Recently in Comics Category
Hugleikur Dagsson, Iceland's gift to black humour, is back with another collection of taboo-breaking little cartoons. Prepare to be offended, as Dagsson is blatantly politically incorrect. Which is, of course, terribly funny. No wonder the first collection, Should You Be Laughing At This?, has sold over 9 000 copies in Finland.
Some of the jokes aren't particularly excellent, but at times Dagsson hits a nerve and manages to come up with something unbelievably funny. Most of the cartoons aren't really that offensive, unless the reader is particularly sensitive to political incorrectness. There's some fairly graphic sexual content, which is probably the most likely part to offend some readers. Well, I suppose those people know to avoid something like this anyway.
The thousand dollar question here is whether Dagsson has enough material for a second book and the answer to that question is easy yes. And yes, it's funny, too. If you enjoyed the first book, you'll find this just as entertaining - some of the jokes are not that fresh, some are even more over-the-top than the cartoons in the first one. (Review based on the Finnish translation.) [ Is This Supposed to Be Funny? at Amazon.co.uk ]
The Perry Bible Fellowship has long been one of my favourite online comics. The author has a brilliantly twisted sense of humour and a good sense of style. PBF is PBF, even though the illustrations vary a lot between strips, as Gurewitch experiments with different styles and techniques.
This book compiles almost hundred pages worth of strips: not all of them, but most. Few of my personal favourites are missing, yet I'm quite satisfied with the collection. There's some material that's previously unpublished, but it's nothing really interesting. So, if you've already read everything that's on the web site and don't want to buy stuff you've already read, this book offers very little. However, I'm rather glad to have it on my bookshelves.
If you've never heard of Perry Bible Fellowship, I envy you: you have a world of sickly sweet pleasure to explore. Check the web site or buy the book: whichever you do, you won't be disappointed. [ The Perry Bible Fellowship: Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories at Amazon.co.uk ]
Should You Be Laughing at This? is a cult classic in Iceland, apparently. Then again, Iceland is a dark country where people drink booze and eat rotten shark. Then again, that also describes Finland (well, lose the shark). People with strong moral backbone will most certainly find these crude comics about crude topics offensive, but if you're not too sensitive, this'll give you an opportunity to see what you can laugh about and what you cannot. What's sacred for you?
Explaining humour is a fairly pointless thing, so here's a picture worth at least a few words. While it explains the tone of the comics quite well, it's also one of the less explicit ones in the book. (Review based on the Finnish translation.) [ Should You Be Laughing at This? at Amazon.com
