Old Friend.

Since coming to the decision in 2009, that I was going to zero-in on the horror genre in my writing and artwork, that’s all I’ve pretty much been reading and watching since then. To be fair, it’s mainly what I was into before 2009, too, but the odd Superhero, Sci-Fi or Underground comix has been a bit of a rare sight around here lately. Still… the odd one does make it through the net. The best thing I’ve read from the land of underground comixs lately is My Friend Dahmer. I guess some people would call it a horror comic, as it’s about the early life of Jeffery Dahmer, but it’s really not as blood thirsty as you may first think (although it does contain some scenes of animal cruelty.) It more focuses on his final school years, before becoming one of America’s most notorious serial-killers. It’s more about the person then his later crimes. It’s an amazing read, even if the subject matter itself (or rather himself) is a bit scary.

I got a little tired of underground comixs a few years ago. So many artist doing comic-strips about their day-to-day life, and their years growing up. You got artist who did it well like Joe Matt or Phoebe Gloeckner, but most didn’t (at least to me, anyway). I only like reading autobiographical comics about life’s strange, loveable loser. Not indie, trendy, emo kids and their bands and stylist girlfriends. Maybe that says more about me, I know. I don’t want to read any autobiographical comic unless the author has a healthy degree of self-loathing going on, and a shaky-at-best relationship with the rest of the human race. Asking people you don’t know to give a shit about your life is a big ask. That’s why I keep it to a minimal on this blog. Maybe I’m being too hard on underground comics, and that phase has past, and most of those guys have stopped or fled to the world of web-comics, I don’t know. I do think the hit-rate in autobiographical comics is a lot lower then nearly any other genre. You’ve got to have something a bit wrong with you to truly make a decent autobiographical comic-book artist. It’s more about the kink in your armour, and how you deal with that in life, otherwise I’m not really bothered. I’m sure your band is great, and your girlfriend is as cute as a button… yawn.