Bieri, Sean – Jape #4

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Jape #4

You probably can’t tell from that scan, but this mini is so old that it actually has rust on the cover.  At least I hope that’s rust…  So, alas, my Japes are not in mint condition, and if the world at large ever discovers how funny Sean Bieri is, my fortune will not come from selling his old minis.  Oh well, I’d rather not sell them anyway, so screw you world!  This issue of Jape, as you can tell, starts off with a fantastic cover.  That’s one thing I always loved about these old minis: he hit you with his sense of humor right off the bat, and if it was something you didn’t like (or that offended you), you knew it before you even opened the book.  Stories in here include trying to find decent comics in a pile of shit (still an apt analogy for the world of comics), an artistic adaptation of “Hey Joe” (or at least I think that’s the name of the song, you’d know it if you heard it but the lyrics might not do you any good), his cat the physicist (in which he/she discovers that knocking things off a shelf will cause them to come crashing down), and a joke on the last page that was a lot funnier when I looked up the meaning of the punchline (episiotomy.  Go ahead, Google has all kinds of horrific images).  There’s also one more story, the highlight of the issue, dealing with open mic poets.  Shouting, whispering, pregnant pauses, repetition, and above all bad acting, this story nails them thoroughly.  You could argue that they’re an easy target, and that’s fine, but it doesn’t make the piece any less funny.  So overall, except for that song adaptation (which I’ve never been a fan of), this is a hell of an issue.  Please add it to your list of things to get if you ever have access to a time machine.