For the sweat-stained backpacking scumbag supping an expresso in cafes in every capital in Europe...."International Bob" is part of the `real comics about real people' campaign. Integrity oozes from every black and white panel, and it just about manages to avoid the `where's the point?' booby prize often accorded to fiction about the guy next door. Bob is an obese, near-suicidal lovelorn performance artist who decides to go and live in a Greek monastery when his girlfriend leaves him for another woman. Naturally he ends up following his dick across the Greek Islands to Turkey, Paris and Katmandu - like so many of us, he finds that a smile from a pretty woman reshuffles the agenda from the existential angst to hopeless sexual desire. Terry LaBan's strength is in his characterisation (the narrative is basically pretty flaccid and the occasional attempts at slapstick carry little punch) which captures the human detritus of the backpacking crew well. Unfortunately, he lacks the venom to capitalise on the weaknesses of his characters as, say, Peter Bagge or Robert Crumb (to whom he is inaccurately compared to on the cover) might. This book is an enjoyable but inessential read.
Eoghan These reviews are copyright the authors