In high
school, I was a member/ founding member of a couple of guerilla comic troupes.
We’d do off the wall stuff like skits, top 10 lists, pratfalls, pranks, and
kidnap people’s lunches. The times I spent with my fellow troupe members were
the highlight of my school day, unless it was a game day or time for soccer
practice. The stuff we did was off-the-wall, odd, and down-right bizarre. I
think that’s why I like surrealism and a book like Tales Designed to Thrizzle
is about as surreal as it gets.
The book
was a short lived and sporadically published Indy comic from 2008-2012. Only 8
issues were ever published and with a $5 price tag and running at about 32
pages a book, I can see why it probably got cancelled. But that doesn’t mean
that this book was genius.
Michael
Kupperman has a unique art-style that’s part pop art, part retro, part 50s
advertisements. This guy could’ve thrived at Sterling, Cooper, and Draper. His
renderings of Jack Klugman, Michael Renne, and other famous celebs from the
last 50 years are photorealistic. His work is super clean and his color palette
is beautiful.
But what
makes his stuff so good is the slightly deranged humor. From the adventures of
Mark Train and Albert Einstein to a gallery of ‘lesser known’ comic books to
parodies of comic book and magazine ads, Kupperman’s stuff is brilliantly weird.
In other words, I wish I had thought of it!
There’s
at least one more volume out there and I think my library carries it. I hope to
get my hands on it soon, because I am hooked on the work of Michael Kupperman
and I must get my next fix. If you like humor, absurdity, or parody OR just
want to get your hands on some edgy independent comics, I highly recommend Tales
Designed to Thrizzle.
Worth
Consuming.
Rating: 9
out of 10 stars.
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