Is This Guy For Real?: The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman

by Box Brown

Comedian and performer Andy Kaufman’s resume was impressive—a popular role on the beloved sitcom Taxi, a high-profile stand-up career, and a surprisingly successful stint in professional wrestling. Although he was by all accounts a sensitive and thoughtful person, he’s ironically best remembered for his various contemptible personas, which were so committed and so convincing that all but his closest family and friends were completely taken in.

Why would someone so gentle-natured and sensitive build an entire career seeking the hatred of his audience? What drives a performer to solicit that reaction? With the same nuance and sympathy with which he approached Andre the Giant in his 2014 biography, graphic novelist Box Brown takes on the complex and often hilarious life of Andy Kaufman.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Nonfiction, Biography, Humor, History, Comedy

273 pages, Paperback

First published February 6, 2018

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Box Brown returns to the subject that gave him his breakthrough in Andre the Giant: Life and Legend - wrestling, in Is This Guy For Real? And it’s for real a decent biographical comic on the great comic Andy Kaufman, mostly focused on Andy’s wrestling.

What little I know about Kaufman outside of his comedy is thanks to the Milos Forman film Man on the Moon, though Brown’s book doesn’t really add much to that so I guess it was a pretty thorough biopic! I did find out though that Andy’s wrestling costume was designed purely to hide his boners as his fetish was wrestling women and he didn’t want to show his arousal in public. That and a better understanding of his beautiful Buddhist beliefs are the two main things I’ll take away from this book.

The book asks the question: why would such a gentle, sweet guy create characters who were so intentionally obnoxious and calculated to be hated by the audience, like the misogynistic wrestler and Tony Clifton, the drunk lounge act? Brown’s answer seems to point towards Kaufman’s love of wrestling and its then-secretive nature of kayfabe (pretending wrestling was real instead of scripted).

Except the premise is really only set up in the book jacket’s blurb and, if you didn’t bother reading that (and I usually don’t - I read it this time as I wondered what the point of the book was beyond the obvious), I can’t imagine the story’s purpose will be at all understandable. And that’s really my only major critique of this book: that Box Brown didn’t clearly establish what he was trying to achieve within the book itself, nor did he firmly answer it.

Taken at face value, it’s a truncated but fine bio of Kaufman, from his regular guest appearances on Saturday Night Live and the sitcom Taxi to his Buddhist values, though mainly the focus is on his love of wrestling. Much of the book is about his kayfabe rivalry with Jerry “The King” Lawler and their public spats (the two were actually close friends in real life). And it’s kinda interesting - Kaufman’s jokes, particularly his ridiculous taunting of women, still make me laugh - but doesn’t make for a terribly gripping narrative.

Wrestling fans or Kaufman fans wanting to find out more on his wrestling antics will get the most out of this one; I’m neither but I still thought Is This Guy For Real? was a fairly entertaining and informative read about a true comedy original.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may never have fully appreciated Andy Kauffman, though this was especially true of his later work, when he was wrestling women and saying demeaning things about them, though this could indeed have been a commentary on machismo wrestling culture, I was never sure. I loved—as his mother did—his Elvis impersonations. At the risk of sounding hopelessly conventional, I very much liked his role of Latka on Taxi. I never knew at the time that he was seriously into professional wrestling, so when he went to Memphis in wrestling arenas to disdain southern “hick” culture, I thought I got that.

I had studied Lenny Bruce as a comedian who would move from political humor to anger--hey, is this comedy?!--but I couldn’t quite fully tolerate whatever point Kauffman was making as he worked to actually get audiences to hate him. Was he seriously unbalanced? When I heard he died of cancer at 35 I, like many people, thought it was one of his put-ons.

Box Brown, in this very sympathetic comics biography, helps us appreciate Kauffman as a basically good guy (okay, there’s some exceptions, for balance, some of them based in Las Vegas. . .) who was a brilliant comic innovator, and in the process I was both informed and convinced. Brown did another biography about pro wrestling, about Andre the Giant, which I also liked very much, but this is even better, more deeply researched. I think this is his best work so far.

Andy as Elvis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHKUc...

Andy as Latka:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAU6H...

Andy wrestling the ladies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkPn...

The David Letterman Show appearance on Saturday Night Live, 1982, that is featured in Box’s book:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHo_K...

R. E. M. ”Man on the Moon”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=544KJ...

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andy Kaufman was one of the funniest people in modern show biz. Like his contemporary, John Belushi, Kaufman only had to step on stage in one of his hilarious personas and he'd crack you up. Kaufman' death at 35!was shocking. It wasn't drugs, or alcohol. No, cancer came out of nowhere and ripped his lungs out for no good reason. Box Brown for see the format of a graphic novel to chronicle Kaufman's life and it is surprisingly successful in ways this format often isn't. It fleshes out Kaufman's bizarro fascination with professional wrestling, something many of us watched as kids in the late Seventies. And, Kaufman's hero-worship of the King himself -Elvis. And, takes us through Kaufman's semi-erotic fascination with wrestling women. Can a graphic novel give you a real biography that gives you all facets of an amazing personality? Box Brown did it here. And you get a real sense of how no one seemed to know when Kaufman was in persona or not.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I somehow had no idea that this book existed until I found it on display in my local library. I also didn't know until then that I needed to read an illustrated biography of Andy Kaufman.

Which is funny, because I only get Kaufman maybe half the time--although I think very few people got him all of the time. I watched Taxi with my parents and we all liked Latka as long as he was a minor character; the later Latka-centric episodes, not so much. The Mighty Mouse bit was funny...the first time. I didn't get the Elvis thing, probably because I didn't get Elvis, or the Tony Clifton act. And like most of his fans, his manager, and his family, I did NOT understand the wrestling fixation that occupied his final years. Nevertheless, a friend of mine and I obsessively watched and rewatched his "documentary" My Breakfast with Blassie and the Letterman appearance he made with Jerry Lawler was must-see TV. I've viewed that clip so many times and it never fails to entertain.



(You can watch that Letterman appearance here. Also, Dave's face in that gif is everything.)

I wasn't even positive until I saw the Jim Carrey biopic that this was a setup and Lawler and Kaufman were good friends.

This book tells Kaufman's biography largely as that of a wrestling fan, and if I had been a wrestling fan myself maybe I would have understood that Kaufman was playing the heel, a role he had loved since he was a kid watching "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers in Teaneck. That is what he was doing as a wrestler--well, that and something else. We'll get to that, trust--and that is what he was doing when he performed as his alter-ego, obnoxious lounge singer Tony Clifton.

The author, Box Brown, does get that and this is largely the story of two kids named Jerry and Andy who grew up as devoted wrestling fans in Tennessee and Long Island, respectively. Some other parts of Andy's career are touched on, but this isn't a regurgitation of Man in the Moon either. This is largely about Kaufman's friendship with Lawler, his fascination with the sport, and.....how Kaufman got aroused watching women wrestle in their skivvies (he got started on this hobby after he heard that Elvis was into it) and how the idea for his elaborate wrestling costume that he later wore to wrestle female volunteers--a baggy pair of shorts over baggy long johns--was to hide his erections.

(I told you we'd get to the other reason Kaufman wrestled, so caveat emptor.)

Some aspects of Kaufman's life that you may be familiar with from the aforementioned Jim Carrey film are barely touched on at all: his time on Taxi, his devotion to Transcendental Meditation, his girlfriend Lynn Margulies, or the time he spent fighting cancer before his shocking death at 35. Which many people to this day continue to think he faked. The cast of Taxi didn't even attend the funeral, sure it was an elaborate joke.

The artwork, weirdly, was highly reminiscent of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.

[Derek Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, Box Brown takes on the life story of another celebrity...and as with his Andre the Giant book, this topic also involves wrestling. And while I enjoyed that earlier graphic bio and thought it was well done, I eagerly awaited and consumed this look at Andy Kaufman. I've been intrigued by Kaufman for years. His brand of comedy, off-beat, confrontational, and provocative, is right up my alley. His ability to push the boundaries, or to cross them, is what made him stand out as an entertainer. You never knew where he was, so to speak, and that made him both successful and a pariah. Brown's bio captures a good part of his life, although obviously much is left out. Another thing that I'm thankful for in terms of this book is that it's caused me to revisit many of Kaufman's old performances on various talk shows and his own specials (such as the one on from 1977/1979 and the PBS one in 1983). Fascinating!

[First Second Books]

Comedian and performer Andy Kaufman’s resume was impressive—a popular role on the beloved sitcom Taxi, a high-profile stand-up career, and a surprisingly successful stint in professional wrestling. Although he was by all accounts a sensitive and thoughtful person, he’s ironically best remembered for his various contemptible personas, which were so committed and so convincing that all but his closest family and friends were completely taken in.

[Trevor · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was pretty disappointed that this book is pretty much only about Andy's wrestling obsession. Out of all the weird things he did in his life, wrestling is the least interesting to me.

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was a great read. I’m a huge fan of Box Brown and I’ve read his Tetris book, Andre the Giant book, several comics, pieces in anthologies and a bunch of Retrofit titles from his micropress. He does quality work.

What I liked about this book was the well researched forays into the world of professional wresting. Andy Kaufman was a talented comedian, actor (Taxi), performer (Elvis impersonator) and his time spent in the wrestling ring seemed to be the pinnacle of all of these talents.

Well written. Plenty of deep research. Awesome art.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Going in to this, I really didn't know much about Andy Kaufman apart from his reputation as a stand-up comedian. I am not sure I know a *ton* more about him now, but I certainly have a better idea of his impact on the world of wrestling. Brown depicts Kaufman through the lens of his wrestling endeavors more than through focus on his comedy or his stint on Taxi, and this technique works to capture him in a unique, compelling way.

[Peter Derk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid book, a good look at a portion of Kaufman's life that's less discussed and considered. Box Brown does a really nice job with this kind of material.

[Hannah Garden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun fast read, and I learned stuff I didn't know.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a kid in the Midwest in the '70s, I was confused by Andy Kaufman's appearances on Saturday Night Life, alternately left scratching my head or wondering why this jerk was allowed on the show. Though I liked him on "Taxi," I never really followed his career aside from reading occasional tabloid stories about his wrestling injury and possibly faked death. This book capably filled in the gaps of my knowledge and gave me a better appreciation of what Andy was going for at least. I'm not sure I like him better, but its good to have some understanding of what the hell was going on there.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic work, as ever from Brown. A great attempt at unpacking the strange machinations of one of the 20th Century's great comic genius figures. And the perfect realisation of medium and subject.

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is This Guy For Real? The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman is a First Second graphic novel written and drawn by Box Brown.

This book tells the biography of Andy Kaufman and how he got into comedy, television, and professional wrestling. Andy Kaufman was way ahead of him time, diving into deep character studies that he wouldn't break in front of the audience. This lead many people to think, even to this day, that he really was a chauvinistic asshole.

This was an incredibly in-depth look at the mind of Andy Kaufman though I don't believe anyone truly understood his complete motivations. This book is almost as much about Jerry "The King" Lawler as it is Kaufman. Kaufman is probably best known for his heated rivalry with Lawler but in reality they were great friends. Tragically Andy died way too young. Andy revolutionized what it could mean to be a comedian and forever changed the impact that celebrities could have on the wrestling world. This is a fantastic read for wrestling fans.

[Katya Vinogradova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from First Second Books through NetGalley.
Box Brown certainly has a talent for making compelling, comprehensive graphic-novel biographies! And he definitely has a passion for, and a vast knowledge of, wrestling.
I barely knew anything about Andy Kaufman before this book. I saw the Jim Carey movie a long time ago - and is it my memory, or was there no wrestling there? I feel like I would have remembered that. Now I want to watch this movie again, knowing that it misrepresents who Andy was a person.
And that's probably because it was really hard to figure out who Andy was as a person, but it feels like Box Brown came close. He did a lot of research and approached Andy's persona with a willingness to understand and not to judge.
This style of illustration is not my favorite, but I feel that it suits the story really well.
All in all, a wonderfully compelling book about a complex and fascinating person.
P.S. Mr Box Brown, could you write a biography of "Classy" Freddie Blassie, please?

[Mateen Mahboubi · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this simply illustrated surface-level bio of Kaufman, Brown hits most of the marks that you would expect but doesn't really go any deeper. I do wonder if instead of trying to just get through it all, there could have been a better book just focused on a few years. I've always enjoyed Kaufman as a proto-alt comedian and I did enjoy this quick run-through on his life.

[clyde cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cool lens into Andy’s life that helped me understand his personality a little more clearly. As a biography, I would have liked some more niche details that are harder to dig up about him, but I think book’s simplicity aids it as a graphic novel.

[Muffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed at Splitsider: http://splitsider.com/2018/02/andy-ka...

Around 2010, I worked at a coffee shop for a man who believed Andy Kaufman was still alive. It had been a generation since Kaufman’s apparent death, in 1984, from lung cancer. My old manager isn’t alone, either; Kaufman’s career onstage included comedy, songs, impersonations, wrestling, sitcom stardom, and elaborate pranks that still have audiences interrogating what was “real” and what wasn’t. Raised on Long Island, Kaufman is perhaps best known today as his character on the sitcom Taxi, Latka, who was taken fairly directly from Kaufman’s onstage persona, a confused immigrant who couldn’t deliver a punchline but had a killer Elvis impression. He was also a regular featured performer in the early episodes of Saturday Night Live, until a publicity stunt encouraging the audience to vote whether to keep him or kick him off the show: they voted to kick him off, and he never returned to the show. His life was memorialized in the 1999 biopic Man on the Moon (taking its title from an REM song about Kaufman), whose production was recently revisited in Netflix’s behind-the-scenes documentary, Jim & Andy. In his new book, Is This Guy For Real?, cartoonist Box Brown approaches Kaufman with a unique perspective, and details the nuts-and-bolts of what went into some of Kaufman’s most famous performances.

Box Brown has always been fascinated by pro wrestling, and his previous graphic biography, Andre the Giant, ably explores the day-to-day life and trials of a huge legend. While Brown’s story here begins with Andy Kaufman’s childhood and ends with his death, the focus of Is This Guy For Real? is almost entirely on Kaufman’s various efforts within the world of wrestling. To Brown, Kaufman’s onstage persona was necessarily tied to Kaufman’s wrestling fandom. Kaufman didn’t think of himself as a comedian so much as a performer, and as a fan of wrestling, Kaufman knew that no performer gets a bigger audience reaction than a heel. During his stints as a wrestler, Kaufman took heat as hard as he could. First, he “played” a sexist wrestler who would only wrestle women and trashed women’s athleticism at every opportunity (as Brown describes in detail, there was a lot more to this than just playing a character). Then, in his famous rivalry with wrestler Jerry Lawler, Kaufman sought cheap heat by making videos deriding Lawler’s Memphis fans and by pretending to sue Lawler over an oversold neck injury on Late Night with David Letterman. A large portion of this book is Lawler’s, too: at times Brown tells their stories in parallel as each develop their respective crafts and hurtle into one another’s orbit. By the time Kaufman and Lawler start wrestling, it’s clear what made them such good collaborators.

Box Brown’s fairly simple line illustrations are a great match for the subject matter. Brown’s backgrounds are undetailed and he stays focused on medium shots, so most of the time Kaufman’s drawn, he appears to have a spotlight on him, even when he’s not onstage. Performing, Kaufman’s almost always got a welcoming smile on his face, which should help readers appreciate the way he communed with his audience by tapping into the most basic ways he satisfied them. At other points, the blankness of Kaufman’s face — a few lines and shapes — help underline how elusive and unknowable he could be, even to those closest to him. Is This Guy For Real? includes information from many publications and from interviews conducted by Brown himself, and some of this material can range a bit from overblown speculation about Kaufman’s inner life to surprisingly long sequences about one-on-one conversations Kaufman had (e.g., Kaufman’s interactions with wrestling photographer Bill Apter). These conversations rarely shed much light on what was going on in Kaufman’s head at any given time and occasionally just serve to repeatedly underline the fact that Andy Kaufman loved wrestling. It’s through conversations with Kaufman’s longtime friend and collaborator Bob Zmuda that Brown manages to get as deep into Kaufman’s work habits as he does, and the results can be very troubling.

At a pivotal moment in Is This Guy For Real?, Andy approaches Bob Zmuda with an idea for a new gimmick: “First, I only wrestle women. … I’ll just be a complete pig. A chauvinist shit heel.” Zmuda replies, “The women’s libbers are gonna go completely apeshit.” Andy laughs and says, “I’ll be totally hated! … And I bet I score with like 80% of the chicks.” In her essay for The Village Voice, “There’s Nothing Funny About Turning Women Into A Punchline,” Lara Zarum cites Jim Carrey’s commentary on Kaufman wrestling women and being publicly misogynist in the documentary Jim & Andy. Carrey says, “It’s a way to weed out the crowd. Those people who don’t see anything past the literal — they don’t bother to look for the absurd truth behind it — [Kaufman]’s not interested in them.” Zarum writes, “Carrey assumes that those who look for the ‘absurd truth’ behind a man who gets onstage and claims that women are only slightly above dogs in the hierarchy of living things are allies — art freaks and comedy nerds who are undoubtedly progressive in their politics and surely don’t really believe that women are inferior to men. But … we’ve also seen the mainstreaming of the alt-right, a political movement that can, at least in part, trace its roots back to a nebulous group of trolls who viciously target women and minorities in the name of preserving the so-called purity of geek culture. This year, we learned a lot of those guys weren’t joking at all.” In Kaufman’s case, he wasn’t just kidding-not-kidding about hating women: he was also wrestling women because he got off on it. Brown’s book even details the lengths to which Kaufman and Zmuda went to hide Kaufman’s erection when he wrestled women. Kaufman would whisper obscene pick-up lines in the ears of his women opponents, perhaps in part to throw them off but also out of a sincere desire to transform the wrestling into sexual intercourse. There is plenty to criticize about Kaufman’s devotion to the kayfabe, as Zarum rightly does, but that Kaufman’s sexist pig routine was also motivated by the kind of embarrassing thirst that makes Kaufman ask Zmuda to duct-tape Kaufman’s hard-on to his leg is disappointing, unsurprising, and should give all Kaufman’s fans and acolytes pause.

The Netflix documentary Jim & Andy is in many ways a frustrating and informative document about the people who collaborated with Andy Kaufman. Wrestler Jerry Lawler played himself in Man on the Moon (as did many of Kaufman’s costars), and was taken aback that Jim Carrey, who stayed in character as Andy Kaufman during production, wouldn’t stop harassing and abusing him. “I guess I’m thinking about what Andy was really like,” Lawler complained during production, “and as far as I can remember, it was like he was very well-mannered.” As Brown makes clear in Is This Guy For Real?, Andy had the deepest respect for wrestling, frequently comparing his idol “Classy” Freddie Blassie to Elvis. When Kaufman entered the world of wrestling, he did so with the kind of professional courtesy one would expect from a devoted fan. When Jerry Lawler stepped onto the set of Man on the Moon, name-above-the-title star Jim Carrey refused to drop the act off-camera. The dividing line of Kaufman on stage and Kaufman in real life that Brown works so hard to elucidate in this book was completely missed or ignored by Carrey, even as he supposedly stayed in character as Kaufman. Brown asks the question “Is This Guy For Real?” knowing that it’s somewhat unanswerable; Carrey assumed the answer was “Yes” and went from there.

When Andy Kaufman died at the age of 35, his funeral wasn’t attended by his Taxi costars. Brown quotes Marilu Henner saying, “We all thought this was just another one of Andy’s put-ons. None of us believed him.” This may have been one major downside of Kaufman’s gimmick. In that era when kayfabe was de rigueur, “Classy” Freddie Blassie couldn’t even speak kindly about his acolyte and friend Kaufman because they’d played antagonists in the ring. It’s worth noting, of course, that Henner is one of the rare women commenting on Kaufman anywhere in this book. It remains unknown to the reader what any of the women who wrestled Kaufman, for example, thought of his played-up misogyny and sexual harassment. Michael Kaufman, Andy’s brother, shares a few anecdotes about the kind and considerate side of Andy that audiences rarely saw, but Andy Kaufman ultimately remains largely unknowable, only offering bits and pieces of his “real” self to those who knew him best. Is This Guy For Real? offers one of the clearest-eyed portraits of Kaufman’s artistic process, though its focus is fairly narrow. Until Kaufman reveals that he’s been faking death for over thirty years, that may be the best we’ll get.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is This Guy For Real? is clearly a work of love - both for wrestling and for Andy Kaufman. Box Brown goes into more detail about Kaufman and pre-WWE wrestling than you likely ever wanted to know. It never gets too dense, though, since Brown effortlessly manages to keep the story moving and interesting. However - and this is more an issue with Kaufman himself - once he settles into his schtick, it doesn't really change. And in these more enlightened times, it's hard to read about a guy who just wrestles women to prove he can beat them for years on end. It's even harder to read about him having to wear extra padding so his boner doesn't show. Brown doesn't explore this fact, which seems like a key piece of Kaufman's psyche. In this case, Brown's sympathy for his strange hero seems to get in the way of really uncovering the man. It's still a solid biography of a man and a sport, but it leaves something on the table.

[Noelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an informative and fascinating look at the life of the late comedian, Andy Kaufman. Although a lot of the graphic novel focused on his attempts at wrestling, his character was also emphasized as quite a playful and witty person. The best part of the entire book was near the end, when the author, Box Brown, was interviewing Michael Kaufman and he told the story of Andy at the amusement park, (Coney Island) and how he realized that one of the kids running the game wasn't bringing in any money, so Andy himself stepped in to use his fame to bolster the vendor's income that day.

[Sydney Webster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know much about Andy Kaufman prior to reading this book. I haven't seen the Jim Carrey biopic, Man on the Moon, but I am quite familiar with the R.E.M. song of the same name (and the follow-up song, The Great Beyond, that was written for the movie). I've seen some clips from his Letterman appearances, but his strange personas and bizarre fame were a little incomprehensible to me. Finding myself intrigued by such a unique pillar of pop culture, I picked up a secondhand copy of this graphic novel when I saw it at a local bookstore. Although the story moves along quickly and with limited text to convey the narrative, I now feel far more informed about Kaufman's strange and tragically short life. He was an oddball, and a born performer, inspired by heroes like Elvis Presley and professional wrestlers he saw on TV (especially the villains). With determination and complete commitment, Kaufman created several strange and loathsome characters, comfortable with drawing the ire of his audience as long as they were engaged with his performances. With a modern lens, some of his exploits seem dated (an exaggerated yet adoring Elvis impersonation) or problematic (a sexist, self-proclaimed women's wrestling champion of the world who challenges any woman to pin him to the mat), but behind his outrageous characters he was an intelligent and sensitive man who just wanted to share his weird obsessions with the world. In his own time, and with the legacy he created, he was controversial, polarizing, but he undoubtedly pushed the boundaries of entertainment, leaning into the absurdity of life and willingly presenting himself as a buffoon. His influence can be felt in other boundary-pushing performers like Sacha Baron Cohen and Nathan Fielder, but Kaufman was truly a one of one. I wish the story was a little more fleshed out, and the art style could've been a little more creative, but I still enjoyed myself and learned a lot. I think we could all benefit from embracing Kaufman's unabashed adoration of his interests and willingness to look silly, even in the face of disapproval or misunderstanding.

3.5 stars

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andy Kaufman was for real. He was born in 1949 New York City – a member of the baby boomer generation – and raised on a modern invention: the television. Rather than a passive receptacle of the programming he was watching, he ingested images of Mighty Mouse, Elvis Presley, and wrestling, and he was inspired. A natural showman and impersonator, he liked to entertain. The writing was on the wall for Kaufman: an entertainer in the making.

For most people today, Kaufman is not a known household name. More likely, he may be known from Jim Carrey’s portrayal as Kaufman in Man on the Moon (1999, dir. Milos Forman) or perhaps R.E.M.’s song by the same name from 1992. Or, perhaps through visits to YouTube to watch segments of Kaufman’s performances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Saturday Night Live, The David Letterman Show, and others; however, thanks to writer/artist Box Brown, the award-winning cartoonist who wrote Love Is a Peculiar Type of Thing and Tetris: The Games People Play, he’ll have a new book out this week from First Second Publishing, titled Is This Guy For Real?: The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman which will shed light on this puzzling individual.

Read my full review at Fanbase Press:
http://www.fanbasepress.com/index.php...

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Box Brown's Andre the Giant, and I loved Is This Guy for Real?...I think I just love all of his comics that incorporate wrestling. But really, this one I loved because it got me thinking about Andy Kaufman, how I don't know if I love him or hate him, which is exactly what he intended, and it got me thinking about art and the art of pushing boundaries. This doesn't answer any questions, but I love that about this, too. I'm almost kinda bummed that I read this as part of Day One in the #24in48 Readathon because I had to just jump into my next read instead of giving myself time right after to think about all these Big Ideas, but my mind will certainly go there now that I've turned the timer off for today.

Many thanks to First Second and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an ARC from First Second and I really appreciate it. This book combined two of my favorite things: graphic novel memoirs and wrestling. While I was moderately aware of Kaufman the comedian and actor, I was less aware of his impact on actors permeating entertainment wrestling as we know it. This is 50% bio and 50% wrestling history. Those who are not fans of wrestling might be bored by the overwhelming amount of time spent between Andy Kaufman bantering with Jerry “the King” Lawler, but that relationship builds the climax for Browns story.

For me, this was Box Brown’s best book yet! He made me sympathize with Kaufman and understand the goal of his humor, even while I was upset with Kaufman’s relationships with women throughout the book. A good book makes you want to seek out more information on a topic and this book made me want to scavenge for everything available on Andy Kaufman. While easy to read, this book is geared for mature teens and adults.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a fun, entertaining read that gives a glimpse into the captivating life of Andy Kaufman. They say write what you know and it is evident in reading this book, which primarily centers around Kaufman's wrestling career, Box Brown is writing from the heart on a topic he is interested in. Prior to reading this, I didn't realize how far Kaufman went with the wrestling in his act, far more than just wrestling women on college campuses. Andy fancied himself a professional wrestler and the world's nastiest heel. Brown does the honor of perfectly depicting him this way, while blurring the lines between his performance and reality in a way Kaufman would have appreciated (or maybe is somewhere appreciating right his minute...)

[Sammy Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although there wasn't much information in this book that I didn't already know, Kaufman is presented is a much more sympathetic light than in Man on the Moon. Also, Brown does a great job of connecting the dots between Andy's childhood and his comedic antics as an adult. The importance of Andy's role in the history of wrestling is also greatly stressed in this book.
I just love Box Brown's drawing style, so that's always worth at least one extra star.

[Lauren Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great biography of an often misunderstood figure in acting, comedy, and wrestling. Andy Kaufman enjoyed playing the 'bad guy' but was actually a sensitive and thoughtful genius who played many characters. Spoilers:

cancer is bullshit.

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well done biography, if heavy on the wrestling. Of course, Kaufman was heavy on the wrestling: the aspect of his life that I was always least interested in. But it did play into the absurd performance art that was Andy’s life. This graphic novel is meticulously drawn and written, yet retains humor and levity. This my first Box Brown book and I’m duly impressed.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this graphic novel about Andy Kaufman. I have hazy memories of Superman and Elvis imitations, and I have watched more than one Taxi episode - but I wouldn't say I'm an aficionado. And I only had a cursory idea about Kaufman's wrestling addiction. Happily, none of that mattered when it came to appreciating the story.

Written with compassion, straightforward description, and a tender lens aimed at the eccentric, lovable Andy Kaufman, Box Brown creates a story that makes the reader feel like they're getting the inside scoop on this entertainer. It's an easy read, and it can go fast if you don't pore over the wonderfully drawn and paced frames. However, the treatment of the final few pages will probably make you want to backtrack and re-read.

Highly recommended.

I received an advance reader's copy for review from First Second.

[Matt Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great read from Box Brown. An account of how Kaufman helped bring wrestling into the mainstream by keeping the public guessing how much they could believe about either.