Minimum Wage: Book One

Minimum Wage

by Bob Fingerman

Fingerman has the knack for identifying the humor in the weirdest and the most unexceptional people or situations. This first installment of Fingerman's crisply rendered mini-epic presents a couple of days in the life of Rob, paradoxically stuffy N.Y.C. slacker/artist and reluctant party-boy, who freelances for porn magazines while convincingly delivering the line "You kiss your mother with that mouth?" to his shoot-from-the-hip girlfriend Sylvia. Rob slouches along from Pork magazine headquarters to Brooklyn and beyond, sharing joints, drinks and woes with his baggy, sex-starved buds?prototypical loser-types all?along the way. The sneakily incisive Fingerman presents his characters in all their skewed, dweebish glory, from their often hilarious dialogue to the band-emblazoned T-shirts that they wear like ID tags. The graphics and overall atmosphere are distinct from such earlier work as White Like She; Minimum Wage has a clean, cartoony style that manages to be both light and cluttered in a manic, obsessive way, tight yet loose-limbed. His backgrounds are packed with layers of detail that, when decoded, provide further insights into an engaging and entertaining work that is dense with demented particulars

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Recent releases are From the Ashes, a satirical "speculative memoir" set in post-apocalyptic New York (IDW, March 2010) of which The Onion wrote, “As a blitz of astringent satire, an unabashed love letter to his wife, and a love-hate manifesto aimed at the whole human race, From The Ashes is a gem; as an addition to the often-staid canon of post-apocalyptic pop culture, it’s a revelation… A“

In August 2010 my second novel, Pariah (Tor Books), a Pinteresque zombie tale, was released. It rec'd a starred review from Publishers Weekly and an A- from Entertainment Weekly and was Fangoria's Book of the Month selection. The mass market pocket edition came out in 2011.

My most recent release is the deluxe oversized hardcover collection Maximum Minimum Wage, from Image Comics (April 2013), which made Entertainment Weekly's Must List and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I missed the enjoyment window on this. I would have liked it in my twenties. It was tolerable in my forties

[Rod Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

#ThrowbackThursday - Back in the '90s, I used to write comic book reviews for the website of a now-defunct comic book retailer called Rockem Sockem Comics. From the May 1997 edition with a theme of "Offered Again" Comics:

INTRODUCTION

Is there anything better than picking up a large chunk of a series you'd previously overlooked, reading it through from the beginning, and discovering a quality book you'll never want to miss again? That's one of the reasons I love trade paperbacks. But what are you going to do if there is no trade paperback? If you're already ordering from PREVIEWS through Rockem Sockem Comics, you can take advantage of the large number of comics which are "offered again" by various publishers each month. When a book is offered again, the publisher is generally trying to promote the latest issue of a series by making the back issues available for new readers. Or the publisher might be pushing the back issues in a month when no new issue is being offered. Usually, unless labelled otherwise, the books being offered again are mint condition first editions. This month you have a chance to take advantage of the system and pick up nearly complete runs of three very unique and deserving series.

EARNING A LIVING

MINIMUM WAGE BOOK ONE (Fantagraphics Books)
MINIMUM WAGE VOLUME 2 #1-6 (Fantagraphics Books)

Gen-X slackers are everywhere. Books. Film. Television. And, of course, comics. Sometimes it seems every other independent comic features slackers. Luckily, some of those comics are good.

MINIMUM WAGE tells of the evolving relationship of two young residents of NYC. Rob Hoffman is a 24-year-old aspiring comic book artist. Alas, he must toil at drawing silly strips for porn mags and humor rags until he can realize his dream. Rob's girlfriend, 28-year-old Sylvia Fanucci, manages a hair salon by day and spends her free time loving and tormenting Rob. BOOK ONE covers their decision to move in together. VOLUME TWO #1 finds them apartment hunting, while #2 gets them to moving day. This all leads to an inevitable question in #5. Along the road the couple has to deal with a voyeuristic young nephew (#2) and a comic book convention (#4). Jealousy rears its head when Rob wants to collaborate with an attractive performance artist/porn star/writer (#5). Rob spends #6 hating everyone else in NYC and fruitlessly taking his portfolio around to various magazines. While most of these topics are handled in a light and amusing manner, issue #3 changes pace drastically to tackle abortion.

Writer/artist Bob Fingerman shows quite a bit of talent, something I hadn't expected after his previous effort, the race-swapping fantasy WHITE LIKE SHE (Dark Horse Comics). He handles slice-of-life storytelling well. Having recently searched for a new rental myself, I found the apartment search and parody of realtors especially true to life. The lead characters are strong, and the side characters are all funny or colorful. Every character, including the leads, is presented with flaws as well as good points, making them all very human. Fingerman's cartoonish drawing style is very accomplished and helps differentiate and define the many friends, co-workers, family members, strangers and acquaintances who appear throughout the series. My complaints are minor: the pacing of the stories is a bit slow and uneven, and the plot sometimes changes course in mid-stream.

I must warn y'all that this book is for adults only. Fingerman depicts full-frontal nudity and graphic sexual situations, because, after all, sex is another part of daily life.

Each issue features a different guest artist doing pin-ups on the back cover. So far, contributors include (in order, issues #1-6) Pat McEown, Kevin Nowlan, Dave Cooper, Dave Johnson, Mike Mignola, and Kyle Baker. Stephen DeStefano, Evan Dorkin, Ted McKeever and Bill Wray all add interior pin-ups to issue #4. Also, a thinly-disguised Evan Dorkin ("Kevin Orkin") appears in the comic convention issue offering sage advice and assurances to Rob, who is promoting his first solo comic book.

If you want a quality book about a couple of struggling twenty-somethings, sign up for MINIMUM WAGE.


Grade: B+

(MINIMUM WAGE VOLUME 2 #1-7 are solicited this month in PREVIEWS on page 270!)

[Bon Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultra irritating main character and his entourage that's hardly any less so manage to pull you in their world of twenty-something blessed immaturity and self-absorption. I know I want to punch him in the face at leas in part because he reminds me of myself when I was his age. The other part of hate is caused by the fact I'd kill to be in his place again.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was practically coated in slime. Nice linework tho

[Al McCarty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t need this volume anymore now that it’s published in the Maximum Minimum Wage hardcover. I certainly loved it when it first came out (and still do). There wasn’t anything like it back then, aside from hate. I still enjoy Fingerman’s cartooning style here, which he’d switched up several times since.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had read a few issues of Minimum Wage when I was in my late 20s, which is about the same age Bob Fingerman was when he wrote these comics. I was a lot more into them then. But this book still hat the pull of nostalgia—while reminding me why I'm glad I'm not still that age.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Minimum Wage is a frank semi-autobiographical bio-comic about a cartoonist in New York trying to recover from his very early divorce. This is a very frank collection, with sex and porn being primary topics (he draws cartoons for adult magazines). It's also very relatable; though I've never been in anything even remotely like Rob's shoes I can sympathize with the character, and find him interesting; he does as much stupid stuff as he does smart, and he spends a lot of time in his own head, which the comic captures well. The art is mainly black and white and definitely feels appropriate for the story it's telling. One thing - this volume just sort of ends; kind of a cliffhanger, kind of just stopping. Picking up the second volume so you can go straight through is highly recommended by someone who didn't.

[Darrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

a nice slice of New York in the mid to early 90's
a cartoon roman a clef about a dude that illustrates for a Screw magazine like publication and is managing a relationship with a proto punk girl

[Michelle]

I'm Rob and Steph is Sylvia

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just ok for me.