My Life in a Jugular Vein: Three More Years of Snakepit Comics

by Ben Snakepit

Collects years 4-6 of Snakepit; the 3 panel daily autobiographical comic by Ben Snakepit. A partying, record store clerk, rock and roller, and big sweet softy, Ben tours the world with his band, J CHURCH, drinks like a fish, goes to parties, and gets his heart broken over and over when he’s not breaking hearts. The more you read, the more addictive it gets. Includes compilation CD of Ben’s daily listening! Voted Best Minicomic - Wizard March 2006! Voted Best local comic – Austin Statesman 2006!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Music, Biography, Comic Book

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2007

About the author

Ben is best known as the creator of Snakepit zine. Snakepit is a comic zine that features a three panel comic about each day of Ben's life. In interviews Ben has cited Jim's Journal by Scott Dikkers, a comic that appeared in The Onion, as his initial inspiration, although Dikker's comic was fictional, while Ben's is factual. Some issues of Snakepit have appeared as a split with zines such as Clutch, Tight Pants, Amazing Adult Fantasy and Gullible. Contributors to Snakepit have included Janelle Hessig of Tales Of Blarg. The zine was published quarterly until 2006.

In addition, Ben released the zine in one-year anthologies from 2001 to 2004. Snakepit was first published in book form by Gorsky Press in 2004. Entitled The Snake Pit Book, it featuring three years of Ben Snakepit's comic life, with a foreword by Aaron Cometbus. A second book of Snakepit comics, My Life In A Jugular Vein, published by Young American Comics, appeared in 2007. After the release of this book, Ben decided to return to the one-year anthology format with the release of Snakepit 2007 in spring of 2008, and subsequently Snakepit 2008 is anticipated in 2009.
Ben has released two one shot zines, Pills and Going To California.
Ben's work has also appeared in zines such as Capitol City 'Zine Compilation and Twenty-Four Hours and he has been interviewed in zines such as Comixville. As well, he writes a regular column for Razorcake zine.
Ben Snakepit is also a musician and has played with a number of bands including J Church. In 2006, J Church released a split single with the band Off With Their Heads, of which zinester Nate Gangelhoff is a member.

Reviews

[Maudite Candela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book on a trip expecting it to be very fun and connect with it but unfortunately it talks basically about being stoned and attending shows. Although I share some views with Ben: how the punk scene is the most welcoming one, how bike rides are the best (specially at night!) and that musculed macho hardcore bands suck.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben Snakepit crafts 3-panel days that range from banal to blissful,soul crushing to sublime. Taken individually they are nearly meaningless - a momentary representation of working at a video store, barbecuing with friends, riding bikes or taking a monster bong hit. However, when read as a series the subtle plot arcs emerge from his days and you find patterns in Ben's struggles with his music, his lovers, his city and his many vices. The stories are nearly universal, at least to my demographic - playing shitty shows, doomed long distance relationships, occasionally burying oneself in cheap beer - are all rights of passage for most of us. In the best ways Ben takes the personal and simplifies it to a skeleton sketch, an empty wire on which the reader is free to hang her own life and experience.

One word of caution - due to the repetition obviously inherent in documenting day-to-day life, it is recommended that you absorb this volume in short chunks. Ben recommends doing most of this reading in a bathroom, and I find this advice charmingly appropriate.

[Meg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull beyond. So repetitious, so plain. I know that's life, but I don't need to read about it for 200 pages.

[Chelsea Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This chronicles a chunk of years in Austin (though Ben is on tour/out-of-town a lot in the book) that I was also there and drinking beers and going to random parties, although the beers and the randomness pale in comparison to his chronicled here. The native Texan kids I knew always reveled in all of that more than me (but duh, I was in grad school).
There are foods cartooned here I miss eating, though his favorite Mexican restaurants and pizza were not mine, and the music venues and dodgy movie theaters are they same but not the bands or the movies (but it does capture something very Austin-aughts about being a cinephile). This spurred me to google people I had forgotten about, who I am not Instagram-connected to, but was once Friendster- and Myspace- and Facebook- connected to; it really was a good time to meet people at parties and then not have to give them your phone number! There were times in Austin when I wish I could have cut loose a bit more, but probably not in this way (and I'm glad I was never hungover in the lab because that would be legit dangerous), and the overall arc of this book, ultimately wanting something more than chill hangs, makes me feel better about sticking to my reason for being there at all (*but also very self-satisfied that I wisely picked a fun place to live for grad school, not like, Boston).

[David Macpherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three years of daily diary comics. This was surprisingly engaging. I found myself involved in the small foibles and issues in his day to day life of living as a video store clerk and touring in bands and drinking beer and trying to find love. The mundane nature of the presentation was perfect.

[Eric Nagurney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes me nostalgic for an Austin I never actually knew!

[Lars · Rating 4 out of 5]

Came across Snakepit entirely by accident. Well, not entirely. I was feeling nostalgic for the punk rock and punk comix that I was involved in college. While I was never hardcore about the underground comic scene, I loved the annual Fluke Festival in Athens, which turned me onto xeroxed autobiographies, anthropomorphic vegetables, and surreal ink creations.

Snakepit isn't particularly well drawn (its creator and main subject regularly admits as much) nor is it literary piece of genius. What it is is a daily picture of a punk rocker drinking, getting high, going on tour, being a manslut, working service jobs and generally just getting by. The pay-off, however, is experiencing that day-to-day humdrum and the larger picture it paints of a person that wants more than that. So far, I've read his 365 comic per year journey from 2004-2008. Still need to pick up those early years, but Ben Snakepit says that 2010 (a decade since he first started drawing daily) will be his final year.

The great thing about this particular volume is the inclusion of a mix CD. Each daily strip is titled by a song (everything from pop-punkers The Bananas and Woody Guthrie to Kraftwerk and -- this made my heart warm -- Athens's greatest punk band, Carrie Nations), so he compiled a mix of those songs, but instead tracklisted them by date, so you have to find out the artist/song yourself.

[Shaun]

There's something about these comics that is both fun and unsettling. Ben documents every day of his life with a three panel drawing, so you've already got a guaranteed zine-world classic - what's not to love? Maybe it's too much to take when compiled into a full book. Stripping life down into three panels per day doesn't allow for getting too deep into any one drama or situation, which is, of course, the point. But it's a little much when you start to realize that the last panel of the majority of the comics is about him getting drunk, relationships are glossed over, and in your position as reader you start to want to shake the little guy in the black skull t-shirt for falling into the same idiotic patterns on every turn of the page! I'm enjoying it though - just in small doses. Comes with a CD that, at times, rocks.

Favorite reoccurring theme: every time Ben is at a party, he draws himself standing in a room full of grotesque monsters.

[Peacegal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Imagine finding someone’s daily journal and reading it. That’s exactly the impression of My Life in a Jugular Vein. Sure, there are juicy moments here and there, but the majority is mundane and boring—just like reading a stranger’s journal.

I must say I’m shocked by the author’s stamina and tolerance. This guy is my age –early 30s—and he’s somehow able to attend parties several times a week and get drunk and/or high on a daily basis—even, on occasion, at work. If I lived like that I’d drop dead within a month. Reading this book, I was sincerely glad I avoid parties like the plague.

The good aspect of Vein is that it doesn’t fall into the common annoyances of most other memoir comics. There is no learning, no big epiphanies, no wedding, and—praise the lord—no breeding. After reading plenty of “true life” graphic novels that I ended up wanting to pitch across the room, the author’s hedonism was in itself a relief.

[Deron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This appealed to the voyeur in me, as well as my inner comic book geek, fan of Jim's Journal, high school skate rat, and twenty-year old self. There's a little bit of something for every facet of my fragmented self.

It's also a great example of how beautiful it can be to follow something simple like three things that you did that day if you do it for an extended period of time. (This dude has drawn this comic daily for at least six years which is impressive given the amount of drugs and booze he ingests daily.)

Plus there's a CD that you can dump into Itunes and listen to bands like "This Bike is A Pipe Bomb."

[Emilia P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome. Snakepit is hardcore addictive. Then I went to a party, then I got drunk, then I looked at the internet, then I went to work, then I ate a tamale, then I went to Minneapolis and I love Minneapolis and then I moved to Montreal really briefly is the basic gist of this. There were a number of girl problems and girls kissed at parties in this book, at one point he was like "I need to stop being so slutty" and I was like YEAH YA DO. But deep down, Ben's a romantic, and a sweetheart, and Flippy-do wishes her life were as cool as his. Snakepit, you give me hope for my little drawing life. Thank you, dude, for sticking with it.

[Chestnut]

In these biographical comics, Ben Snakepit documents 3 panels each day from his life as a video clerk/touring musician/bike rider/beer drinker, and many other things. The art, while very simple drawings, in strangely compelling.

One of my favorite accents in this book is the personal soundtrack song listed above each day's strip. The copy I bought from a DIY distro set up at a show also included a comp CD that Ben put together. I'd love to have the rest of the volumes of this comic. This book covers 3 years:2004-2006.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three more years worth of Ben Snakepit's daily journal zine, in the form of a 3-panel comic. He always prefaces Snakepit with the disclaimer that he has always meant for his zines to be read on the toilet, but I think it's best read a year at a time, which would leave a hell of a ring around my bottom... oh yeah, and it comes with a mix CD of his favorite bands.

[Rkutler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find Ben Snakepit oddly loveable. I did work at a record store in another era, and did some of the things he did in Jugular, but never toured with a band, which I find brave. Others who admire him have already said what's so addictive about his three panel format: He boldly tells the truth about his life. Authentic to the places been I've (Austin, NM, San Francisco, Portland.)

[E. Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like to live vicariously through Ben. I don't get drunk or high almost every night, but Ben does. I don't play in an awesome band, but Ben does. However, we do both fall for people a little too quickly.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface, a charming but repetitive daily comic journal of a punk's life. Dig deeper and it's a (likely unintentional) statement of the basic banality of life despite attempts to alleviate with constant bands, shows, and partying.

[Ivan grass · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first comic book I read as an adult. This comic opened my eyes to a whole new world of wonderful, beautiful, violent, hilarious, incredible, fulfilling, and offensive alternative comics! excellent.

[Rosetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three more years of Snakepit comics. I must say, awesome. It's great to see into the daily life of someone who is leading a life so much different from mine, and one that I find much more interesting.

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish more people documented their lives in comics. Also, I get to eat a burrito and you can see my creative writing class on pp. 216 and 217 respectively.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

it has a really bad drawing of me in it.

[amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned to finally watch TV Carnage and I am forever grateful to Ben Snakepit for that. Other than that fuck proposing, dude.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its hard not to want Ben's life after reading his book.

[BRAIN_QUEEN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny stuff but kinda sad too.

[Mikey Reidling · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that started my addiction to Ben's work.