Misery Loves Comedy
By Ivan Brunetti
(Fantagraphics Books, Hardcover, 9781560977926, 172pp.)
Publication Date: June 2007
Categories: General
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Description
Nihilism and self-loathing scale unprecedented comic heights in this autobiographical collection.
A psychiatric case study masquerading a fancy-pants graphic novel, "Misery Loves Comedy" collects Ivan Brunetti's early issues (no pun intended)... wait, let's rephrase that. "Misery Loves Comedy" collects the first three issues of the legendary comic book series "Schizo" in their entirety, as well as a host of miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam from various anthologies, c. 1992-2005. Readers will find the author's unwitting self-caricature as a paranoid, deluded young man intriguingly repugnant and often chuckle-inducing. Besides Brunetti's trademark nihilism, self-loathing, relentless depression, and inchoate, spittle-soaked misanthropy, these earlier comics offer a dollop of scatology and blasphemy for that extra puerile, lowbrow tang. These are comics for those who enjoy witnessing one man's sanity in its final death rattle, swinging its tail from anhedonia to schadenfreude and back again. Also: lots and lots of filthy jokes.
A psychiatric case study masquerading a fancy-pants graphic novel, "Misery Loves Comedy" collects Ivan Brunetti's early issues (no pun intended)... wait, let's rephrase that. "Misery Loves Comedy" collects the first three issues of the legendary comic book series "Schizo" in their entirety, as well as a host of miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam from various anthologies, c. 1992-2005. Readers will find the author's unwitting self-caricature as a paranoid, deluded young man intriguingly repugnant and often chuckle-inducing. Besides Brunetti's trademark nihilism, self-loathing, relentless depression, and inchoate, spittle-soaked misanthropy, these earlier comics offer a dollop of scatology and blasphemy for that extra puerile, lowbrow tang. These are comics for those who enjoy witnessing one man's sanity in its final death rattle, swinging its tail from anhedonia to schadenfreude and back again. Also: lots and lots of filthy jokes.
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