Customer Reviews

Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man

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If you haven't gotten around to John Porcellino's monolithic King Cat Classix, Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man is a condensed version of his best work. It's a bizarre slice of midwestern American life: comics dealing with Porcellino's experience doing just what it sounds like ... pouring chemicals into swamps/waterholes containing mosquito larvae. It begins with his strange encounters with hitchhikers, in twister-torn country, Con Edison structures, getting attacked by wasps, and continues with why he gives up mosquito-abating. The evolution of Porcellino's artwork is also fascinating, starting with scrawled, almost crude, "punk" drawings and evolving to a gorgeous, minimal, clear-line style. Porcellino's landscapes are something to behold in their haikulike simplicity and beauty.

The comic is funny, but also touching, pensive and absolutely in love with nature. The writing evokes Hemingway and Kerouac, and I highly recommend this book and his other work to people interested in finding beauty in humble things, the blue-collar American experience, poetry, nature.

I loved this book. It was a quick read (great for communtes) with humorous stories to which I related.

Some of the finest and most considered autobiographical comics in an absurdly glutted field. Keep your eye on John Porcellino.

John Porcellino, Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man (La Mano, 2005)

Over the past few years, Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man had become something of a graphic novel holy grail for me; library after library had listed it in their catalogs (presumably having it on order rather than in stock), and then had it mysteriously disappear. Finding a copy was downright impossible, and the book sat at the top of my list of stuff I wanted to read for over three years before Interlibrary Loan were finally able to track down what I'm starting to think is the only extant copy of the book in existence. (For the record, I extend my undying gratitude to the folks at the Salt Lake City Public Library.) I knew, somewhere in the back of my head, I was probably setting myself up for disaster; when you look forward to something for this absurd amount of time, the reality almost never matches the anticipation. And yet Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man almost did. Almost. I knew I was going to be in trouble when I read the preface, though, so I was prepared when I got to the last pages and Porcellino's conversion (not a spoiler, since, obviously, it's mentioned in the preface). Still, I found myself liking the earlier stuff better, despite it being far more primitive and crude (in every sense of the word) than the later work. But my problems with the later work are all philosophical, rather than with the work itself; don't let my reservation stop you from seeking this one out. ***