HarperPerennial, $16.00
Short Review: Happy as only a hole in the heart can be. Recommended.
You probably know this, but before Matt Groening ever started the Simpsons, we had a strip called Life In Hell. And after he gave the Simpsons to the merchandising world, having picked people with much the same warp as him to be creative, he's still doing that strip. This is the ninth collection of the square-shaped strips, and shows him turning his world-weary eye on the subject closest to many hearts (duh), love. 28 out of the 116 pages are love advice, as demonstrated by Binky, the eponymous rabbit. The rest are a collection of Binky strips, strips showing Binky's kid, autobio strips about Matt and his kids Abe and Will, and a lot of Jeff and Akbar, everyone's favourite fez-wearing, dumpy homosexuals.
The Binky's Guide To Love pages are sharp observational humour about the seen anywhere, they also manage to keep variety. The Jeff and Akbarr sketches, on the other hand are a marvel of comedy in format, as the majority of them are just 16 pages of two talking heads, with a punchline at the end. These are obviously more character based, and relate more to a serious live-in relationship, than the dating game. They are very black, though. If you can stomach such stuff, this book is indispensable.
Andrew These reviews are copyright the authors