From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. An introduction written by the author's therapist describes the process of creating these comics as excruciatingly painful and painfully frightening. This puts Brunetti's minimal output—three issues of his cult favorite comic
Schizo in 12 years—into psychological perspective. Brunetti's work does its malevolent work with an eye to the author's psychological underpinnings. Brunetti constantly offers up the worst possible image of himself alongside his portraits of a despised society. His festival of self-loathing, sexual depravity and brutal cynicism, is, however, amazingly clever and incisive. Whether from the point of view of a miserable comics artist and workaday hack, a nihilistic Jesus Christ or a raging feminazi, these rants are fascinatingly convincing, readable and smart. Not all readers will be able to tolerate the scatologically violent sensibility that is so brilliantly manifested in these pages, but for those with a taste for the most jaded views of our society and its inhabitants, Brunetti has long been a hero. Sharply self-aware, Brunetti informs his readers, I have a gift.... I can articulate what most people won't even face.... and it is this concise and energetic articulation that makes his work so great.
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From Booklist
Lately, Brunetti has distinguished himself as a comics-art authority by curating museum exhibitions and compiling An Anthology of Graphic Fiction (2006). Since the early 1990s, he has also produced his own comics, rife with monumental misanthropy and misogyny, not just in ostensibly autobiographical pieces indicatively entitled "Work Equals Degradation," "Life Is Shit," and "1,784 Things That Make Me Want to Vomit" (fortunately, the list sputters out at 50) but also in repulsive-yet-funny gag cartoons depicting perverted sex, scatology, and extreme violence. Distinguishing Brunetti from such other rudely transgressive alt-cartoonists as Johnny Ryan (Angry Youth Comix) are his artistic chops. As the collection documents, Brunetti's growth in mastery of the comics medium now allows him to give each strip the most effective, particular visual treatment. Like fellow comics creator and wretch Joe Matt, Brunetti, who draws himself as a dwarfish, huge-nosed schlemiel, is harder on himself than on anyone else, somewhat mitigating his relentless negativity. If the less-inspired pieces here are little more than text-heavy screeds, the best spin cynicism into pure comic-strip gold. Flagg, Gordon
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