Customer Reviews

Agony

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For years I kept this book on my nightstand just so I could look at the cover every night before I went to sleep and wonder how come there are no others from Mr. Beyer. If you can find a copy, congratulations!

I took Agony off my dad's bookshelf and read it when I was about ten years old. Recently I rediscovered Mark Beyer and my memories of this book were so fond that I decided to look for a copy of my own.

I would recommend getting this book, not only because I personally enjoyed it, but because it represents a pretty significant era in the history of illustration, cartooning and sequential art. Probably the first thing people notice about Beyer's work is that it looks naive and childish, but his picture-making skills are incredible and his surreal landscapes and twisted characters are unforgettable. The primary function of Beyer's artwork is to tell a story, and that it does well.

You probably won't appreciate books like this if you don't have a dark sense of humor, but what the heck, try it out-- at the very least, you'll be exposing yourself to the type of work that RAW comics publishes, and to an entire underground world of cartoonists that have the freedom to say and do whatever they want.

At least check out his website.

Amy and Jordan star in the story of themselves. Absurdist commentary? Autistic child indulgence? Nihilist finger-jamming? You'll be glad you're not Amy of the bad ideas or Jordan who fought to get her head reattatched.

I bought two copies I liked it so much. A terrific story of what can go wrong and does.

. Mark Beyer's Agony we purchased in Palm Springs back in early 1988. Shocked to the point of mutual nervous laughter, we bought a copy and read it in our room that night. "Poor Amy" & "Oh No Jordan!" followed us through the years, though it has long lain safely [???] tucked away in the attic as a storage item occasionally brought out for show. Whenever something goes peculiarly awry we look at one another and say 'this is just too like Amy and ....' We never remember Jordan's name immediately but always have fun challenging one another to recall his name and the book remains a point of reference to us for when it is past time to mend our ways.

. The most recent example is that Sheila needed to return from Ketchikan AK and we decided to go through British Columbia at the end of November from a pleasant enough place called Prince Rupert. After 90 harrowing miles iterated of ice, ice and water, ice and snow, snow, and water in conditions locals head-shakingly called a peculiarly brutal beginning of the winter weather, we all waited for the road to be cleared of the AVALANCHE we encountered that stopped any forward motion, 40 miles from any building or cell phone district. After two spin-outs, one nearly sweeping us into an ice flow clogged river without man-made barriers later reported to us to be an annual winter death-trap, the other spin-out leaving us stuck to put chains on in the primary driving lane on a curve; after becoming soaking wet head to toe rolling in ice water to remove and replace chains; and after seriously pulling back muscles that left me literally crawling into an emergency ward at Terrace, British Columbia, and during one migraine, we pow-wowed.

. It was then that Amy and Jordan rose up in our memories almost simultaneously, and after a good laugh, medication and dry clothes we vowed to try another plan: return to Ketchikan and take the ferry to Bellingham WA. A thousand dollar miscalculation it was; but thanks to Mark Beyer's Amy and Jordan we were finally able to set a clear course to home safe home. Thank you Mark.

. Far from being a book of "stick characters," Agony won the Art Directors Club, New York City "Outstanding Achievement Award" for its Primitive Art work.

. Simply on the Basis of its art work I give Agony a genre specific 5 stars. The read itself can be priceless as the above story may demonstrate. Let it not go unknown that had we continued, a very serious oil leak was to be discovered, we were without spare oil and would have found another 300 miles of increasingly treacherous road unburdened of any true auto repair locations wedded to conditions that sent a local Greyhound on its side the night we clanked back into Prince Rupert. We simply were not equipped by either driving experience or car type to safely attempt that drive, and Agony was a pleasant enough reminder at that point to really bring us to our senses. Yes, things can go wrong. They do go wrong and the only thing to do at that point is look for the nearest exit, if available. The alternative is not good. Maybe Mark's book will save your begonias as well.

. Mark Beyer's Agony we purchased in Palm Springs back in early 1988. Shocked to the point of mutual nervous laughter, we bought a copy and read it in our room that night. "Poor Amy" & "Oh No Jordan!" followed us through the years, though it has long lain safely [???] tucked away in the attic as a storage item occasionally brought out for show. Whenever something goes peculiarly awry we look at one another and say 'this is just too like Amy and ....' We never remember Jordan's name immediately but always have fun challenging one another to recall his name and the book remains a point of reference to us for when it is past time to mend our ways.

. The most recent example is that Sheila needed to return from Ketchikan AK and we decided to go through British Columbia at the end of November from a pleasant enough place called Prince Rupert. After 90 harrowing miles iterated of ice, ice and water, ice and snow, snow, and water in conditions locals head-shakingly called a peculiarly brutal beginning of the winter weather, we all waited for the road to be cleared of the AVALANCHE we encountered that stopped any forward motion, 40 miles from any building or cell phone district. After two spin-outs, one nearly sweeping us into an ice flow clogged river without man-made barriers later reported to us to be an annual winter death-trap, the other spin-out leaving us stuck to put chains on in the primary driving lane on a curve; after becoming soaking wet head to toe rolling in ice water to remove and replace chains; and after seriously pulling back muscles that left me literally crawling into an emergency ward at Terrace, British Columbia, and one migraine, we pow-wowed.

. It was then that Amy and Jordan rose up in our memories almost simultaneously, and after a good laugh, medication and dry clothes we vowed to try another plan: return to Ketchikan and take the ferry to Bellingham WA. A thousand dollar miscalculation it was; but thanks to Mark Beyer's Amy and Jordan we were finally able to set a clear course to home safe home. Thank you Mark.

. Far from being a book of "stick characters," Agony won the Art Directors Club, New York City "Outstanding Achievement Award" for its Primitive Art work.

. Simply on the Basis of its art work I give Agony a genre specific 5 stars. The read itself can be priceless as the above story may demonstrate. Let it not go unknown that had we continued, we still had a very serious oil leak to be discovered and another 300 miles of increasingly treacherous road, that sent a local Greyhound on its side the night we clanked back into Prince Rupert. We simply were not equipped by either driving experience or car type to safely attempt that drive, and Agony was a pleasant enough reminder at that point to really bring us to our senses. Yes, things can go wrong. They do go wrong and the only thing to do at that point is look for the nearest exit, if available. The alternative is not good. Maybe Mark's book will save your begonias as well.

.

I wasn't really amused by it, it was only vaguely interesting, and it's not worth the price you have to pay to get it. I like dark humor, but I don't think this was very well done. It starts with Amy and Jordan losing their jobs. Everything goes wrong for those two, and Amy ends up in the hospital several times (once from having her head ripped off by a ghoul, once because toxins were causing the flesh to fall off her bones, and another time because a prison guard beat her up). If you don't mind reading about characters who have one awful thing after another happen to them for no apparent reason and with very little connection to reality, then you might like this book, but I didn't. Still, at least the things that happen to them make at least some strange sense throughout most of the book. By the end of the book, however, things completely stop making even the slightest bit of sense. Apparently, the author can't think of any reasons why the events at the end of the book are occuring either, because he doesn't even attempt to give one of his usual strange and unrealistic explanations.

What the author is trying to do is apparently some sort of anti-establishment post-modern literature carried by absurdist dark humor. The problem is the artist can't draw and the writers can't write and they think the suffering of their central characters passes for humor. There is no plot, just random acts of macabre violence. There are no characters, just stick figures to whom the violence occurs. A six-year old could draw better and come up with a better story and really, only someone on that level of maturity would find this book remotely interesting.