{"id":14475,"date":"2016-01-11T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=14475"},"modified":"2016-01-10T17:34:41","modified_gmt":"2016-01-10T17:34:41","slug":"as-you-were-volume-4-living-situations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2016\/01\/11\/as-you-were-volume-4-living-situations\/","title":{"rendered":"As You Were volume 4: Living Situations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"
\nBy various, compiled and edited by <\/strong>Mitch Clem<\/strong> & <\/strong>Avi Ehrlich<\/strong> (Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club\/Last Gasp)
\nISBN: 978-0-86719-822-5<\/p>\n

Speaking as a doddering survivor of the first Punk Uprising, I admit to still hankering for those frenzied days of youthful indiscretion, impatient passions, a sense of being completely tangential to most folk around me and a clear idea of who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Enemy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was.<\/p>\n

At least I’m still utterly angry and discontented over inequality, political arrogance, corporate smugness, bigotry of every type and the First World’s poisonous assumption\u00c2\u00a0 that we all adhere to their vile philosophy of I’m-all-right-Jackery\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

So it’s bloody wonderful to see some of those attitudes still surviving into this century: even if the issues are more about personal liberty and freedom of expression and lifestyle, rather than Fighting the Power or just being listened too\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

<\/strong>As You Were<\/strong> is a periodic collection of strips by contemporary cartoonists who self-identify as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153punk\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and this fourth instance is dedicated to the precarious prospect of daily existence, gathered under one cardboard roof by Mitch Clem (creator of <\/strong>Nothing Nice to Say<\/strong> – arguably the first online punk comic) and Avi Erlich, designated adult of San Franciscan arts collective Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club<\/em>, who worked in conjunction with Last Gasp to produce this starkly monochrome digest-sized anthology collection.<\/p>\n

Behind the Kriss Stress cover and following a fabulously illuminated contents section embroidered with a border by Autumn Ballard, the domestic diatribes (produce of more than one country) open with a frenetic depiction of ‘Tuesday Night at the Rad House’<\/em> from Liz Suburbia after which Ben Passmore details the fantastic rules controlling all dealings with ‘The Punklord’<\/em> and Shannon Knox examines the lives of the poor, abused cleaning utensils so seldom used by any house occupant in ‘Takes from the Kitchen Sink’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

‘I Grew Up in a Haunted House’<\/em> relates Liz Prince’s odd preoccupation with one room in a certain home after which James the Stanton visually and viscerally recalls a party which was out of this world in ‘Gnartoons’<\/em>, Brad Dwyer and his partner find some ‘Common Ground’<\/em> in the raising of their kids and Evan Wolff vs Campus P.D. finds the author not-so nostalgic about college housing and student crash-pads in ‘One Time at the Hot Tub House’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Wondering if it’s booze or Ska music making everything so swirly in Mel’s ‘This Only Works When Everyone is Drunk’<\/em>, we stagger on to enjoy Jim Kettner’s gleefully elegiac ‘Tales from the Bookhouse’<\/em>, recounting the unique selling points of past temporary dwellings before Meg Has Issues realises ‘All Roommates are Asshole’<\/em> and Chris (<\/strong>Comics of Mass Distraction<\/strong>) Mindtree details a happy ending resulting from ‘2 Guys 1 Apartment’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Homecore’<\/em> by Josh PM Frees reveals the trials of two gentle scholarly souls searching for shelter whilst Andra Passen exposes herself in ‘Crowded thoughts and crooked teeth’<\/em> before the perennial new-student dilemma (no contraceptives!!!) surely evokes pained, fond memories for many of us as Steve Thueson remembers ‘July 2009’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Sam Grinberg shares a rowdy party experience in ‘Quiet’<\/em> before Rick V hilariously ‘Draws A Comic About Every Human He Has Lived With’<\/em> and Nomi Kane totally steals the show with ‘Nightmare on Milwaukee Avenue’<\/em> as the housemates have to deal with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that guy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: the lazy, shiftless one who has problems with the very concept of menstruation and other girl stuff\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Steve Larder offers a uniquely British outlook whilst recalling his time staying in ‘The Hippy House’<\/em> and Emily \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Buckwheat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Timm scales flights of fantasy in ‘A Girl Can Dream’<\/em> with Joshum sustaining the escapism in fabulous pantomimic sci fi fable ‘Coming Home’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

World traveller Aim\u00c3\u00a9e Pijpers thoughtfully details her ‘Living Arrangements: a Timeline’<\/em> before true Brit Rob Cureton amuses and outrages with his ‘INFOMERCIAL’<\/em> for a very special old folks home after which Alex Barrett exposes the idiocy of the Tallahassee cops in ‘GCF’<\/em> and Rachel Dukes depicts a moment of pure romance in ‘Good Morning, Dracula’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Alex Krokus then shares a ‘House Meeting’<\/em> like so very many others and Sarah Graley intimately recalls ‘Elly’s Room’<\/em> after which Wyeth Yates gloriously predicts a happy future in the ‘Horse Latitudes’<\/em> before Ben Snakepit apologises for his many sins as a ‘Roomate from Hell’ <\/em><\/p>\n

‘Buying the Baron’s House’<\/em> is Erin K. Wilson’s silent tale told in two timeframes, relating the history of a home and its fate today whilst ‘There and Back Again’<\/em> finds Carolina Porras daydreaming as she packs up for another move. After Andy Warner graphically catalogues a ‘House Party’<\/em>, Will Laren recapitulates a modern manifesto with ‘The People’s System’<\/em> before Lindsay Anne Watson pantomimically advocates that we ‘Settle Down’<\/em> to close this conference of cartoons.<\/p>\n

With a full biography\/contact section (for when you want to see more\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and where) this is a wonderful collaborative colloquium of cartoon free expression to delight lovers of the comics game, but if your new to all this, British and of a certain age or maybe simply a devotee of anarchic comedy, the (long and disinfectant-dosed) handle you’re reaching for regarding much of this material is Mayall & Edmonton’s <\/strong>The Young Ones<\/strong> or <\/strong>Bottom<\/strong>, possibly by way of John Belushi in<\/strong> Animal House<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

However, whatever your age, stance or orientation, this splendid collection of funny, raucous, whimsical and thought-provoking graphic narrative is a delicious way of seeing how those kids you claim not to understand think – and surely that’s no bad thing?
\nCollection \u00c2\u00a9 2015 Silver Sprocket. Contributions \u00c2\u00a9 2015 by the individual authors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By various, compiled and edited by Mitch Clem & Avi Ehrlich (Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club\/Last Gasp) ISBN: 978-0-86719-822-5 Speaking as a doddering survivor of the first Punk Uprising, I admit to still hankering for those frenzied days of youthful indiscretion, impatient passions, a sense of being completely tangential to most folk around me and a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “As You Were volume 4: Living Situations”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,104,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics","category-graphic-autobiography","category-mature-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-3Lt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}