BOP! More Box Office Poison

Box Office Poison #2

by Alex Robinson

Previously unpublished short stories rounding out last year's smash hit Box Office Poison. More Box Office Poison stories from Alex Robinson There were several short stories featuring Sherman, Ed and friends which were not collected in the giant Box Office Poison collection. BOP reprints all of those short stories including all of the SPX/Expo Anthology shorts, the "Box Office Poison Kolor Karnival" (seen here in glorious black and white), and some extra goodies.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Novels, Comic Book

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Alex Robinson was born in the Bronx on 8 August. He grew up in Yorktown Heights, New York where he graduated high school in 1987. His first job upon graduation was washing dishes in a gourmet deli and it was while working there he decided that maybe college was a pretty good idea afterall.

He spent one year at SUNY Brockport and then transferred to an art school in New York City, where he majored in cartooning. Among his teachers were Will Eisner, Andre LeBlanc, Sal Amendola and Gahan Wilson. In his sophomore year he got a job at a bookstore, where he continued to work for seven long years.

After graduating from art school, Alex began doing mini comics (small print run comics xeroxed and stapled by himself). He soon started working on the story that would become his first graphic novel, Box Office Poison.

In 1996, Antarctic Press started publishing the serialized version of Box Office Poison. The series ran for twenty-one issues, and once the story was complete, Top Shelf Productions published the entire thing in one 608 page book. Shortly after the book was published, Alex won the Eisner Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition.

Although Box Office Poison was nominated for several awards (a Harvey, an Eisner, an Ignatz and the Firecracker book award) it failed to take home a single prize. Pathetic. Alex bitterly got to work on a second book.

2005 got off to a great start when the French translation of Box Office Poison won the prestigious Prix du Premier Album award in Angouleme, France. August finally saw the release of Tricked, which Top Shelf announced was going to a second printing in November.

In 2006, Tricked lost the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel, but managed to win a Harvey and Ignatz Award. This year also so Astiberri in Spain release both of his graphic novels in handsome, one volume editions.

Alex has expanded his storytelling to include fantasy, with the release of Alex Robinson's LOWER REGIONS (2007) and time travel/high school in TOO COOL TO BE FORGOTTEN (2008).

He currently lives in New York City with his wife Kristen and their pets, Krimpet and Wrigley.

Reviews

[Bullfrog · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great little coda to Box Office Poison - kind of the extras on a DVD set.

[Lemon Ginger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Box Office Poison and it's great to have more content.
The characters are familiar and I really like the realism of the stories.
3 stars not because it disappointing, but I think I won't remember much of it. (It might not be fair but for my use of Goodreads, I've decided to rate based on my reading experience instead of what I think of the book in general.) It was alright and I would definitely read more BOP stories.
Self-critique: I read it in French, maybe that lowered the reading experience. Who knows.

[Miloš · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOP characters keep being eerily realistic while bumping on and stumbling over each other that sheer awesomeness this motion generates comes as no surprise. This book exudes life.
More of this, please.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been sooooo long since I read the main volume. I remember the characters being more unlikable. This collection of errata seems to focus on female characters being betrayed and used. And then exercising their autonomy. Well-written.

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish there were more.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Side stories and such that don't quite fit in, nice revisiting of the characters. I like having more Caprice but there's one bit of ambiguity that calls a lot of her ending into question.

[Hiko · Rating 2 out of 5]

İkinci hissə proloqdakı ümidlərimi doğrultmadı. Ona görə də 2 ulduz bəsidir.

[Juan Fuentes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historias alrededor de malas ventas. Igual de bueno que la serie original.

[Hollowspine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps since this is the only Box Office Poison that I've read I may not be the best judge of it...but overall I felt this collection of short comics was somewhat bland. Not very funny, or insightful. Which is somewhat strange to me since I absolutely loved his book Too Cool to be Forgotten. Although this book has some similar themes, it's just no comparison to Too Cool which I really enjoyed reading.

I wasn't too impressed by the overall lack of original situations and the stereotyped characters. I was especially annoyed by the constant insecurity of the women, who are obviously dating far below them and the equally constant yet failed philandering of the men.

If one were to go by the people represented here all men think that they can have any woman and constantly fantasize about getting with different women, even if they are satisfied with their current partner. And all women think (and it seems rightly so) that they are not satisfactory to their man and he will cheat on and abandon them because of their huge glasses, sagging breasts or fat thighs.

However I did enjoy the short on Caprice Flat Earth. That did show a somewhat overdone Middle/High school type story, but with truth that made it work for me.

Also, I couldn't even agree with the disgruntled employee sections, because I would never condone being rude to a person who merely wants one to perform one's job. I guess that my sense of customer service is the reason I went into libraries rather than commercial book stores.

Overall, not very many funny moments, some disjointed sections that didn't seem to fit with the others and somewhat sexist. I guess I should go back to the beginning and read the longer work which is excerpted here.

[Abe Something · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the experience of getting another peek into the lives of some characters I was already very familiar with. It was as though their lives weren't complete just because I finished reading Box Office Poison (BOP). They lived on elsewhere, here was more to them and their lives. I was glad to see them again, however this collection of shorts just doesn't deliver the way BOP does, though how could it - BOP was 600 pages and a bit more fixed in time. This collection has much of the charm of BOP, and tells some fun stories (like when Sherman became the interim manager at the bookstore), but unfortunately this delivers little more than another look at some old friends.

I was excited to find that the Caprice diner story from Tricked was developed in the BOP days - it appears here.

If you haven't read BOP but you've read this, you've done a disservice to yourself. Go read BOP.

[Matti Karjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alex Robinsonin "BOP! More Box Office Poison" ei ole niinkään itsenäinen teos, vaan sitä pitäisi lähestyä enemmänkin alkuperäisestä sarjakuvaromaanista poistettujen kohtausten kavalkadina - eräänlaisina dvd-ekstroina, siis.

Sarjakuvaa ei voi oikein suositella niille, jotka eivät ole alkuperäistä "Box Office Poisonia" lukeneet, mutta hyviä tarinoita se silti sisältää. Etenkin kokoelman avaava "Temptation" on onnistunut ja aito ihmissuhdekertomus kaupunkiin saapuvasta ex-tyttöystävästä ja tämän aiheuttamista tunnekuohuista.

Kokoelman päättävä "Caprice" puolestaan toistuu sellaisenaan Robinsonin myöhemmässä "Tricked" -sarjakuvassa.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short story-length comics with the characters from Box Office Poison. It skips around in time sequence, and a lot of it focuses on Caprice, a minor character from the original BOP who I didn't have much of a strong connexion with. However, certain stories, such as 'Jane's High School Reunion' are amazing. I read the 600-page Box Office Poison in four days--at 88 pages, this took two hours.

[Mark Desrosiers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of these reprints of early Box Office Poison short stories & vignettes are a little too cute and pithy, not to mention dull. Absorbing soap operas really shouldn't be chopped into discrete short stories. The one exception here is the cyclical Flat Earth: Caprice's Story which strikes those same icky and visually hilarious tones that made Robinson's masterwork so essential.

[Argott · Rating 4 out of 5]

BOP! is terrific. However, Box Office Poison is far, far, far, far more terrific. I think everyone should read them both. One caveat: if you only had 24 hours left to live, focus your reading on the original Box Office Poison. (If you have already read them both, might I recommend that you start to reread them?)

[Lukas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A companion piece, BOP! is filled with short vigenettes not included in the main volume. As such, its existence provides a peek into what Box Office Poison might have been had less emphasis been put on a continuing storyline. What we get is a more approachable and humorous, while still retaining character development.

[Janet]

Go read Robinson's great, big, wonderful book "Box Office Poison". When you want more stories with the same characters, pick up this slim volume. The stories in this are solid, I suspect they just didn't fit into the story arch for the big collection. BOP! includes such things as flashbacks to high school, and leaps forward into their cybernetic future.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of fun. I loved Box Office Poison, and this was a nice re-visit of some of the same characters. I enjoyed getting to see them again in little short stories - thumbs up for anyone who liked the longer version and just wants to taste a little bit more.

[Melissa Milazzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as strong as Box Office Poison, but I still really enjoyed it. My favorite stories were "Temptation" and "Comics Widow", probably because I could identify with the women in them. Robinson's has some of the most rounded and impressive female characters that I have seen in a long time.

[Paul Dinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is basically an odds and ends book, stuff that didn't make it into the series. Some of it isn't interesting, but enough of it is to recommend it. I however, can't wait for Robinson to tell us what happened next.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as Box Office Poison, the first. It also seemed like a few of the pages from BOP had been excerpted here, which was disappointing.

[Earline · Rating 4 out of 5]

because I just can't get enough!

my favorite would have to be the 24-hour comic. rock!

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Continuation of the excellent Box Office Poison. Can't recommend highly enough for comics fans.

[Zanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

9.95

[C. Adam Volle · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you liked BOP, this is a few more chapters of it.

[Buddy Scalera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a well-crafted series. The bonus material is as entertaining as the source material.

[Bryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat amusing indie comic in the navel-gazing autobio realm. Left me unimpressed.