Wasp Video Roadhouse

by Carlos González

Welcome to the club. A comic book potpourri collecting over a decade of fever dreams, lost highways, and psycho-sexual noir.

Wasp Video Roadhouse compiles a trove of hard to find zines and self published mini-comics that even the most die hard fans have never seen. Includes: ‘Steam Walkway’ (2010), ‘Micro Pitch’ (2012), ‘Shit Town’ (2012), ‘Lost Canyon’ (2013), ‘Star Power’ (2014), ‘Scab County’ (2015), ‘The Toy Collector’ (2021) and a little bonus material.

These stories range a variety genres outside of Gonzalez’s science fiction ‘comfort zone’, such as romance, sports, political apocalypse, neo-noir, music biography, western. Follow the crooked journey of several ‘lost’ souls as they navigate the borders of rationality within a curdled American gumbo. If you can’t get enough of crudely drawn mutilation fables, open this door. Then you can get back to your jazz albums and drinking.

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2023

Reviews

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly odd compilation of Carlos González's fever dream-esque short comics. The stories are all varied in theme and narrative, but there is a heavy undercurrent of surrealism and eroticism to the various stories. Collected here are González's works from 2010 to present, but it's interesting to see how consistent his artstyle appears across the span of a decade. It's crude linework in a similar style to that of Mat Brinkman, John Chandler or Andy Barron, and connects a lot with their works due to the heavy use of body horror, mutiliation, etc. For fans of absurdist or surreal comics, Wasp Video Roadhouse might be your bag, but if you're looking for something with a longer, clear narrative, this is definitely not for you.