Neal, Andrew – Meeting Comics #1

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Meeting Comics #1

One thing they skip over in reviewer training (it’s an intensive course over several months but I, like all reviewers, am sworn to secrecy on the specifics) is what to do when somebody sends you their entire collection of published comics all in one chunk. Andrew is up to 20 issues of this series already, so he sent along quite a stack. Stay tuned while I figure out how to review them all! Anyway, the instantly worrying thing about receiving such a large stack is simple: what if the first issue is terrible? Not unheard of, after all; just think how many of your favorite small press comics had rough first issues before finding their way a few issues in. Well, no worries this time around, as the first issue had me literally laughing out loud several times. This is a collection of four panel strips that were done while Andrew was on his lunch break at work. While he doesn’t specify his specific job, probably for a very good reason, it’s clear that he has spent a lot of time in maddening meetings and/or dealing with office culture. So if that’s something you have to deal with too, chances are you’re going to love this one. The strip about a guy repeatedly asking further questions after the “we’re done here unless there are any questions” message from management and the staring of daggers by the coworker who couldn’t believe that the guy would not shut up has certainly happened to me before. Maybe you’re lucky enough to work in an office where nobody does that, in which case please let me know if they’re hiring. As these were mostly done on a lunch break, some of the art can be a little rough (just look at the panel borders in the sampled strip), but it doesn’t do a thing to take away from the humor. The version I got is the second printing, which is probably what enabled Andrew to include letters from people, and there’s also a pretty damned funny introduction by Jamar Nichols. What about the strips, you say? Well, keeping in mind that describing humor is a good way to murder it, subjects in here include the bare minimum required to sell your soul, who can and can’t quit on a dime, how casual Fridays can get, the physical manifestations of the soul crushing nature of work, and the HR robot and his preferences. And a whole lot more; there’s a lot of comic here. If you’ve ever had an office job you’re going to love this, if not I envy you like you wouldn’t believe, but you’d still find a lot to laugh at in here. $5

Posted on August 30, 2021, in Reviews and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a Comment.

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