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We All Die Alone
Acclaimed cartoonist Mark Newgarden debuted in the first issue of RAW magazine in 1980 and his work subsequently found its way into a variety of high and low profile media. He co-created the '80s pop culture fad "Garbage Pail Kids," wrote, drew, and syndicated a weekly humor feature in the '90s, and created a "Web Premiere Toon" for The Cartoon Network called "B. Happy." Newgarden is currently developing an unconventional Christmas special for The Cartoon Network. Newgarden's comics are hilarious, alarming, and masterful uses of the medium, alternating between old-time gags and avant-garde storytelling, often on the same page without missing a comedic beat. His syndicated strip in such publications as L.A. Weekly and The New York Press encouraged a fervent following and exerted a fresh influence on the medium. Today they remain as vital and entertaining as when they first appeared. Those syndicated comics will make up the bulk of this book, the balance drawing on Newgarden's long form stories from various anthologies, including the much-lauded "Love's Savage Fury." In addition to compiling his comics, this book will be a full picture of the artist, his influences, and his many other careers. An avid collector and historian of 20th century ephemera, Newgarden has achieved the rare distinction of both contributing to and furthering the mediums he collects: novelties, comics, and cartoons. Newgarden remains a great link to the past while moving ever further into the future. We All Die Alone is edited by Dan Nadel, founder and editor of The Ganzfeld , and a regular contributor to The New York Times, Print, Metropolis , and more. It is designed by Helene Silverman, who has designed books for Abrams, Random House, Penguin, Chronicle and many other publishing companies. She has been the Design Director for the Red Hot Organization since 1990 and is a former Design Director of Metropolis. We All Die Alone will be an uproariously funny and fascinating book that will appeal to comics readers, pop culture buffs, and any appreciator of the graphic arts.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 22, 2020
Anybody having grown up on the periphery of American pop-culture during the 1980s will have heard of Mark Newgarden's output – if not the man himself. Ostensibly the creator behind such so-called “junk culture” as Topps trading cards (Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packs, Toxic High School, and others), mastermind behind certain novelty candy items, and contributor to free independent “weeklies” comix sections.
A hefty portion of his work is displayed in We All Die Alone - work stemming from his work with “The Little Nun” (a mute geometrically-formulated Roman Catholic postulate who finds herself out of her established element, and then silently prays – perhaps the most predictable yet astute punchline in all of comixdom), through his “Little Stories” (a short-short-story “caption” beneath an otherwise wordless ambiguous comic illustration), and work with multi-corporate mascot “It's Em (tm)!”
As the title of this book would suggest, We All Die Alone is not the raucous reprint edition that many comic strips would see. Newcastle himself runs the polarized emotional gamut linking rejoicing with ruination. And so does his work. “We all die alone,” announces the punchline of several of his comix. Who can argue this? And it is this ultimate sad truth, coupled with the Funniest Drawings in the World, from which the book derives its esoteric, intrinsically damaging, humour.
Dan Nadel introduces the book with an anecdote from Newcastle regarding his own childhood, which perfectly encapsulates the material to follow: “I'd be perched in front of the TV, transfixed by The Three Stooges and laughing along at the magnificent abuse like any normal kid, when [my grandfather]'d enter the room and begin haranguing me: 'What are you doing? How can you watch those men? How can you laugh? Those men are dead! Those men are dead!' Of course, that made it all much funnier.”
And a little further on, Newcastle uses the Word of God to further expand upon this thesis: “The heart of the wise is in the House of Mourning: But the heart of fools is in the House of Mirth.” Virtually impossible not to snicker at the material whilst keeping this Ecclesiastical gem in mind.
Finally, the book concludes with a sampling of the “junk culture” which raised Newcastle. The full-colour glossy representations of scraps of paper, clippings from various sources, and photos of found anomalies (horrifyingly cute ceramic works, for instance) give the feel of one who is surreptitiously rummaging through a man's coffee table drawer, or disregarded file cabinet drawer. The obvious deterrent to this sensation is that here Newcastle is inviting the reader to poke around, to nose about, through his private collection of trash and garbage, and annotates each treasure-in-miniature with information as to what it is, and why it means the world to him.
The terrible, terrible truth may be that we all really do die alone. But at least we'll have spent some time in this world together with those who create such throw-away culture upon which so many of our childhoods have been sculpted.
A hefty portion of his work is displayed in We All Die Alone - work stemming from his work with “The Little Nun” (a mute geometrically-formulated Roman Catholic postulate who finds herself out of her established element, and then silently prays – perhaps the most predictable yet astute punchline in all of comixdom), through his “Little Stories” (a short-short-story “caption” beneath an otherwise wordless ambiguous comic illustration), and work with multi-corporate mascot “It's Em (tm)!”
As the title of this book would suggest, We All Die Alone is not the raucous reprint edition that many comic strips would see. Newcastle himself runs the polarized emotional gamut linking rejoicing with ruination. And so does his work. “We all die alone,” announces the punchline of several of his comix. Who can argue this? And it is this ultimate sad truth, coupled with the Funniest Drawings in the World, from which the book derives its esoteric, intrinsically damaging, humour.
Dan Nadel introduces the book with an anecdote from Newcastle regarding his own childhood, which perfectly encapsulates the material to follow: “I'd be perched in front of the TV, transfixed by The Three Stooges and laughing along at the magnificent abuse like any normal kid, when [my grandfather]'d enter the room and begin haranguing me: 'What are you doing? How can you watch those men? How can you laugh? Those men are dead! Those men are dead!' Of course, that made it all much funnier.”
And a little further on, Newcastle uses the Word of God to further expand upon this thesis: “The heart of the wise is in the House of Mourning: But the heart of fools is in the House of Mirth.” Virtually impossible not to snicker at the material whilst keeping this Ecclesiastical gem in mind.
Finally, the book concludes with a sampling of the “junk culture” which raised Newcastle. The full-colour glossy representations of scraps of paper, clippings from various sources, and photos of found anomalies (horrifyingly cute ceramic works, for instance) give the feel of one who is surreptitiously rummaging through a man's coffee table drawer, or disregarded file cabinet drawer. The obvious deterrent to this sensation is that here Newcastle is inviting the reader to poke around, to nose about, through his private collection of trash and garbage, and annotates each treasure-in-miniature with information as to what it is, and why it means the world to him.
The terrible, terrible truth may be that we all really do die alone. But at least we'll have spent some time in this world together with those who create such throw-away culture upon which so many of our childhoods have been sculpted.
June 20, 2007
i cried so hard my lap thought it was raining. this is the only book that has prompted me to write fan mail. RILY: the absurd heights of human frailty, slapstick, being morbid.
January 18, 2008
Wonderfully designed (by the wonderful Helene Silverman) collection of Mark's nutty inspired work.
August 19, 2008
Disturbing cartoons. "Sometimes I imagine that I am someone else. Sometimes when I imagine that I am someone else I imagine that I am Ernie Bushmiller." Funarchy!
May 31, 2015
Mark Newgarden is an eighties humorist that I somehow missed in the eighties, mostly. We All Die Alone is a title that somehow encapsulates the heart of his work. Is THAT funny? What IS funny? But as with that film The Aristocrats, we see that is for many great comedians the point of comedy is to see how far they can push it, to push it so far it is meta. And one person's laugh-until-you-cry is another person's why-did-you-even-say that?! There are terrific comics here such as Love's Savage Fury, Pud and Spuds and Your Snappy Pals amidst gags of all kinds, A Laugh Finder guide to comedy, big noses galore, possibly hilarious/disturbing Topps toys and other inventions, (Toxic High School cards, The Barfo Family Candy) a sort of thrift store journey through things like Toilet Paper wrapper art..
Felt like going back and reading Guinness Book of World Records freak section or or old Bazooka gum comics, or as Gene says, The Three Stooges. Newgarden apparently loved the strip Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller, and messes with it everywhere. Editor and curator Dan Nadel writes a great and informative introduction to help us see the value of Newgarden's strange place in the history of humor. Nadel includes scathing reviews of Newgarden's work, to show how alienating some of it can be, but I thought it was mostly funny and insightful about the nature of comedy, often more meta than anything else. There's nostalgia in this, too, that reminds me of Chris Ware and Seth, only with a more sardonic edge.
Felt like going back and reading Guinness Book of World Records freak section or or old Bazooka gum comics, or as Gene says, The Three Stooges. Newgarden apparently loved the strip Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller, and messes with it everywhere. Editor and curator Dan Nadel writes a great and informative introduction to help us see the value of Newgarden's strange place in the history of humor. Nadel includes scathing reviews of Newgarden's work, to show how alienating some of it can be, but I thought it was mostly funny and insightful about the nature of comedy, often more meta than anything else. There's nostalgia in this, too, that reminds me of Chris Ware and Seth, only with a more sardonic edge.
December 23, 2008
Humor theorists are creepy.
June 27, 2012
The Little Nun and Your Snappy Pals are my favorite selection sections. Pud and Spud and What We Like follow. Close. The stories that weren't attached to Big Noses and then Big Noses round out how I liked the Newgarden work. Oh, and the Bazooka Joe and Nancy meet-on-a-train thing is last. It was fine, but it was a "well FINE" kind of "fine." The biography of Newgarden and the autobiography of his influences were excellent bookends to this funniest, darkest comic collection by an artist who's kept me good company on my slower work days.
January 25, 2008
Really really funny, a comic collection I go back to constantly..
December 3, 2017
A great insight to the true world of comedy, this book is filled to the brim with amazing comics and storylines that can make you laugh or ponder everything that you priorly knew.
August 6, 2025
Rounded up to a 3.5, especially for Love's Savage Fury. Although I don't *love* Newgarden's long-winded gag cartoons, I find some to be quite draining, I can't help but adore the avant-garde silliness throughout the rest of the book. Little Nun is a standout for me, incredibly sardonic but has a Bushmiller like visual gag structure that I love. The last 40 pages of Ephemera representing Newgarden's inspirations was a ton of fun and beautifully presented like much of the book.
January 18, 2024
Comics worth reading if you are alive and like comics
February 12, 2008
Mark Newgarden, We All Die Alone (Fantagraphics, 2005)
I was in my late teens during the glory days of RAW, and many of my friends were huge fans of the magazine. I was always sort of ashamed to admit I never quite got it. But then Maus came out, and I could grok Art Spiegelman, who was one of the driving forces behind RAW, so I figured I'd just missed something.
Now comes We All Die Alone, a full-length from one of RAW's other seminal contributors, Mark Newgarden. And while there are some pieces in here that really hit me right, I have to say that a lot of the time I still just don't get it. This despite Dan Nadel's fantastic introduction, which demystifies the Newgarden canon, as it were. And really, some of this is great stuff. The Little Nun? Genius. Em is endearing, in an odd way. There's a great deal of it, however, that just doesn't strike me as funny. It's not that I don't get it; twenty years on, this stuff makes a lot more sense to me than it used to (and at the time, shamefully, I didn't recognize a lot of the archetypes and stereotypes against which Newgarden was working). It's just that, well, I don't find some of it funny. Your mileage may vary, of course. But there's no denying that when Mark Newgarden is in the zone, he hits them out of the park on a regular basis. ***
I was in my late teens during the glory days of RAW, and many of my friends were huge fans of the magazine. I was always sort of ashamed to admit I never quite got it. But then Maus came out, and I could grok Art Spiegelman, who was one of the driving forces behind RAW, so I figured I'd just missed something.
Now comes We All Die Alone, a full-length from one of RAW's other seminal contributors, Mark Newgarden. And while there are some pieces in here that really hit me right, I have to say that a lot of the time I still just don't get it. This despite Dan Nadel's fantastic introduction, which demystifies the Newgarden canon, as it were. And really, some of this is great stuff. The Little Nun? Genius. Em is endearing, in an odd way. There's a great deal of it, however, that just doesn't strike me as funny. It's not that I don't get it; twenty years on, this stuff makes a lot more sense to me than it used to (and at the time, shamefully, I didn't recognize a lot of the archetypes and stereotypes against which Newgarden was working). It's just that, well, I don't find some of it funny. Your mileage may vary, of course. But there's no denying that when Mark Newgarden is in the zone, he hits them out of the park on a regular basis. ***
August 10, 2015
3.5 stars. A lot of content, some of it quite funny, a lot of it at least fascinating, but also somehow underwhelming enough to keep it below 4 stars in my mind. Either way, still worth the time to read/look at this book -- Mark Newgarden has a unique mind.
June 8, 2009
Deeply bitter 'jokes', disemboweled and meta-cartoony.
Mostly the humor is in the death of the joke.
It gets tiring in bulk-- more critique than creation-- but it's still pretty fascinating.
Mostly the humor is in the death of the joke.
It gets tiring in bulk-- more critique than creation-- but it's still pretty fascinating.
January 7, 2017
"Love’s Savage Fury," is one of the best short comics ever.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews