STUPID COMICS #1

By: Tony Whitt
Review Date: Sunday, September 29, 2002

Reading Jim Mahfood's collection STUPID COMICS is a bit like dining at an all-you-can-eat Thai buffet: the fare is incredibly rich, and you'll remember the experience, for better or for worse, for days afterward. You may not end up being completely enraptured by Mahfood like such luminaries as Brian Michael Bendis and Phil Hester, whose testimonials (which are as poorly punctuated as the rest of the book) appear on the back cover, but you'll certainly have some response to the name when you hear it again - and you will.

One immediately obvious theme underlying the STUPID COMICS collected here is Mahfood's love-hate relationship with pop culture. He savagely lambasts the usual targets (MTV, boy bands, so-called "reality TV," cell phone users) with an energy rarely seen outside of the work of Matt Groening - and even Groening would think twice before doing a strip about "Hollywood c**ksuckers," as Mahfood does here. While Mahfood is at his best (and sometimes most offensive, even to those who agree with him) when dealing with such subjects, he also turns in some of his best work in less angry reflections on religion, sex, the phenomenon of "adulthood," and the rituals of going out and partying. Virtually everything that was on the mind of the average, right-minded twenty- or thirysomething during 2000 and 2001 is covered, sometimes with sharp caustic wit and sometimes with sensitivity - though it's the sort of concerned sensitivity that one might show to a loved one you've just slapped after they pissed you off.

A few strips, however, leave the reader either wanting more or wondering exactly how to respond. In the former category, Mahfood's strips centering around September 11 barely hint at the discrimination he himself faced in the wake of the attacks, a story he enlarges upon in the 9-11 VOLUME ONE: ARTISTS RESPOND collection of last year. In the latter category, there are a few strips that sound vaguely homophobic, a surprising viewpoint to encounter from someone with such strong views on such other so-called "liberal" concerns as civil liberties, the failing war by the government against marijuana use, and vegetarianism. It's a bit unsettling that such an otherwise cool-sounding guy who's experienced discrimination himself would use phrases like "gay ass" and "c**ksucker" so indiscriminately. Finally, a few strips make you wonder just why they're here, as they're neither thought-provoking reflections nor balls-to-the-wall attacks on society's sacred cows. Mahfood's paeans to funk music and jazz, for example, fit oddly, especially as Mahfood seems to be less enthusiastic about the things he can praise than the things he can rip apart. (After doing the comic review gig for a few years now, though, I can empathize.)


Otherwise, it's a great collection, mixing elements from the work of artists like Groening, Jhonen Vasquez, and Tom Tomorrow, and creating a body of social criticism that so completely belies the title "stupid" that you'll wonder why Mahfood ever chose such an unsuitable name. Perhaps F**ING BRILLIANT COMICS would've sounded too much like bragging? It's not bragging if you're telling the truth, after all, and for most of these strips, that title fits.

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at
feedback@cinescape.com.