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Vice Blog

Nick Gazin's Comic Book Witch Hunt #11

I'd fallen on hard times recently and then hard times fell on me. Now I'm the meat in a hard times sandwich. As a result, things have been piling up around my rat's nest and I've let other things slide. Mostly I forgot to review comics and when I finally got around to it I had 50 goddamn books in my stack. Anyway here you go.

Also robbers stole some of my comics. They stole that new comic, Neptune, about a girl with a dog named Neptune. That was a pretty good comic. Here's a list of fifty comics and things that are like comics that I read or tried to read.

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1)
Popeye Volume 4: Plunder Island
E.C. Segar
Fantagraphics
Name a funnier comic than Popeye. Wrong, idiot, there isn't one. Not only is Popeye the best ever, but this volume of Fantagraphics Popeye series is the best one yet. Oh yeah? Name a better one. Wrong.

In volume 4 we're introduced to Alice the Goon, a terrifying creature that Wimpy later tricks into falling in love with him. Popeye makes a successful newspaper by hiring a bunch of near-suicidal cartoonists, resulting in a lot of very funny inside jokes about how fucked-up comickers are. Olive Oyl inherits $20 million dollars and gets too stuck up for Popeye. That last storyline gets crazier and crazier until it seems like it can't get crazier and then guess what? More craziness. Popeye beats up a bunch of cowboys while wearing a dress and doing a weird dance that involves him bouncing around on his balls.

Like most great strips, Popeye has a strong philosophy. That philosophy is the world's full of crooks. I wish there was a real Popeye to enforce some sort of rough fist-justice but I'm pretty sure there's no justice and there's certainly no Popeye, just crooks.

2)
Prince Valiant Volume 2
Hal Foster
Fantagraphics
I accidentally just spilled most of a beer on my copy of this. I was thinking,"I wonder if I can cajole Fantagraphics into sending me another one." and then I remembered that there's actual suffering in the world.

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Tom Scharpling of the Best Show once said something to the effect of, "Who wants to start at the beginning of Prince Valiant and read that whole series?! It'll take forever!" I wanted to call in and defend Prince Valiant but figured Tom would just make fun of me, shout "heave ho" and hang up. The Prince Valiant that most people remember is the crappy one that was being published when I was little. The original was a giant Sunday page with some of the greatest illustrations ever done. The colors in the latest reprint series are so superior to those in the previous printings that the old ones might as well have been in black and white. This shit is tremendous. This volume involves Prince Valiant hanging around and causing mischief at home before getting bored and going out to seek adventure. He makes friends with an artistic con man and they fuck up a whole army. Then he goes to a magic time cave and fights an old man who temporarily makes him into a doddering octogenarian. Then he finds a castle where a giant watches over midgets. Get this book or I'll get you.

3)Wilson
Daniel Clowes
Drawn & Quarterly

The greatest cartoonist of our age has returned to comics in an attempt to teach us the true meaning of self-loathing. This isn't Clowes's best or worst comic but it sure as hell beats the graphic novels all those other assholes are making (and you assholes are reading). You should definitely go out and buy this, and pay full price in a real book store, don't Amazon this shit or change your mind at the last second and buy this.

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Wilson tells the story of Wilson, a middle-aged jackoff who thinks of himself as a sensitive guy and likes to talk to strangers until they say something, at which point he acts like a condescending bully. The only character he feels compassion for is his dog. In Wilson's mind all other people exist to bolster his opinions of himself but his dislike of people leads him to insulting most everyone.

Clowes has been expanding his crabby old men characters in his recent works. He recently mentioned that when rereading Ghost World the character he most related to was Enid's father.. There was the main character from Death Ray, who also seemed to only care about his dog, and there was the old poet character in Ice Haven. I'm not crazy about the decision to draw each page in a different style or the coloring but Dan Clowes doesn't need my approval. He can do whatever he wants.

4)
Giant Size Little Lulu 2
John Stanley and Irving Tripp
Dark Horse
For 25 bucks this book delivers 700 pages of Little Lulu comics. Ohhhh myyyy gosshhhh. This is mandatory. If you aren't immediately repelled by the idea of a great comic about a funny little girl that is well drawn and you have $25 then you otter go out and buy this thing right away and love it for the rest of your natural life. Little Lulu is a real laughmaker and you should let her live on your bookshelf and in the pleasure centers of your brain.

5)
The Complete Peanuts 1977 to 1978
Charles Schulz
Fantagraphics
Alec Baldwin wrote a nice brief intro for this book. I imagine him running around naked on his compound and then taking little breaks to read this book, using his penis as a bookmark.

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I keep waiting for the quality of the comics in these books to take a sharp downturn but it hasn't hit yet. Snoopy goes around pretending to be a helicopter. This book also contains one of my favorite storylines in which Snoopy plays tennis with intensely scary tennis bitch, Molly Volley. Later they team up again for a game against Crybaby Booby. Sally goes to camp. Peppermint Patty beats up a hockey team. Charlie Brown tries to get peple to adopt Spike but no one will take him. Lucy keeps pining for Schroeder who wants her to die. So many personality types that I find in adult life were first found in these comics.

This volume also answers the question,"Where are all the Peanuts kids' parents?" It turns out that the kids ate them.

6)
Black Mass #3
Patrick Kyle
Patrick Kyle
Patrick Kyle rules. This comic starts off with some evil and weird looking wizard creatures giving some sort of magic object to a character named Turdswallo, with the intention of making him into a magic being and using him to fulfill their evil yens. The power of the potion is all channeled to his hair which grows really fast. He tries a magic incantation but only spews out gibberish and the world falls apart.

Trying to describe the stories of his comics doesn't really make much sense. They are beautifully drawn, and like all the Wowee Zonk artists, rarely employ panels. New-age shit and punk are referenced in general ways but interesting dialogue and beautiful drawings are the star of this show. The world of comics is moving away from nostalgia and towards something new and more optimistic. Crumb was great but times are a'changing. Good things are a'brewing. Comics aren't the Special Olympics any more.

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7)
Mr. Cellar's Attic and Black Colour
Noel Freibert
E.T. Press
Mr. Cellar's Attic is a silkscreened horror comic about having a horrible roommate who turns out to be a demon. It's got a real old horror vibe to it and is also about hating your damn roommates so fucking much because they are using your goddamn shampoo and not cleaning shit up and crap.

Black Colour is a version of Mr. Cellar's Attic in which the black lines have been removed and all colors in the printing process have been exchanged with black. It's great. When you're coloring shit in on different layers, either digital or by hand, you create this incidental art that's kind of a surprise to see when it's done. Rad ideas abound in both books. Buy everything this guy does or be mad at yourself when you try to fall asleep.

8)
What Had Happened Was…
Domitille Collardey
Weeping Willow
Domitille is this round-headed French woman who draws herself with a body like a lollipop. Her comics remind me of the comic at the end of Blutch's book Mish-Mash with all the children running around with little bodies and big heads. Her inky blackness is great but she really shines in a full-color center spread which showcases some stuff she colored with watercolors.

9)
Werewolves of Montpelier
Jason
Fantagraphics
Jason returns with another really good comic that you can read really fast. This guy is good. This time the story's about a burglar who dresses like a werewolf while pining after his lesbo roommate and avoiding actual werewolves. Jason uses just a few lines but his aesthetics are super superior and he can express intense emotions with simplicity. I could go on but I'm not a good writer.

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10)
Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips
Roy Crane
Fantagraphics
This big cardboard-bound collection of the first adventure comic. The story doesn't mean too much to me but the art and colors are mind bogglingly beautiful. It's like Darger. Beautiful candy-colored lunacy.

11)
Hoyo De Gustano
Ines Estrada
Ines Estrada
Ines Estrada decided that she would draw all of the dreams she had in February 2010 and that's what makes up the contents of this mini-comic. There's even one she had about me. The comic's cover is hand-done in watercolor and the whole things is adorable and captures the feeling of dreams pretty damn well.

12)
Art In Time: Unknown Comic Book Adventures, 1940 - 1980
Dan Nadel
Abrams
Art Out Of Time was an amazing book. This is a less amazing book but it's still good. There's nothing as loose or perverse as Dick Briefer or Fletcher Hanks in here, but if you like old comics this is a good book for you. If you think comics are boring, you would do well to avoid this book.

13)
Smoke Signals Number Five
Edited by Gabe Fowler
Desert Island
This has a rad Lisa Hanawalt cover and some good insides too. Vanessa Davis did an amazing comic about hip-replacement surgery. Sam Henderson did rad gags. Ines Estrada contributed something cute and grim. Jess McManus did something that looks real good and doesn't have much story. Michael Deforge contributed some of his awesome genius shit. Ben Marra drew rad barbarians. Taylor McKimens did a rad center spread. Joel Skavdahl rules. Chris Mukai is a new surprise talent. These comics all rock, rot, or rule.

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14)
Comic Characters
Mark Todd
Fun Chicken
This awesome mini collects drawings and profiles that Mark Todd created for role-playing games when he was fourteen. As can be guessed, it's adowable. Some look like childish drawings of superheroes. Others just look like animals with guns. A couple appear to be plants but have secret human names. Mark Todd always makes the best shit.

15)
This pile of Sam Henderson mini-comics
Sam Henderson
self-published
You like Sam Henderson's gag comics? Of course you do, everybody does. You'll like these.

16)
Henry & Glenn Forever
Igloo Tornado
Igloo Tornado
What if Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig were a gay couple who lived together and they were neighbors with Hall and Oates who were also gay and satanists. It's pretty funny. These two humorless, gym frequenting, tattooed punkies make for a hilarious gay couple. Igloo Tornado is some sort of comic group I never heard of. If you ever gave a fuck about these guys or thought they were ridiculous then go pick up this chuckler.

17)
Blacksad
Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido
Dark Horse Books
This is a furry noir comic about a black cat man detective in what is supposed to be New York but looks too European. All the characters have human bodies and their heads are all dogs, cats, monkeys and other animals. I think it's supposed to be like Maus where all the different species signify different ethnicities. At one point we see a gorilla boxer and then an orangutang blues singer which makes me believe black people are represented by monkeys. That part isn't necessarily cool.

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The art's amazing though. You see every piece of detail possible in every panel. All the architecture, mechanical devices, everything is completely rendered and colored with watercolor. Everything's so solid and correct that the cartoon animal heads look wrong and perverse.

This volume contains three stories. The first concerns the murder of a woman from Blacksad's past. The second is about neo-nazi animals which is pretty funny and the final one is about nuclear hysteria. Europeans are strange. I like this book and I envy the abilities of the artist but there's something about it that I find impossible to really sink into.

18)
Speed-Speed-Speedfreak: A Fast History of Amphetamine
Mick Farren
Feral House
This isn't a comic but there aren't very many good comic books being made now and all these books pile up at the Vice office without getting reviewed so I shove them in here. This is a great little book about speed. In 208 pages Mick Farren manages to say a whole lot about drugs both in social and global contexts. I find its gel-cap shape a little irritating but it doesn't get in the way of the words, which are good ones and informative ones.

19)
Tales Designed To Thrizzle #6
Michael Kupperman
Fantagraphics
You know the drill. The art's kinda like clip art and a bunch of really funny things are said and done. There's a comic called "Jungle Princess" that's kinda like a Fletcher Hanks comic but with more joking. A parody of Richie Rich comes next. Then some other goofy baloney.

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My roommate just walked over, picked up this book and said,"Is this the new Tom Tomorrow book? Where's the sassy penguin who lets rip with the liberal quips?"

20)
B.P.R.D. - War On Frogs
Mike Mignola, Herb Trimpe, Peter Snejbjerg, John Arcudi, John Severin, Dave Stewart, Guy Davis, Karl Moline, Bjarne Hansen
Dark Horse
B.P.R.D. is a comic about the agency that Hellboy works for. Guy Davis is an amazing artist and the series has a good pace to it and is full of a good mixture of action and mystery.

This book has a bunch of different artists in it, including EC's famous John Severin. If you're nuts for the world of Hellboy than you'll like this.

21)
I Slept With Joey Ramone
Mickey Leigh with Legs McNeil
Simon And Schuster
Joey Ramone's brother went and wrote a book about Joey Ramone. Like most books about a band the first half is good and the second half is a bummer. It's fun reading about weirdos struggling to reach their goals but then they either turn into mega stars and get dull, like in Marilyn Manson's autobigraphy, or they don't become as big as they thought they would get and become bitter or drugged out. If you like the Ramones then read about the first sixty percent of this book. After that it's mostly about family squabbles and ends with Joey Ramone dying while listening to recent U2.

22)
Victore, or Who Died and Made You Boss?
James Victore
Abrams
James Victore was teaching at SVA while I was there and I thought his stuff was boss. I see what he does as being a much lesser version of what the Pushpin Graphics guys do. A lot of the ideas are irritating attempts at being clever. The sideways foldout-poster dustjacket's pretty cool. The paper's all black and so are it's edges which makes it look imposing as Hell. The design of the book is better than anything in the book.

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23)
Usagi Yojimbo: Return of the Black Soul
Stan Sakai
Dark Horse
This trade collects Usagi Yojimbo #s 103 to 106. The art's friendly and inviting and the series is easy to get without having to start at the beginning. A bunch of cute anthropomorphic animals are living in feudal Japan and the star is the titular rabbit. A lot of times it feels like I'm reading the same comic over and over. Usagi will be wandering around, stay at someone's house and then discover they are a demon or a ghost. Also he will fight people and be very honorable. Then he will discover he's been honorably fighting a ghost.

24)
XXX
Tomas Delbalso
self-published
This little booklet collects a bunch of inky drawings of horrific drips and smoke and monsters. It's okay.

25)
Peepochoo Volume 1
Felipe Smith
Vertical
Peepochoo is a manga series originally published in Japan but made by a Western guy. It's about a young black kid in Chicago who's obsessed with a cartoon phenomenon that's exactly like Pokemon and tries to win a trip to Japan. It turns out that his boss is a bondage assassin and there's some other disparate elements all slowly weaving together. If you hate manga this comic isn't going to be your favorite. If you love manga you might like it. It's kind of like if 4chan was a comic book. There's tits and violence and jerking off and nerds trying to act superior to each other. All that garbage.

26)
Conan Volume 8: Black Colossus
Timothy Truman, Tomas Giorello, Jose Villarubia
Dark Horse
In this comic Conan starts off as a wandering thief and joins a wandering army. They fight an evil scorpion magician guy and then he fucks a sexy princess. It's not a mind-bender but it's certainly a decent yarn if you got a few hours to kill. The artists who draw Dark Horse's Conan books are usually pretty strong and really know how to draw some solid anatomy and animals. I hate the computer coloring but that's just how I am. I think it makes everything look space-aged instead of barbarous. But, no one else seems to care what I think.

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27)
Hot
Connor Willumson
Connor Willumson
Connor did a comic about a webcam girl talking to an unseen and unheard person and then awkwardly masturbating for someone's benefit. Connor is a super talent and the drawings are good. B+.

28)
The Spirit World
Connors Tech Schulte
Connors Tech Schulte
It's a bunch of drawings of a forest.

29)
Moto Hagio's Drunk Dreamer And Other Stories
Moto Hagio
Fantagraphics
This is a collection of girl's manga. It's mostly science fiction, but the Ray Bradbury kind, not space fantasy. The boring kind, yes. I don't really get a lot of manga. Some is great but it makes it seem like people are always gasping. Japanese people aren't that surprised by things in real life. I met one once and he didn't gasp the entire time we talked. For some reason that no-talent, Trina Robbins, did the intro. What the hell is that about? It's like if a woman does a comic she's there to talk about it. Does she even make comics?

30)
Star Wars R2D2 2 GB Flash Drive
Mimobot
This isn't a comic, it's a flash drive but more than that, it's a dividing line of quality. Some of the things that were ranked after this flash drive are good or entertaining but not as good and entertaining as a flash drive shaped like R2D2. It comes with a whole bunch of Star Warsy stuff loaded on it that you don't need but it's fun (and embarrassing) to pretend that you're transporting stolen data tapes on this little guy. They made a boss Vader one where you take off his helmet and it's Anakin underneath. They also recently put out Stormtrooper drives that look like either Han or Luke under their helmets. If that's not better than most comic books then I don't know what is.

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31)
My Appetite For Destruction
Steven Adler
Harper Collins
Just to save you the embarrassment/frantic wikipedia'ing, Steven Adler is the original drummer for GNR. Usually when you choose to read a rock bio they're by the main guy in the band and they start off having a hard life, have some crazy stories, struggle to succeed, go crazy and then quickly get boring or drugged out. Then they get clean and give you some AA type talk about how they're just taking it one day at a time or some such bullshit. That would be kind of nice. Between 1990 and now Steven Adler's life and addictions have gotten worse and worse. By the time I realized that he wasn't going to clean up by the end of the book it was also apparent that writing this book was probably an activity designed to distract him from taking drugs.

The parts about him getting kicked out of the band seem to be tinged with druggy type lies. He keeps accusing the other guys in the band of ganging up on him while also admitting that he was fucking up nonstop. At some point he gave himself a stroke from drugs and now he talks funny. He formed a band called Adler's Appetite in which he plays a lot of GNR covers and even played in a GNR tribute band for a while. He mentions being annoyed that he wasn't asked to join Slash's Snakepit but doesn't mention Velvet Revolver at all. At the end it mentions Slash trying to get him into rehab and then going on some rehab-themed reality shows.

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32)
Wizard Magazine August 2010
Wizard
Wizard
I locked myself out of the apartment around 4AM so I bought this at the deli to read until it felt like it would be okay to bother my roommates to let me in.

When I was eleven, around the beginning of each month I would eagerly check the mailbox when I got home from school hoping to see my new perfect bound copy of Wizard waiting for me in its crinkly plastic bag which often contained a chrome trading card and some sort of mini comic. I'd go through and see what my valueless comics were supposedly worth, laugh at the editors teasing each other, and reread each issue over and over. I knew that someday I'd work for Wizard. Sadly ebay obliterated the need for price guides as well as the ability to gouge the fuck out of poor comic buyers when you can get your comic book news instantaneously. Who's going to pay to read about that guy getting stabbed in the eye at Comic Con a month from now when I read it as it happened on IGN for free? There are only ten ads in this thing and it's a pamphlet for chrissakes. There's a six-page article about Wally Wood killing himself which I didn't expect. That's kinda cool. But Jesus Christ, Wizard. You are a perfect symbol of how fucked everything's become.

33)
Devil Church #1
Roger Human Being
Roger Human Being
This is an auto-bio comic by Roger, local guy, about being a Christian kid who loved metal in the late 80s. Roger's told me stories about his confused days of Christian metaldom when his mom was throwing away his Van Halen records and he was so into Stryper that he had black and yellow tape on his drumsticks. In this issue he pals around with a bad influence. I am waiting for more shit to happen before I judge. Overall it's a valiant effort by a guy whose whole identity isn't about being some boring comic book enthusiast.

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34)
Cold Heat Special 7
Michael Deforge
Picturebox
This is a short xeroxed zine where Michael Deforge uses his ability to make cool logos to make cool logos for Picturebox's Cold Heat comic, a comic that doesn't appeal to me. There are a buncha variations for names like Cold Heat, Terry, Chocolate Gun and Castle. If you love logos then you could also love this book.

35)
Set To Sea
Drew Weing
Fantagraphics
This is a little one-panel-a-page book about a giant poet who gets shanghai'd and gains character. After sailing around for a while he is a good poet. It's well-drawn but who cares. Poetry. Fuh.

36)
Don't Hold Your Breath: Nothing New From Brian Ewing
Brian Ewing
Dark Horse
Brian Ewing can draw a skull like nobody's business and he does it a lot. His hands, hair, and women's faces often feel a little awkward to me. He has strong lines and good style and does posters for the shittiest bands known to man. If you are a total faggot you will probably want to get this, due to the association with the bands he works with.

37)
Arty Party
Sara Drake and James Payne
It apparently required two people to make some unfunny gag strips that reference modern art.

38)
Learn Not To Love
Brendan Leach
self published
It's a sketchbook zine with a silkscreened cover. It's OK: not great, not bad.

39)
The Shortest Interval
David King
Sparkplug Comics
This mini is the kind of comic where there's a lot of narrative text and the drawings illustrate what the text says. It explains something scientific and has no characters to care about. I find it very dull and the art, though competent, is dull too.

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40)
Held Sinister
Conor Tech Stechtschulte
Closed Caption Comics
A man lives in a cabin and every night a silhouette comes in and attacks him.

41)
Me N' Me: Yes We're Twins
the Savanella Sisters
Yoe Books
Craig Yoe is increasingly turning into the Howard Hughes of comics and the two foxy redhead twin girls who work for him made this light n' breezy mini-comic about what it's like to be twins. It turns out that it's like having someone who looks like you hanging around all the time. Also they both look like Peggy from Mad Men.

42)
Midnight Snack: Unlucky Ladies In the Fridge
Robyn Decradle
Manic De Pressings
Like the title says, it's a book of photos of women sitting in the photographer's refrigerator. It's got a Suicide Girls vibe except that the girls are all too weird looking to be on that website. This would be kinda stupid as a blog but as a book it's fucking ridiculous. The photos aren't weird enough or sexy enough to be interesting or enhorning. It just kinda sits there and annoys you, like the goths who used to hang out on Astor Place with the baggy bondage pants and the dog collars.

43)
I Am Plastic, Too
Paul Budnitz
Abrams
This is a really heavy hardcover book with photos of the toys that Kid Robot's put out. Some of the toys are pretty, most are hideous graffiti abortions. I love rap but "hip-hop culture" (you can't see how hard I'm making those quotes but it is hard) is a corny and boring world full of people who want to intellectualize vandalism, break-dancing, and playing other people's music at a club or bar. Also, tattoo culture. Equally terrible. If you're really into these expensive art toys but can't buy the real thing you can get this book for a mere $45. Or just go to Toy Tokyo and look at the toys there once every few months, like I do.

44)
Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder
Mike Mignola & Ben Stenbeck
Dark Horse
This book's really boring. It's Mike Mignola telling a Hellboy story set way in the past. Apparently Hellboy was largely inspired by Dracula but Mignola resisted setting it in Dracula times since they are a pain in the ass to draw. Some of Ben Stenbeck's simpler drawings look almost exactly like something Mignola would draw but his anatomy and lines lack the delicacy and supreme knowledge that Mike Mignola has inside his hands. This is the first time I had trouble finishing reading something connected to Hellboy or Mignola.

45)
The Caterer
Jeff Lint
Pearl Comics Group
This is one of those comics where someone takes old comic art and then inserts funny new dialogue. Marvel did a really good miniseries with that premise while recycling some of their old romance comics. This isn't like that though. It's bad.

46)
BMX Riding Skills: The Guide To Flatland Tricks
Shek Hon
Firefly
You can't learn BMX from a book and besides BMXers are homos.

47)
Arkitip No. 0053X
Arkitip is a numbered art periodical that comes packaged with prizes. Sometimes they are cool like socks, sometimes they are shittty, like an ugly print. This one comes with an ugly print. The art in this issue is so bland that the ads at the back of the magazine are the most visually engaging pages. This is a real hit-or-miss publication. Typically one hit for every five misses.

48)
Two Eyes of the Beautiful
Ryan Cecil Smith
Closed Caption Comics
This is the first Closed Caption Comic I didn't like. I didn't think I could dislike anything they did. It has something to do with a mom killing her kid for being ugly. The cover's nice.

49)
Al Burian Goes To Hell
Al Burian
Migraine
Al Burian used to make a zine that I found impossible to care about but my roommate liked a lot called Burn Collector. We both agree that this comic sucks a dick.

50)
Che Guevara: A Manga Biography
Chie Shimano abd Jiyoshi Konno
Penguin
Fuck you, this book.