Fitzpatrick, Neil – Jerry’s Journal

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Jerry’s Journal

Have you been enjoying Neil’s comics over the years but always thought that maybe they should be just a hair sloppier? Then Jerry’s Journal is for you! Neil finally bought a sketchbook, you see, after being against them for years because he always thought he needed structure in his work. The end result is a pretty damned funny comic, with panel lines and the occasional character image (almost always Jerry, as it’s all about him) that are a shade less than as universally perfect as the rest of his books. The comic itself, as the title implies, is all about Jerry and his constant, apathetic quest to find some meaning and/or summarize the high points in his life. Subjects include the important things in his life, the inevitable (and at least partially welcome) end to it, being alone, thinking too much, ways to get away from life, thinking about giving the world another chance, the unfortunate biological imperative to stay alive, and reflecting back on his life. Those are from the first half of it anyway, the rest is yours to discover. These are all one page strips, and it’s always a good sign when I have a hard time picking a sample image from a comic like this because so many of them made me chuckle. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of these strips are fairly dark, but would you really be reading small press comics if you didn’t have at least a slightly dark sense of humor? That’s what I thought. Seeing as how Neil is already one of the most prolific artists in comics, if he really takes to this sketchbook stuff we should expect to see a few dozen new books by him every year, which sounds good to me (if possibly fatal for the artist himself). And really, a good chunk of the small press artists out there wish they could be as neat as Neil’s “sloppy” sketchbook stuff. $5

Posted on September 1, 2012, in Reviews and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Fitzpatrick, Neil – Jerry’s Journal.

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