Bighead [Paperback]

Jeffrey Brown (Author, Artist)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 2004

Jeffrey Brown is back - and with a Bighead, no less! An irreverent and clever super-hero parody, featuring the most amazing hero of all time: Bighead. Witness inept villains clash with an all-too-emotional hero, in the epic graphic novel that will leap all cliches in a single bound.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Brown is best known for his unflinching autobiographical comics Clumsy and Unlikely. Here he ventures into genre territory with a hilarious superhero parody. Brown writes these stories in a deliberately simple, tongue-in-cheek style, and after a while, it's obvious they could be Golden Age Comics tales by any number of Hall of Fame cartoonists. Brown's archetypal hero, Bighead, defeats villains by using psychology and brainpower as much as brute force. For instance, Bighead overcomes his aptly named foe Crabby by giving him a kitten. Bullman, an "icon of senseless male aggression," is similarly defeated by pop psych. "Dammit, Bighead, you always make me feel like I'm walking on eggshells!" Bullman complains before the two sit down for a heart-to-heart talk. In the unfinished tale "Don't Cry," Bighead gets a taste of his own medicine. A villain named the Brit, who is married to Bighead's true love, Rebessica, plants seeds of doubt about Bighead's mission after Bighead kills some alien monkey invaders who may have been on a peace mission. Brown's art is crude but effective, and the witty stories both deconstruct and revitalize superhero clichés while building a detailed superhero world that's as charming as C.C. Beck's classic Shazam! stories. Brown is also a clever social commentator, with his finger firmly on the pulse of Gen Y mores and obsessions.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Outsider comics creator Brown offers something personal and endearing in his contribution to the hoary comics subgenre of superhero parody. Bighead, whose secret identity is that of "Chicago cartoonist Jeffrey Brown" (surprise!), wears a typical superhero's matching cape, gloves, and boots over a leotard with, a la Batman, a cowl enveloping his distinguishing feature, which looks like it could be just a lotta padding against being bopped by taller opponents. Bighead behaves like a cross between the naive young lover of Brown's autobiographical Clumsy (2002) and Unlikely (2003) and a kid playing, as do many of his adversaries. He and they customarily charge on the scene, fists clenched and bent arms raised, roaring and posing. Since the villains generally can be diverted from their depredations and bullying by such things as boosting their self-esteem, or being given a kitten, Bighead always wins the day. Bighead's nemeses include Smallhead, Rocket Guy, Heartbroke, Girlhair, Crabby (he's got crab-claw hands), Fat Tony, and the Brit (Bighead's secret beloved's fiance). Cracked whimsy at its best. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Top Shelf Productions (October 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891830562
• ISBN-13: 978-1891830563
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,036,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After growing up in Michigan, a 25-year-old Jeffrey Brown moved to Chicago in 2000 to pursue an MFA at the School of the Art Institute. By the time he completed his studies, he had abandoned painting and started drawing comics seriously. His first self-published book, Clumsy, appeared seemingly out of nowhere to grab attention from both cartoonists and comics fans. Established as an overly sensitive chronicler of bittersweet adolescent romance and nonsense superhero parody, Brown's current direction remains split between more autobiography examining the minutiae of everyday life and whatever humorous fiction he feels in the mood for. His most popular works include Clumsy, Unlikely, AEIOU, and Every Girl is the End of the World For Me, comprising the so-called "Girlfriend Trilogy" and its epilogue. More recently his autobiographical work has included Little Things and Funny Misshapen Body. His parody The Incredible Change-Bots, the Ignatz Award winning I am going to be small and humorous cat book Cat Getting Out Of A Bag all stand out amongst his humor work, while his Sulk series continues to take on a variety of subjects with satire. Jeffrey's work has appeared in a host of anthologies from McSweeney's to The Best American Comics, as well as mainstream books like The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror and Marvel's Strange Tales. His original artwork has been exhibited in New York, Paris, and Chicago. Brown has been featured on NPR's This American Life and even created a short animated music video for the band Death Cab For Cutie. He lives in Chicago with his wife and son.
Visit jeffreybrowncomics.blogspot.com for news and drawings, and you can write to him at: PO Box 120, Deerfield IL 60015-0120, USA

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insanely Delightful, January 13, 2007

By 

Ayun Halliday "Author of No Touch Monkey!" (Beautiful Brooklyn New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bighead (Paperback)

Thrill as Bighead battles such superfoes as Heartbroke, Crabby (also known as "Crabby"!), Temptationtress, a couple of adorable little space monkeys who come in peace, and Girl-Hair ("his grooviest nemesis yet"!)

I love love love Jeffrey Brown's work. Bighead is even more of a delight if you've read his autobiographical stuff, Clumsy, Unlikely, etc... though as the mother of a six-year-old Big Head fan, I can vouch that it resonates even if you're too little to get your hands on anything else in his copious, and sexually explicit ouevre. (The clothes stay on in Bighead, and the language is solidly G-rated, but I could imagine some adolescent males locking themselves in the bathroom for some quality time with a dog-eared Tempationtress page...)

Man, I don't even LIKE superhero comics (except one by James Kochalka, which is listed, not quite correctly, on Amazon as Superf*ckers), but any North American born after, say, 1940 will have enough knowledge of standard superheroic speech and situations to relish this pitch-perfect parody.

It's even got a tiny rendering of Bighead as a tiny Tiger Beat-style hunk.

Perfection.