Customer Reviews

Holy Sh*t!: The World's Weirdest Comic Books

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I'm not a comic book buyer or collector, but I do like graphic storytelling in the longer format, and was curious to see what oddities might have emerged over theyears in the short form. This small gem of a book collects some sixty examples of the wildest and weirdest, ranging from a Tijuana Bible from the late 1930s satirizing Hitler called "You Nazi Man" to 2004's "Trucker Fags in Denial." Each title gets a two-page spread, with a full cover or near full-cover bleeding across the right page, and a synopsis of the book and sample panel on the left hand page, along with credits and publication information. The selections generally fall into the categories I expected:

Pornish comics -- "Tales From the Leather Nun" is pretty much described by the title, "Sweeter Gwen" is classic bondage, "Amputee Love" is also pretty well described by its title, "Genus" features lesbian unicorns, etc.

Weird superheros -- 1967's "Super Green Beret" battles the Viet Cong with his super strength, 1987's "Super Shamou" is an Inuit superhero fighting the scourge of glue sniffing, 1963's "Brain Boy" tackles communism, etc.

Industry promotional comics -- the American Cancer Society's cautionary teen tale "Where There's Smoke," professional service careers like being a barber or school psychologist are touted by Popeye, Wall's Ice Cream put out "Chill" with various flavors incarnated as superheros and villains, the California Prune Growers Association attempted to crank up the excitement about prunes by publishing the horribly titled "A Fortune in Two Old Trunks" in 1955, Greyhound did the same a few years later with "Driving Like a Pro", and the Savings and Loan Association wanted kids in 1968 to know that "Saving Can Be Fun!", etc.

Foreign oddities -- about 20% of the titles are non-American, including an anti-Soviet work from 1970s Czeckoslovakia called "Octoberbriana", the Australian "Book of Picture Stories" from 1943 brings to life aboriginal tales, "La Donna Ragna" from 1970s Italy is a kind of topless female Spiderman, the truly bizarre 1950s Australian sci-fi tale "The Purple People Eater", the torture porn of a 1980's Malaysian title and 1960s Mexican cheesecake "Los Novios", and soforth.

Other categories include romance comics, religious comics, and even presidential ones ("The Great Society" features a caped LBJ and "Reagan's Raiders" features a chiseled Reagan brandishing a machine gun). However, if I had to pick three favorites for flat-out weirdness, they'd be 1967's Fatman the Human Flying Saucer, 1993s Godzilla vs. Barkley (yes, that'd be Charles Barkley), and 1963's Herbie, which features a truly bizarre, almost autistic lard tub of a kid. On the whole, there's nothing deep to be learned here, just a fun little book that's bound to amuse and amaze anyone who picks it up -- perfect fare for the hipster's bathroom. My only complaint is that it's small, and as with any book on visual media, it would be better at a larger scale.

HOLY SH*T is a short examination and collection of around 60 comics that the authors find to be the weirdest comics ever produced. The book has a short introduction by the authors. Each comic examined in the book includes a full page copy of the comics front cover and another page with one panel taken from the comic and a description about the comic including such information as where it came from, why it was published, and other information about the comic. Most of the comics were published in the United States, but there's one that's from Russia (Octobriana) , one from Mexico (Los Novios) and one from Italy (La Donna Ragna). There are some in color and a few in black and white. There are also comics from just about every genre possible: political, crime, horror, and 'erotic' comics are all here. I think some of the most unusual titles include "Tales From the Leather Nun", "Mod Love", "Neraka", "Longshot Comics", "La Donna Ragna", "Amputee Love", and "Herbie".

I found HOLY SH*T interesting to read through because the collection of comics is so bizarre. However, I really didn't gain any insight or new knowledge from the book beyond knowing the names of some very off-the-wall comic books. I had never heard of most of these and there's a good reason for that.

HOLY SH*T is a book that will appeal to serious comic collectors, those with an interest in how propaganda has been used in history and its place in culture, and people who have a bizarre sense of humor. Other than the actual content of titles, some of which are adult in nature, the appeal and audience for the book is limited.

Smaller than I was expecting and the comics (which are only the covers, no actual comics) weren't as weird as I was expecting.

Good book for cholectors of weirdness but not all the comics here deserve the title of "the weirdest". One good thing is that contains stories from various countries, not only from USA.

If you know little of the history of the underground comic book publications, then you will consider the comics featured in this to be weird. However, if you are familiar with the long history of the comics published in places like Tijuana, Mexico, then the books will only be slightly weird. The power of the comics code authority when it clamped down in the 1950's was overwhelming, straining the comics through a morality filter that forbade things like large and detailed breasts, bulges in the crotches of the men and not even the slightest hint of foul language or sex.
It is the relaxation of those restrictions within the context of the comics code that makes these comics appear weird. Compared to what is now routine and mainstream in the comics genre, most of what you see in this book is quite tame. Each two-page spread has some explanatory test on the left with a sample cover on the right. Some of the comics included here make the cut for no reason other than how unique they were at the time. For example, the comic described on pages 102 and 103 features an Irish Catholic female in love with a Jewish male. The parents object yet they are able to kiss joyfully while the two male parents fume.
My favorite comic featured in this collection is the essentially topless Spider-Woman on pages 56-57. A thin mesh covers her breasts and the devil figure caught in the web has a rather significant bulge in the crotch. With nothing to hold her breasts in place, she would have been somewhat unbalanced at times when she was swinging from place to place.

This small-format book (much smaller than a comic book) looks at some very strange comic book titles. Some of these were produced as advertising, others are examples of the "underground" genre and yet others were just odd ideas for comics. The one thing I dislike about this book is the small format really doesn't do some of the artwork justice. Still, it is somewhat entertaining and a good resource for those looking at collecting comics.

This is a fun book with synopsis on the left and full color covers on the right. The size is smaller than your normal comic, so the covers have been cut down a little. I can't believe I only had two of these comics in my collection--SCARFACE and TALES OF THE LEATHER NUN.

this book contains the front covers of the worlds weirdest comics as well as a hisory and explination of the comic. only downside is i thought it was going to be a little bigger. you can skim through it in about half an hour. good read though

Fun book to have in your collection for comic fans or place on your coffee table as a conversation piece.