Krent Able's Big Book of Mischief by Krent Able
| Krent Able's Big Book of Mischief by Krent Able | |
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| Category: Graphic Novels | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: A collection of comic strips designed only to disgust or delight, depending on your tastes, concerning certain musical hero figures. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 64 | Date: October 2012 |
| Publisher: Knockabout | |
| ISBN: 9780861661794 | |
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It's come to my attention recently that Knockabout books, with their growing library of graphic titles, have no intention in being at all literary – not for them the gently observant characterisation of some original graphic novels. Instead they seem to have a wilful regard for going even further than their house name suggests – wild, wacky and not afraid to present an upsetting image. With Krent Able they have the collaborator who will surely help them live up to that ethos like no other. Taken from the Stool Pigeon musical magazine, with some extra cartoons, are these strips of depravity, death in unlikely ways and revolting selections of body parts and fluids.
Just take the cover art as one instance. Here is regular character Dr Nick Cave shouting vengeance on God. Here is Lily Allen being pulled down below by Satan's hand. But whose heart a zombified Courtney Love is eating, and just who is slicing 50 Cent's head in twain with a circular saw, I shall leave for you to find out.
The sense of humour, if you wish to call it that, is of the low-brow variety. Cave's strips do allow for some good puns about his more famous song titles, as does the Beach Boys doing unholy things on a beach, but on the whole the sentiment is just to be as disrespectful, as potentially disgusting and as wholeheartedly outré as can be. I kid you not that Kraftwerk dissing each other over their own lyrics and laughing at a nuclear bomb blast is as gently as these musical stars are treated. Elsewhere it's mayhem as holy cows get murdered (Amy Winehouse certainly has a more interesting death here) sometimes on one page, sometimes four; sometimes with a point – Goldfrapp are a bit precious – others, such as when Johnny Cash goes I cannot say where, without rhyme nor reason.
It goes without saying that this is one of the more divisive collections we've seen here at the Bookbag. For me it made me titter a few times, and it definitely made me aware of the, er, imaginative mindset of its creator. The artwork is very good – the full-page splashes seem to be new, and are really incredibly artful, while the strips do at times show the routine and schedule of a monthly comic, but are very well put together, with a creative side to capturing the personality of the star concerned – and much craft in focussing on genitalia at the same time.
This then is for a very select audience, one who will be converted already, and will disregard my star rating at will and with my permission. For anyone else, this comes with a huge 'buyer beware' caution, for it is certainly of a very adult nature, and while I can testify to some of the creativity herein, I didn't find it particularly amusing, enervating or in fact welcome. I'm not sure if some quicker-turnaround topicality would help me appreciate the achievement more, and I certainly think a broader church of humour would serve better. The crudity I think left me middled in my consideration, halfway between admiring the creativity and craft and disliking the one-track grossness of the contents.
I must thank the Knockabout people for my review copy.
File this behind the equally scandalous Pinocchio by Winshluss.
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