{"id":19117,"date":"2018-10-21T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-21T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=19117"},"modified":"2018-10-15T16:29:38","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T16:29:38","slug":"mean-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2018\/10\/21\/mean-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mean"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Steven Weissman<\/strong> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-56097-866-4<\/p>\n

Steven Weissman was born in California in 1968 and grew up to be an exceptionally fine and imaginative cartoonist. He’s worked for Alternative Comics, Last Gasp, Dark Horse, Marvel, DC, Vice<\/strong> and Nickelodeon Magazine<\/strong> among others, and his artistic sensibilities have been influenced and shaped by such disparate forces as Super-Deformed manga, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our Gang\u00e2\u20ac\u009d comedies, Abbott and Costello, Dan Clowes, Mike Allred and Peanuts<\/strong> – the strip, not the versatile if sometimes potentially fatal foodstuff.<\/p>\n

Much of his groundbreaking, award-winning early work, dating from the mid-1990s, offered a post-modern, skewed and alternative view of friendship, childhood, world weirdness and people’s meanness and can all be enjoyed over and over again in such stunning compilations as Tykes<\/strong>, Lemon Kids<\/strong>, Don’t Call Me Stupid<\/strong>, White Flower Day<\/strong>, Chocolate Cheeks<\/strong> and others. The French and Japanese – who really know quality comics – love him lots and have done so for years.<\/p>\n

In 2012 Weissman literally went back to the drawing board, un-and-re-creating himself and his aesthetic methodology for a and unbelievably enchanting hardcover weekly online strip entitled Barack Hussein Obama<\/strong> which has since been collected into a series of stunning cartoon books about the unsuspected nature of modern America. Gosh, I miss those days\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Today though in the spirit of the season we’re revisiting some of his earlier material\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

If there is such a thing as ‘Dark and Comforting’ then Weissman’s weird and wicked early cartooning is a perfect example. Following the success of Chewing Gum in Church<\/strong> and Kid Firechief<\/strong>, Fantagraphics promptly compiled earlier works from his self-published Yikes!<\/strong>; amply supplemented with other rare and even unpublished strips to create a lovely insight into the development of a truly unique graphic vision.<\/p>\n

These 32 tales, (still available in paperback and digital editions) were all created between 1993 and 2002, and feature his cast of deeply peculiar children in a macabre tribute to Charles Schulz’s signature strip, but they are also literal embodiments of the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153little monsters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

In simple childhood romps such as ‘The See-Thru Boy’<\/em>, ‘The Loneliest Girl in Town’<\/em>, ‘Inevitable Time-Travel Story’<\/em>, ‘No Kiss!’<\/em> and many others, the bizarre cast of Li’l Bloody<\/em> (a child vampire), Kid Medusa<\/em>, Pullapart Boy<\/em> and X-Ray Spence<\/em> live an idyllically suburban 1950’s existence of school, fishing, skateboards, white picket fences, aliens, wheelchair jousting, marbles and weird science.<\/p>\n

Weissman’s seductive cast all have huge round heads and ancient bodies like graphic progeria-sufferers, but the drawing is lavish, seductive and utterly convincing.<\/p>\n

These are great comics about kids (but perhaps regarded as Best Not For Kids) that are a treat, a revelation and most definitely darkly comforting.
\nMEAN \u00c2\u00a9 2007 Fantagraphics Books. All content \u00c2\u00a9 2007 Steven Weissman. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Steven Weissman (Fantagraphics Books) ISBN: 978-1-56097-866-4 Steven Weissman was born in California in 1968 and grew up to be an exceptionally fine and imaginative cartoonist. He’s worked for Alternative Comics, Last Gasp, Dark Horse, Marvel, DC, Vice and Nickelodeon Magazine among others, and his artistic sensibilities have been influenced and shaped by such disparate … <\/p>\n

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