Good Comics for Bad People: An Extra Fabulous Collection

by Zach M. Stafford

“Zach Stafford’s comics find a way to combine extreme absurdity and real, honest emotion in a way that is endlessly fascinating to me.” - Nathan Pyle (Strange Planet)   For fans of STRANGE PLANET, MR. LOVENSTEIN FAILURE, and the SARAH’S SCRIBBLES Collection!   Master of the hilarious, unpredictable, and just plain weird, Zach M. Stafford’s GOOD COMICS FOR BAD PEOPLE marks his graphic novel debut, and features all the laughter, absurdity, and bodily fluids that have made his worldwide mega-hit webcomic so (in)famous!   Includes all your favorite Extra Fabulous Comics plus book exclusive comics that can’t be found online and an introduction by Sarah Anderson AKA Sarah’s Scribbles.

Genres: Humor, Graphic Novels, Comics, Adult, Graphic Novels Manga, Comic Strips, Cartoon

240 pages, Hardcover

Published October 31, 2023

Reviews

[Leonie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m too old for fart/poop/… jokes.

[Sartorius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very funny, some funny, some less so. Worth reading for some good laughs, though.

[Zaru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strips of comics meant to be funny. Pacing kinda like a knock knock joke. I found most missed the mark for me, but some were absolutely hilarious. Laugh out loud funny. I guess that's the way with most comedy, a lot of it misses, but if the stuff that hits is really funny I still think its a good experience overall.

[Dan P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes you just feel like Sunday comics you know? Like many comic collections it's got misses (some of the obvious pun jokes) and hits (almost everything else!). Zach is so good at playing with expectations and his work is iconic for it

[Aidan Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly good comics. I think about some of these fairly often, especially John Henry playing Smash.

[Julie Kirby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comic body horror? Funny-ish, but not my fave.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Image/Skybound saw what Andrews McMeel has been doing for years - publishing the collected strips of popular online cartoonists - and said, I’ll have a piece of that! and now we has Zach M. Stafford’s Good Comics For Bad People: An Extra Fabulous Collection.

They’re gag strips, mostly four panels long, and a fair few are actually quite funny. Stafford likes to take everyday sayings and turn them into jokes. Like a crying security guard saying his boss forgot his birthday, so the robber sneaks past him into the boss’s office - the boss asks how he got in? You let your guard down! A girl in a club asks a guy if he wants to get out of here - he says yes, she shows him the exit and closes the door behind him once he walks through it. I slept like a baby last night - I shit my pants and screamed for hours.

Some are just plain silly, in an amusing way. Like a guy saying these bananas are going bad, and then the banana says fuck you! Or a manager firing an employee telling him not to let the door hit him on the way out, and then a door with arms and legs punches the guy. Or a girl asking a guy if that’s a banana in his pocket or is he just happy to see her - it’s a banana, but then the banana has an erection and says sup.

A few of the jokes definitely come off as dad-ish. Like the cartoonish ghost that’s wearing a beret - a French ghost, why do you smell so bad? I’m covered in sheet. But some are genuinely funny like the person looking up at the sky: The sun is finally coming out, and the clouds part and the sun goes I’m GAAAAAAYYY! and then flares really brightly, burning the person to death. Or the doctor telling his patient he has two weeks to live - then shows up two weeks later with a knife, attempting to murder him.

I’m mentioning only the ones I liked, and there’s more, but a number are just meh - strips you read, have no reaction to and then move onto the next. They’re never bad, just forgettable.

Still, if you enjoyed Sarah Andersen’s Sarah’s Scribbles or Ben Zaehringer’s Berkeley Mews strips, this one’s not as good as either but it’s in the same vein, and if any of the above made you giggle, check out Zach M. Stafford’s Good Comics For Bad People: An Extra Fabulous Collection.

[Maciej · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Good Comics for Bad People: An Extra Fabulous Collection" autorstwa Zacha M. Stafforda to zbiór komiksów, który doskonale łączy absurdalny humor z prawdziwymi, szczerymi emocjami. Książka zawiera zarówno ulubione komiksy fanów z serii Extra Fabulous Comics, jak i nowe, ekskluzywne stripy niedostępne w sieci. Do tego wszystkiego dochodzi wstęp napisany przez Sarah Andersen, autorkę znanej serii Sarah's Scribbles, co dodatkowo podkreśla wyjątkowość tego zbioru.

Komiksy Stafforda to głównie czteropanelowe stripy, które potrafią rozśmieszyć nawet najbardziej wymagającego czytelnika. Autor umiejętnie bawi się codziennymi frazami i przekształca je w zaskakujące żarty. Przykładem jest strażnik, który opuszcza gardę, gdy przestępca wykorzystuje jego urodzinowy smutek, czy scena, w której słońce wychodzi zza chmur, krzycząc „I’m GAAAAAAYYY!” i pali obserwatora na śmierć. Te sytuacje to tylko niektóre z wielu, które wywołują śmiech swoim nieprzewidywalnym zwrotem akcji.

Jednak nie wszystkie żarty są równe. Niektóre stripy mogą wydać się nieco przestarzałe lub nie zapadające w pamięć, co sprawia, że nie każda strona jest pełna humoru. Mimo to, nawet te mniej udane momenty nie są złe – po prostu ulatują w zapomnienie po chwili. Styl rysunkowy Stafforda jest surowy, co idealnie współgra z prostotą i bezpośredniością jego humoru. Częstym zabiegiem jest przedstawienie postaci w 3/4 profilu z jednym okiem "uciekającym" poza twarz, co dodaje komiksom charakterystycznego, nieco dziwacznego uroku.

Dla fanów takich serii jak Sarah's Scribbles czy Berkeley Mews, komiksy Stafforda będą znajome w tonie i stylu. Chociaż nie osiągają one tego samego poziomu co prace Sarah Andersen czy Bena Zaehringera, to jednak mają swoje niepowtarzalne momenty, które potrafią rozbawić do łez. Zwłaszcza miłośnicy absurdalnego i czasami wulgarnego humoru znajdą tu coś dla siebie.

Przyjemność 4,8/5
Styl: 4,0/5
Historia: 3,8/5

Ocena 4,22/5

[Rachel Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Good Comics for Bad People when it first was funded through Kickstarter and published a couple years ago and somehow never got around to actually reviewing it when it was publicly available to review. But I'd followed Zach Stafford's very irreverent, very crass work on Instagram for years prior to that, and I loved this compilation of his Extra Fabulous Comics. Stafford treads into whatever subject he wants, even the ones that make you cringe, wince, or say a few expletives out loud because of your visceral disgust to whatever outrageous comics he's drawn next. There are some very memorable ones, for a myriad of reasons, to put it mildly. Not all of them work for me, unsurprisingly, especially reading as a woman about, ahem, solely men's bodily functions, so sometimes my reaction was just "meh" or "okay then" and move on to the next.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

These comics feel familiar, but I can't point to any particular ones that I remember reading before, and am also not sure where I encountered any like them before; presumably kicking around online somewhere, probably as part of memes. Generally an amusing collection; I think the author is especially good at creating unexpected twists in their humor, with many of the comics setting up an old tired joke, only to go off in a shockingly different direction. The art is nothing special, but generally works; the crudeness fits the humor. The stylistic choice of having a character's far eye (they are shown in 3/4 profile mostly) floating off of their face is mostly nothing special, except when it is occasionally completely distracting and sometimes confusing.

[Bryce Galloway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laugh out loud funny at times. One page strips that often take a given turn of phrase and take it literally to hilarious ends,
e.g. Driver says, ‘Uh oh, I think there’s a cop behind that bush… better slow down.’
Squatting cop behind bush says, ‘Thanks for slowing down so my toilet paper doesn’t fly away.’
Driver replies, No problem officer, have a good shit.’
I love this puerile nonsense.
Most strips have appeared online

[Rahul Nadella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Laugh out loud funny, enough to make you not think about what it means for you as a person. I hope that people read this book and are filled to the brim with so much confusion and perplexity that they don’t have any brain space for whatever was stressing them out before and they can just sit somewhere quiet and have a good cry. Everyone feels way better after a good cry.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars--Comics of this style have become more and more common--nonlinear, one-page gags that often take a dark or surreal twist--but this collection has more creativity and unexpected moments than many in the genre.

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disappointing that there weren’t as many fart jokes as promised in the foreword, but since I’m mature and urbane, I will get over it.

These cartoons are so original, literally crazy. SMH: shake my head and show me how.

[Lydia May · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am a librarian, and purchased this graphic novel due to the age 12 and up rating. I could not get past the first two F bombs on the inside cover at first. After looking a little further,I quickly realized this book was NOT worth the paper it’s printed on. What a shame. It had such potential.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly few ejaculation jokes.

[Draster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quality content, if like myself you can appreciate stupidly absurd humor. If you've seen some of the comics pass by on the internet and liked them, definitely get this book!

[Kelly Teen Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hysterical. Telling bananas to f--- off? Hysterical. Clever.

[Mariano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read most of the comics in this book a thousand times in the last 10 years and I still laugh with them. It's just pure gold. I really envy whoever will read these for the first time.

[Ellen Scheid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one had me cracking up!

[Malum · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good mix of funny comics. There are more humorous ones than duds.

[Alex Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess I'm a bad person.

[Nav · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good number of twists.

[Wm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uneven, but the great strips are truly spectacular.

[Christa Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilariously ridiculous.

[Javier Campos · Rating 4 out of 5]

no puedes dejar de reírte con este libro

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Backed the kickstarter and it was worth it, endlessly hilarious.

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

first new webcomic to make me laugh in about 10 years

[Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Money well spent.

To me, laughter is the greatest feeling on earth. And BOY did this book give me the giggles.

I just discovered Zach’s work through the massive amount of material that he publishes online for free. After going through Zach’s work, not only did I purchase the digital copy, but I purchased the hardcover as well. I felt I owed Zach a thank you for building this world that allows me to escape for a good while.

I tend to give 4/5 star reviews on things that i really like because there’s always room for improvement, but I give Zach 5 stars. Keep em coming Zach!

[Jake Bova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best current comics out there