Comics. Jon-Michael Frank's comics about life's fundamental difficulties are very funny, very dark, and extremely great. If you are a human, or even if you're not, HOW'S EVERYTHING GOING? NOT GOOD is the only book you'll ever need.
Everything you've always wanted in your self-loathing: fixation upon death, fixation upon failure, jaggedy black and white illustrations, fixation on everything sad and pathetic, it's all in here. I can taste the humor. It tastes like completely charred toast soaked in burnt coffee that's been left out for five days in a sleazy, crumbling motel's front office, covered in dust and cigarette residue. It didn't make me laugh, I don't think I even smiled. I had the reaction that a normal, well-adjusted person would have: faint disgust and some repulsion mixed with the need to stare only I also felt that twinge of understanding, which I summarily rejected because I don't like ugly things. Obviously.
I will admit that I was struck too hard by two of the cartoons. The first is a representation of the one situation I find most traumatic in all the world:
For me, a fallen ice cream cone is the epitome of desolation, inconsolable grief, bottom-of-the-barrel misery. It's all the joy of a moment, ruined. It really wasn't supposed to be that way.
And this one. This one did actually make me smile, maybe even giggle a little bit.
I want to use that as my new introduction to dire consequences. "Welp, you have upset the blowfish. Now you must die."
Otherwise, this is pretty bleak. Dark. Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. I liked it.
The most perfect book I've read/absorbed in days, months, maybe even years. I like the page with the pretty blue water painty blue square that says: ORANGE. And the comic of the angry man pissed off about his "ambient music" not playing. Imagine David Shrigley as an American who reads poetry while listening to television static. Now imagine him with a mysterious Band-Aid on his neck.
Very strange little book, though not necessarily in a bad way. I wouldn't know where to start to explain or rate it, though, so I'm leaving the rating blank.