Pizza Punks - Collection

by Cole Pauls

A punk-rock celebration of pizza in all its gooey glory. Dive deep into the world of cheese-loving, crust-craving, sauce-savouring punks with award-winning cartoonist Cole Pauls. In Pizza Punks , Pauls pushes the limits of pizza devotion by exploring just how far an extremely dedicated punk might go to attain the cheesiest of pies. Backpack pizza? Sure. Couch pizza? Absolutely. Even mosh pizza isn’t off-limits. Pineapple pizza, though? That’s a little more controversial. This quirky graphic novel is served up hot and (not so) fresh by the author of Dakwäkãda Warriors , winner of the 2020 Indigenous Voices Award and nominee for two Doug Wright Awards and an Aurora Award. "The more pizza I ate, the more ideas I thought of. The more punk music I listened to, the more I wanted to incorporate that into it. It's kind of just a snowball effect." --Cole Pauls

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[df parizeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you give this less than 5 stars, you hate pizza. Sorry, I don't make the rules.

[Meepelous · Rating 3 out of 5]

As he says in his afterward, Pauls started writing Pizza Punk right when he moved to Vancouver to attend Emily Carr University. "Pizza Punks was the perfect strip to experiment and explore comics as a medium. I'd say 75% of this book is student work" aka using different class assignments to create new installments in this zine series.

Paul describes this short comics collection on his website as "Dive deep into the world of cheese-loving, crust-craving, sauce-savouring punks with Dakwäkãda Warriors author Cole Pauls. Originally published in Lucky’s Comics newspaper, “DUNK”, Pizza Punks pushes the limits of pizza devotion by exploring just how far an extremely dedicated punk might go to attain the cheesiest of pies. Backpack pizza? Sure. Couch pizza? Absolutely. Even Mosh pizza isn’t off-limits. Pineapple pizza, though? That’s a little more controversial.
This graphic novel collects Pizza Punks 1 – 4 plus a hot n fresh 5th issue, drawn just for this collection! Plus pin-ups by Kirsten Hatfield, Joel Rich, Brian Fukushima, Owen Plummer, Kathleen Gros, Simon Roy, Nathan Jones, Becca Tobin & Katie So."

A very different kind of book then I generally read, let alone review. I really enjoyed the experimental quality of this collection. It was a nice fun fast read. The art changes a bit with each story, but Coles does have a strong sense of style that does also shine through.

A difficult book to rate. I would say this is a good book, so that is three out of five stars on Goodreads.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really cool to see how Pauls' style and technique evolved over the years. I truly loved that he has made so many comics about punks and pizza, with so many local Vancouver references. It silly and dumb and great and has incredible energy and is just the vibe I wanted. The comics made with wood block were amazing!

[Robert Hudder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up at the library. I'm guessing that if I looked hard enough I could find a six degrees of separation here. I really enjoyed this from the perspective of seeing how an artist has progressed. This collects the whole output throughout school.

It gets progressively better; the lettering especially. I could see how this could become more of script based strip rather than single panels with jokes. I will keep my eyes out for what Cole does next because there is a lot of potential here.

[Mateen Mahboubi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Pauls' amazing Dakwäkãda Warriors earlier this year so was interested to see this collection of earlier work appear. It's much more straightforward while also being pretty absurd. A great collection for pizza lovers as all the comics are pretty on brand. Nothing too groundbreaking but lots of fun with pizza!

[Syntaxx · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is so dumb, but if you read it from the forgiving eye of a teacher looking at student work, it can be enjoyable. pure unadulterated love for pizza in all its forms. the only crust punks i ever liked. glad i got it from the library for sure lol. i appreciated the alt zine feel of the actual book as well, even if the all orange pages did make it a little difficult to look at.

[salem · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of your average DIY punk zines, all themed around pizza. Very enjoyable visually although the pizza themeing and gross-out humour gets old very quickly. I think these would be better experienced as the original independent zines and comic strips rather than as a book.

[William Jamieson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming

[Marc Kavanagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of work from a great guy!

[Asher Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. As someone who grew up in a punk/punk adjacent scene it is cool to see how much is relatable, even in comic form.

I’m glad I found Cole Pauls, I look forward to reading more.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange and hilarious comic collection that definitely does pizza justice. I loved the strip from the printmaking class the author included

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pizza punks on the West Coast rejoice!

I'd read one issue of this before and didn't think much of it. I really enjoy Cole Pauls other work. Coming back to this I found it quite entertaining. It's very silly but has enough realness to it for it to work - like some of the true stories of punks getting pizza and doing nice things (like handing out extra slices to homeless people on East Hastings). I also like that the setting is Vancouver, a city I'm quite familiar with.

There's a pub in my town that hosts punk shows and serves only pizza for food, I was thinking about it the whole time reading this.

[Tina Olah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wholesome, cheese-covered fun!

[Saf · Rating 3 out of 5]

this art is pure