
To those of you who read these reviews in order, yes, I did review a collection of the first 8 issues of this series already. And I wrote a review of #9. But he was also nice enough to send along a copy of #8 for review, and roughly half of the stories in here weren’t included in the collection, so it’s kind of like new! To those of you who don’t care at all about such minutiae, my apologies. I’ll treat it like a regular old comic and won’t even mention which of these stories were in the collection, how about that? Partially because my memory is garbage and I’m not completely sure without looking back at the book. Stories in this collection include (after the American Splendor homage cover by Noah Van Sciver) his struggle with pork (he’s Jewish) and the best dumplings in New York, his early years experimenting with gory special effects (and the time he got into a fender bender while wearing gory face makeup), what almost turned out to be the perfect day, and the story of his history with pets, up to an including the tragic story of the first dog he adopted. So if you were curious if just getting the collection would cover you for the first 8 issues worth of stories, sorry! That was merely a “best of” collection. Plenty of great stories still around in these individual issues! $5
One sign that I’m reading an amazing book? When I pick about a dozen pages in my head to be my sample page, then realize when I’m done that I could really use just about any page. An embarrassment of riches, I believe it’s called. If you’ve been living under a rock (like me) and have somehow never heard of “So Buttons” even though you already know almost all of the artists involved, you’re in luck! This book collects stories (possibly all of the stories? It’s not clear) from the first 7 issues of his comic series. He uses several different artists, with a few names popping up several times. These strips are all autobiographical, and (this is important for people thinking about making an autobio comic) each of them had something to say. Even the ones about mundane aspects of his life; it’s clear that the guy has seen a lot and/or known people who have seen a lot, which is when it’s advisable to make an autobio comic. Not to name any names of people who make autobio comics for years with seemingly little to nothing to say. Ahem. Anyway, this one starts off with a comic about Jonathan’s first day working for Marvel in 1994, which happened to be the day that Jack Kirby died. He was there when John Romita Sr. did the tribute art for Jack, and he was the one who had to tell him to improve his Thor drawing. Which was a little intimidating, to put it mildly; if you’re not familiar with comics history, those were two legends and it was his first day. This story was also drawn by Fred Hembeck, which is not a name that I’d ever thought would be on my website because he’s a Marvel guy through and through, but here he is. There’s a real danger of my saying either too much or too little about the remaining stories, but I’ll give it a shot. Subjects include taking a trip to take in some art, overdoing it on the Halloween makeup before getting into an auto accident, his kinda sorta connection to R. Crumb, the dangers of meeting your heroes (in this case Robert Redford), meeting Jackie Mason, the perfect joke after seeing Schindler’s List, trying to find the secret to the perfect brisket, how he manages to love both New York baseball teams, how we went from bully to bullied in one word, his Annie tryout in grade school, his unfortunate reaction to the news that John Lennon had been killed, hanging out with his dad and learning that the guy wasn’t as predictable as he thought, bringing out a traumatic memory of the war from his uncle, and almost meeting Jim Jarmusch. There is also almost an entire half of the book that I didn’t mention at all, so obviously there’s a lot here to love. The artists do amazing work with the material they’ve been given and Jonathan is an incredibly gifted writer. Yeah, I don’t have a single bad thing to say about this one. Check it out! $20
Posted by Kevin 
