Customer Reviews

Sinfest

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I stumbled onto Sinfest at the Keenspot site while browsing the offerings there, and immediately had to go back and read from the first strip. Sinfest is a guilty pleasure; you know it's naughty, but you can't help it.

I like that Mr. Ishida gives God equal billing, and the characters interact with God (and the Devil) in a way that I think a lot of people do--asking frank questions, trying to understand the way things go in life.

The art style is crisp and the subject matter is wickedly sharp--not to mention very, very funny.

Sinfest is quite frankly, THE best unsyndicated comic strip out there. As another reviewer said, it's risque nature-while making it frank and funnier-works against it when it comes to getting syndication. But the quality of the comic strip is superb, surpassing a good deal of the syndicated strips.

Ishida's huge back-archive of comics is also delightful as it allows newcomers access to so many good comics. So buy this book and support this strip's continuation.

Tatsuya Ishida, as others have remarked, is god. Maybe not The God, but A god. At least when it comes to comic artistry. His drawings are mature, clear and unlike many other online cartoonists nowadays he doesn't reuse the same cell over and over again.

His characters (while unbelievable as most are) involve you, and frankly you want Monique to do the dirty with Slick, purely for the comedy value. Tatsuya's forays into other areas (such as calligraphy) rock most aggregiously and he should do more of them. Now.

I've been reading and loving Tatsuya's work since a month after he went online and can't believe he still hasn't been picked up for publication in a newspaper or magazine. As a previous reviewer noted, he doesn't cater to the PG or U market, but what he writes is funny, witty and has been more than enough to leave me laughing for minutes after I've finished the day's strip.

Buy this book. And ask him to publish the next couple of years, right now.

I stumbled onto Sinfest while looking through all the web comics on Keenspot.com. After reading the strip for several hours and laughing till I wet my pants I HAD to go purchase this book and tell my non-web surfing (but comic loving) freinds about Sinfest!

The newsprint comics world has become boring and lifeless since the retirements of Breathed and Watterman. (Dilbert? C'mon man, Yaaaaaawn!) Most daily strips are unwilling and gutless to take chances on any touchy subject for fear of getting a backlash from religous and minority groups with the result of papers pulling thier strips off the press. So most comic strip authors recycle the same jokes and situations over and over and play it safe for the kiddos.

Uncensored DIY web comics like Sinfest have injected new blood, gusto, sex, unique and strange situations as well as good old fashoned satire and fun into the comic stip world by being brave and unashamed about taking on any topic. Tatsuya Ishida has a blast playing around with the concepts of sex, religion and popular culture in his strips. His love (lust?) for drawing really shows in his strips - his characters seem to JUMP out of the frames right at you.

If you're sensitive to any of these concepts, you might be offended while reading this book. But I think you will be too busy laughing your head off to notice! Go buy this book today and be visit the Sinfest website for his newest strips too. Here's hoping for another book!

Tatsuya is without a doubt one of the finest strippers I've ever had the pleasure to read. The sweet playfulness of Waterson, the edginess of McGruder, the profundity of Socrates or a well-scripted fortune cookie.

The interplay between the Divine and mortals, the self-empowered Ho-ness of Nique, the pathetic facade of slickness put on by Slick, the honesty of Dog and the mask of cynicism of Cat, and so much more...

This comic has more to offer than almost any comic I've ever read, Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County nonwithstanding.

It is funny and poignent, edgy and sincere, and calls out to us all with the voice of an intelligent and philosophical author, unafraid to use harshness of language or attitude to make his points and ask his questions--which are, ultimately, the same questions we gentle apes have been asking since we came down from the trees.

Do yourself a favor, buy this book. Buy it for yourself, buy it for your friends and children, and buy it that Tatsuya may continue to bring his insight to us all.

. . .

I feel like I should say amen or something.

Quality comic, which I highly recommend. However, you can purchase the books for only $15 on the author's cafepress.com page. He has a link to it on sinfest.net.

I've been reading the sinfest webcomic for a little over 2 years now and I've been nothing but impressed by Tatsuya's wit and talent as a cartoonist/rebel. The irreverent style of sinfest will challenge your convictions and really make you think, but one of sinfests best qualities is its honesty. I can't reccomend this book enough, read the comic the syndicates are too scared to carry! It'll probably be the only time you see God taunt the devil with puppet ;)
It's great to finally have a text copy of Sinfest, I hope he will release the the rest of the collection sometime soon.

Tatsuya Ishida is, as he is very fond of saying, a rebel. His strips have everything I look for in a good strip: humor, good art and personality.

To me, this strip has a very strong "Waterson" (Calvin & Hobbes) feel, both in the style of drawing and in the humor. Ishida pays tribute to many classic strips in his writing, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Krazy Kat... they're all there.

The cast of the strip is varied and their personalities are rich, thus giving Ishida a very wide range of situations from which to draw humor. There are characters who are vulgar in the extreme (Squigley the pig, for example,a porn lover and beer enthusiast), and yet we have fine examples of what "cute and lovable" comic strips are (Pooch the puppy and Percival the Cat). Deeper, more philosphical characters are present as well, God, the Devil, and the Oriental Dragon. All these personalities revolve around the world of Slick and Monique; respectively, a slacker whose goal in life is to have every pleasure and commodity (even if it means selling his soul to the devil) and a girl who acts like tramp, but deep down is looking for love, understanding, and affection. Ishida assures you however, that Monique is, even deeper down, still just a tramp.

Perhaps the best thing about Sinfest is its own worst enemy. Ishida refuses to cater down to a PG audience, thus making syndicates reluctant to buy his work. his characters deal with tough issues like sex and religion in a very down-to-earth, real-world manner. No kiddie gloves. The characters may speak in a very modern, "skater" type of way (that is, without entering into the vulgar), but their insights on any given subject are far from silly. I believe "Sinfest" to be a smart comic, language and attitude notwithstanding.

I believe, however, that this book is a step in the right direction and that it will open up great oportunities for its author. If you're looking for a good read, a hard laugh, or something plain original, buy this book. You will not regret it.

The review I just read (which will be gone by the time you read this) has definatly said it all very well. Tatsuya calls himself a renegade folk hero, he records the number of times the syndicates have rejected him P>Ishida writes about just about everything, some strips are very meaningful, depicted by the Devil, God, and the Eastern Dragon, some strips just talk about people and what they want, done by Slick (a guy who only wants worldly pleaseures and will sell his soul to get them) and Monique (a tramp who deep down only wants love and understanding, but deeper down is still a tramp). There are also the cuter Pooch the dog and Percival the cat.

Having all these different characters make it so Ishida can draw on his humor from many places without it switching characters every strip.

In short, buy the book, you wont be disappointed. Even if you read his comics every day it is still good to support him. So, if you are looking for an insight on life or a side-splitting laugh this is something to look into.

There are few comics that come along and steal the show. Tatsuya Ishida's Sinfest is one of them. It's humor can really hit home. While not for kids, this exploration into the world of adult paradoxes and young relationships is very insightful. I admire the author for sticking to his principles and not homogenising his work to be palletable to the most easily offended of us. His humor is sometimes cute, sometimes raunchy, sometimes outrageous, but it is almost always hillarious.