Diesel Sweeties: I'm a Rocker, I Rock Out

by Richard Stevens III, R. Stevens (Writing as)

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Humor, Webcomic, Music

136 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2013

Reviews

[sj · Rating 3 out of 5]

...only 31 pages, so I apparently am missing 77% of the book? I don't understand how we're expected to review something when we don't even have half of it, but WHATEVER.

If you've read Diesel Sweeties online at all, you know exactly what you're getting.

I have a tee shirt of one of these strips (the Venn diagram). Or, I had the tee shirt, I don't remember what happened to it.

Anyway, Diesel Sweeties is awesome for those of us that are terrible music snobs, even if disparaging comments are made about books.

[shrug]

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

An edited collection from a webcomic that is about and makes fun of indie rock and hipsters, featuring Indie Rock Pete. Worth a few smiles, but is a cult classic for indie rock hipsters who like to make fun of themselves. Sort of like New Yorker cartoons that make fun of rich white people that are largely read by rich white people in New York. Plenty of irony, in other words.

[Brook · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star is too high for this book. It was really, really awful.

[Myron M · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's entirely possible I'm just reading webcomics collections to pad my count. I read this one as the actual book, which felt appropriate.

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Diesel Sweeties: I'm a Rocker, I Rock Out is a compilation of the Diesel Sweeties webcomic, which appears to be entirely about being a hipster. We meet a few one note characters like Indie Rock Pete, Clango (a robot), and a few more nameless characters, all of which have no real development or relateability. I really don't know who this book is supposed to appeal to. All of the scenes are either trying to be funny but fail or appear to be earnest commentaries that come of incredibly condescending or hypocritical. For Instance, we see Pete and Clango together in one scene. Clango is playing with his cat and Pete tells him "Your cat will never grow unless you challenge him!" Clango responds with "Like into a big ol' sexy Tiger??" "I mean as a person." "If you were a cat, why would you want to be a person?" This was the closest that we edge toward something funny. On the other side, we have one where Pete is asked how many people were at his gig last night. He says seven. His friend says "Ouch. That sucks." Pete agrees, saying "Seriously. A few less and it would have been perfect!" We have 134 pages lampooning hipsters. Maybe I'm missing something by not actually finding and viewing all the webcomics in their natural habitat, but I doubt it matters. How many times can they hammer on crap like "I was eating food before drinking water even caught on." Maybe I am not the target audience, but the entire book felt shallow and one-note. I can't really even rate the art work as I normally would, because everything is in pixels. "Diesel Sweeties: the long-running and pioneering webcomic that was into pixel art before pixel art was cool and made fun of hipsters before you even knew what that word meant! All in vintage "book" format!"

[Keegan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to review a collection like this, because it's basically a collection of single- or double-page jokes. The narrative doesn't really extend across the collection. It does paint an interesting picture of Indie Rock Pete, one of my favorite of R. Steven's Diesel Sweeties characters.

What is interesting is that this is a thematic collection more than a chronological collection: it collects a series of comics that happen to surround one issue (here: rock music and the fans therein). It's not unlike a collection of poetry or collection of essays. While all of these strips can be read in the context of other similar-minded strips, it does preclude from seeing themes develop across the spectrum of characters in R. Steven's comic. I'm not sure that either one is better, but it does read differently than, say, Dudes Already Know About Chicken by Ryan North, his chronological collection of Dinosaur Comics.

As for the jokes: if you like clever jokes about the ridiculousness inherent in fandom, than this book will be right up your alley. Some were hilarious, and addressed some absurdity with music fandom with a striking clarity. Others were okay. R. Stevens aggressively low-fi, pixelated art style might not be for everyone. Also, some of the little visual tricks that R. Stevens uses on his website are not possible when it's printed (like little Flash animations).

More than anything, this book has started me down a path of media-specific research. While the book's contents are pretty good, it is more interesting (to me at least) that it even exists.

[Vonze · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I'm a Rocker, I Rock Out." is a cute, no fuss, no muss, quick read. The main character, Indie Rock Pete, is a rocker, music elitist, and record collector. The one or two page length strips are mini-jokes, that, seemingly do not have a interconnected, overarching plot line. In other words, one panel sets up the joke and the next panel is the punch-line, much like newspaper comic strips. It there's a bigger plot, it wasn't apparent to me based on this book alone.

Some of the jokes were hit and miss. I generally found the jokes related to record collecting and liking-bands-BEFORE-they-get-popular to be really funny. Mainly because my brother and husband collect records, and unlike a lot of people, I search the internet for cool, new music instead of waiting for it to find me. Overall, this comic appeals to record collectors, indie music nuts, hipsters, people in a band or those who wish they were. To me, it kinda had a "Scott Pilgrim" feel. Either you get it because music is your scene or you don't.

[Dani Shuping · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC provided by NetGalley

In case you aren't familiar with it, Diesel Sweeties has been an online webcomic since 2000, and was even briefly syndicated as a newspaper comic strip. If you are familiar with the comic then this book is everything that you've come to expect from the strip, snarky robots and humans loving each other, hipsters, demonic appliances, and more all in glorious 8bit artwork. If you aren't familiar with the comic then I highly recommend that you pick up this book so that you can become familiar with snarky robots and humans loving each other, hipsters, demonic appliances, and more all in glorious 8bit artwork.

Seriously though this is an excellent collection of an excellent webcomic. Are there some hits and misses with the jokes? Sure! But even Peanuts falls flat on occasion. The bulk of the jokes are funny and will keep you laughing long into the night. So go pick up the book and get started with the collection. And then, go take a look at the webcomic and enjoy.

4 out of 5 stars.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been peripherally aware of Diesel Sweeties for a long time, but this is the first time I've sat down and read it. Not that there's a whole lot of connectivity between the strips beyond the characters; it's definitely a collected strip and not a graphic novel. Still, the 'I'm so Indie' Hipster vibe that is being skewered here is very familiar and a fun target to see jabbed, and there are a couple lines in here that are really great. It does feel a bit one-note after a while, so it may be best to read in bits instead of one sit-down, but it's so short it doesn't really overstay its welcome either way.

[Nick Turner · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of brief comical scenes. Gold Medalist made me laugh. Low res pixel art. Small low res typeface. Looks like 16-colour (two shades per hue) palette per page (reminds of Commodore 64 graphics). The quirky side-on view of people (half blockhead isn't exactly appealing; women's faces are depicted rounded) reminds of classical egyptian art. Figures are often static with expression conveyed facially. The background colour changes with the mood.
I read a review copy from the publisher.

[Holly Letson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun bunch of 8-bit comic strips compiled as a book. It's a quick read, and I quite enjoyed it. But, I think the main character is kinda full of himself, when he keeps acting like everything he thinks, does, or says is so much different and better than what everyone else thinks, does, or says.
-------------------------
This was provided to me by NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

[Tanja · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of short comics about music snobs. I got it on netgalley, but I didn't get the whole book - only a part of it for the review.
I liked some of the comics, but some were just boring. They get old really quick.
If you don't like pixel art, don't touch this book. But if you like pixel art and music and making fun of hipsters, then this is probably for you.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found myself thinking more about the author than the characters which I never want. I got the jokes and the self-effacing feel of it but I rushed through the comic like I rush through a conversation with an overly self aware dude who makes fun of his pretentiousness with pretentious humor. I just did not have fun reading it.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no idea how this rates at less than three stars amongst Goodreads users. This book was so funny and so spot on. I read it and parts of it were painful at how straight to the core it was. Stevens tackles hipsterism with sarcasm on top of sarcasm and attacks...repeatedly. I laughed and then I felt bad about myself. Essential reading.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was unfortunate that I found out BB King had passed almost immediately after finishing this book. Indie Rock Pete is the antithesis of an old bluesman. The jokes are solid and the lack of self-awareness is maddening, which is why this collection will be revisited at a better time.

[Jen Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good laugh. Very droll.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had some really funny bits and really tired ones. The main character is supposed to be an insufferable elitist, yet all the women think he's super clever/want to sleep with him? Right.