Monsters is possibly the funniest, most heartbreakingly honest herpes memoir ever committed to print. Dahl's penwork is lyrical, at once detailed and light, never weighing down the humor—no easy feat. He's brutally (and graphically) honest about the affliction without working the gross-out factor too much. (Though to be fair, it's just oral herpes. C'mon, lightweight.) The laughter he inspires is the sort of groaning, been-there chuckle of anyone who's ever felt like a leper, for any reason. All that, and he manages to anthropomorphize the disease into something... almost... cute. Bonus: the little herpes temporary tattoos given out at his table. Nice.

 

 

 

Charming, attractive married couple Matthew Swanson (writer) and Robbi Behr (illustrator) offer a subscription service to their self-published, spiral-bound books (they also indulge in letterpress, but it costs more. Lead's not free, pal). The funniest selection: The Baby is Disappointing, a lament of dashed expectations: "It's worse than last year's bankruptcy, this baby. It's worse than when the basement flooded. Our shame is blazoned on our brows, chronicled in our ravaged check register." The thread of Swanson's black humor and Behr's delightfully scribbly work runs through all the couple's output, including, one hopes, their own disappointing baby (Ms. Behr is expecting another. Hope springs eternal).

Cover of I Want You, by Lisa Hanawalt

 

Lisa Hanawalt's bizarre, hilarious, dark, gross, and beautifully drawn comics are representative of a truly new and interesting voice. Her drawings are eerie and obsessive: worms, sores, animals, and bugs all play prominent roles. People with animal heads (or animals with people bodies) are not an uncommon sight in comics and underground art these days, but Hanawalt's humor and skill bring it to a whole new level. That humor is often filthy, and not of the "cute girl says off color stuff, huge laughs" variety. These are not for children or old people, or anyone likely to be offended by anything, ever. She's like a girl Mike Diana with a thing for ponies.

 

Visual culture purveyors Picturebox had a table that was a cheerful mish-mash  of talent, featuring everything from the 7th and final issue of their omnibus The Ganzfeld—an extravaganza that boasts a DVD, posters, pamphlets, and zines to go with the book itself—to Real Deal Magazine, an oversized newsprint comic from Los Angeles printed in the late 80's and recently rediscovered by Picturebox founder Dan Nadel. The former features a lovely and informative essay about illustrator Erik Blegvad by his son, cartonist and musician Peter Blegvad. The latter features a lot of guns, tits, and wrestling monsters.