Title: XXX Scumbag Party
Writer: Johnny Ryan
Artist: Johnny Ryan
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Rating: 
Review by: John Gustafson
It is truly unfortunate someone saw fit to publish this abomination. With comics and graphic novels in general being as popular as they are today and artists as well as writers alike struggling for the chance to stretch their creative wings and express their ideas in literary art form, this garbage is released.
XXX Scumbag Party has one purpose, and that is to take topics, actions and ideas that society finds unacceptable, deplorable and offensive to their utmost extremes, attempting to grab the reader by the throat while punching them in the stomach and hoping to force out uncomfortable laughter. Imagine the sophomoric jokes junior high and high school age teenagers tell in the company of their friends, but away from the ears of others. These jokes have a time and a place when maturing adolescent boys make their first valiant attempts at striking against the societal norms that they are shackled to as they exit the womb. These expressions of radical thoughts and jokes are suppressed as the boys grow into men and understand the necessity of such institutions and find other forms of rejection and rebellion to be more effective and efficient.
Johnny Ryan tells a form of these jokes but in the most crass and debased form his thoughts can conjure up. He makes such jokes about rape, sodomy, incest, murder, various sexual fetishes, retardation, racism, sexism and religion, to name only a few, to their absolute breaking point where they are no longer even remotely funny. And therein lies the concept of this book.
Unfortunately for Ryan and readers alike, someone beat Ryan to the punch and told these jokes in a way that was funny for their time and appropriate for their age group – the kids in junior high and high school.
For more info, www.fantagraphics.com
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
haha that’s a shame. It’s rough to see what actually gets published by companies trying to make a quick buck off the popularity of comics these days. There a lot of good stuff getting out, but there’s always something like this to balance it out I guess.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:11 am
xSTRAIGHTxEDGEx
April 3rd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Wait, whoa, hold up a second! When did jokes about rape and sodomy stop being funny?? Damn you John! You should have told me!
Just kidding man. Sorry you had to read that drivel.