Brunetti, Ivan: Ho!

Hoping to further his increasing irrelevance to the esteemed world of graphic novels and thus cement his status as “former cartoonist,” the saturnine Ivan Brunetti (author of the acclaimed Misery Loves Comedy and editor of Yale Press' two essential Anthologies of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons and True Stories) has compiled HO!, which collects the vast majority of his morally questionable, aesthetically confused - and absolutely gut-busting - “gag” cartoons. Culled mostly from out-of-print work and other anthologies, the contents are discreetly presented in an uninviting, funereal package of unglamorous black and white: it also includes an intro by comedian Patton Oswalt. Hopefully, this will keep the impressionable, young, and faint-of-heart apathetic and at a distance, while those who appreciate a touch of the gallows in their humor can enjoy an uncomfortable chuckle or two before the merciless thumb of oblivion grinds us all into less than dust.