Wednesday, May 28, 2008

COMIX: Jellyfist By Jhohen Vasquez and Jenny Goldberg REVIEW


From the mind that brought you Johnny The Homocidal Maniac (In 1997! Time sure fly when your chopping up people crazily) come the completely out there and beyond (And oddly arousing - I mean - disturbing) comic strips JELLYFIST. Drawn in cartoonishly grotestque detail by Jenny Goldberg, each one of these completely unrelated strips will get one of three reaction "W-h-a-t?", "Hahahahaha!" and "GODMYEYESMUSTDIE!" Half of the time I wasn't quite sure which one was building up inside of me. Then I discovered it was really the cyclops cat fetus that was trying to claw it's way out of my belly. It sure beast the hell out of some of the atrocities you'll find between these pages: Giant Babies being hit by explosive giant salmon, intestine eating best friend parrots and an abusive pair of scrambled eggs. That's the tame stuff. Don't get me started on a lesson about reproduction that involves giant zombie jelly blobs crawling back into the womb.

Printed on a a dirty looking brown paper stock and adorned with muted colours. The book is WAY too pricey at 9 smackeroos for 54 pages, but the commentary by the writer and artist that accompanies each page make up for it a little bit (Hey! I'm cheap allright!) I'd even go as far to say it was more entertaining then the strips themselves. The rambling prose is tiny, dense and mostly composed of redbull fuelled bouts of name-calling, but in the end there's tons of tidbits to be learned. I'm always a sucker for a look into any creative process, even one as scarring as this.

You can pick up a copy of Jelly Fist at all fine Comic Book Store (Grab it at the Beguiling. Right off of BATHHURST!) "TAKE IT LIKE A BITCH!"

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