Misery Loves Comedy

by Ivan Brunetti

book data

129 ratings, 3.84 average rating, 33 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		30%
4		40%
3		17%
2		6%
1		5%

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published

May 30th 2007 by Fantagraphics

details

Hardcover, 172 pages

isbn

1560977922 (isbn13: 9781560977926)

description

Nihilism and self-loathing scale unprecedented comic heights in this autobiographical collection.

A psychiatric case study masquerading a fancy-pants g…more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 170)

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Oct 08, 2007

Dave-O rated it:

bookshelves: graphicnovels

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: grandmas who fart blood

Ivan Brunetti's humor is toxic and misanthropic; self-indulgent and self-deprecating. He peels back the layers of politeness in everyday social situations as it leaves us sensitive artistic types (for whom Ivan is often the stand-in in these comics) frail and vulnerable ...not to mention angry to near-sociopath levels. In the hands of a lesser writer, it would be disastrous (think the bland "edgy" humor of "Family Guy" and comedian Sarah Silverman or of the boring observation...more

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Apr 22, 2008

Chris rated it:

Read in January, 2007

Collecting his 12 year journey that is Schizo 1-3 Brunetti proves that out of the hundred or so autobiographical cartoonists who’ve lingered like ganglions for over a decade, Brunetti is one of about five that should be doing this kind of work. Brutally honest, he’s like watching a hyper depressing, yet still at times hysterically funny, comic book version of Annie Hall. The book’s introduction is actually written by Brunetti’s therapist. He portrays himself as a hard R-rated, bearded, f...more

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Nov 19, 2007

Julia Wertz rated it:

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in January, 2007

recommends it for: everyone, cartoomists, miserable fucks

I like Ivan Brunetti's work a whole hell of a lot, but this book is hard to read in one sitting. I find I have to read a few pages, go out for a breather, read a few more, go out for a drink, read a few more and then just go on a full fledged bender. But read with caution, his misanthropic ramblings start to make sense after awhile and we really don't need a world full of angry, bitter people calling each other "candy asses" and vomiting all over each other and ramming kerosene soaked ...more

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Mar 29, 2009

Jason rated it:

Read in March, 2009

ivan brunetti may well be the true end point of human expression...
after the romantics and the realists, after the modernists and the high modernists, after it all has been experienced and passed through, when we find ourselves landing hard on the stony earth of the postmodern, we'll see brunetti sitting there waiting for us, naked and shamefaced, wincing in a pool of his own sweat and urine...
when all the psychological attempts to reconcile ourselves with a hostile and confusing wor...more ivan brunetti may well be the true end point of human expression...
after the romantics and the realists, after the modernists and the high modernists, after it all has been experienced and passed through, when we find ourselves landing hard on the stony earth of the postmodern, we'll see brunetti sitting there waiting for us, naked and shamefaced, wincing in a pool of his own sweat and urine...
when all the psychological attempts to reconcile ourselves with a hostile and confusing world come to an end, when all the illusions of the meaning and purpose of existence have been completely scrubbed from the face of human consciousness, there will be nothing left but brunetti's world...

brunetti splatters his seething id all over the pages of this book and then squirms and writhes under the punishment his super-ego inflicts on him in response...
and that really sort of sums up the book...
when higher reasoning fails us, as postmodernism tells us it has, the naked and abandoned ego is left to the mercies of the id and the super-ego, who battle continually for governance over the ego's behaviors...
actually, as i think about it, brunetti is really only the penultimate stage in the progression of human expression, because before long the super-ego, with its traditional programming of taboos, cultural customs, and religious restrictions will not exist as it does in brunetti and in the rest of us...the super-ego will atrophy and diminish in its capacity to influence in direct proportion to the diminishing of cultural programming in the real world...as taboos and restrictions become less forbidden, or even wholly accepted behaviors, the super-ego will no longer possess the disciplinary powers it currently enjoys...and the id will reign...
it will really be interesting (and horrifying) to see what brunetti's legacy will produce...

this book is NOT for the faint of heart that's for certain...i'm convinced that just being in possession of this text can get you arrested in several states, and i'm not kidding...
so only the stalwart need approach...
but do so only if you're interested in seeing the logical penultimate end point of the postmodern sensibility...
just be prepared to take a long hot shower afterwards...(less)

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Jan 11, 2009

Bren rated it:

Read in January, 2009

recommends it for: nobody I respect.

"Oh... Heavens me! Whatever was I thinking?" asks the charicatured Ivan Brunetti immediately after gouging out the eyes of (and urinating upon) the corpse of his fellow man. "I could get in trouble for this."

And so opens the cesspool of sex, crime, vitriol and violence that is Brunetti's "Misery Loves Comedy." Blanketed between a drab green, dust jacket-less cover, the materials presented are reprints of Brunetti's earliest work, from "Schizo"...more "Oh... Heavens me! Whatever was I thinking?" asks the charicatured Ivan Brunetti immediately after gouging out the eyes of (and urinating upon) the corpse of his fellow man. "I could get in trouble for this."

And so opens the cesspool of sex, crime, vitriol and violence that is Brunetti's "Misery Loves Comedy." Blanketed between a drab green, dust jacket-less cover, the materials presented are reprints of Brunetti's earliest work, from "Schizo" and various other random publications. And it is not a pretty sight.

Brunetti begs for death, praying to a god he doesn't believe in, and expresses a graphic urge to do us all in - me and you. Ivan Brunetti hates us all, but even more, he hates himself. Countless are the times he depicts himself with severed genitalia, defecated and/or urinated and/or ejaculated upon, his prone, mulilated form still scarcely breathing before being subject to the riducles and jeers of apathetic passers-by.

The artwork in this comic book ranges from quasi-photorealism, to cutesy comic strip fare, but the ends are all the same: death, perversion, and desecration. Misery loves comedy? There's not a comedic panel to be had in this fare. But at least the title has got it half right.

Most notable of all is the 20-page rambling illuistrated diatribe entitled "If I Were Dictator Of The World," in which Brunetti details and lists his modus operandi should he ever be put in charge of cleaning up the planet. He'd start with mass extermination of the weaker ones: the violent criminals he feels cannot be rehabilitated, along with the polite, the meek, and the arrogant and self-assured. In short, Brunetti wishes for us all to die in as lingering and painful a means at his disposal. And this does, indeed, include himself.

And then, abruptly toward the end of the book, the tone changes. Like a swim in the cool ocean after bathing in a pit of fire ants comes the final section of miscellaneous colour cartoons. Brunetti presents a much milder, more tangible section which delves into the paranoias of our modern world (eBay "nemesis," pop-culture pollution, capsulized biographies of well-and-lesser-known individuals). Certainly, these barely break new ground, but after the full-frontal assault preceeding it, they feel like a trip to the oasis.

"Misery Loves Comedy" is like the lowbrow humour of Johnny Ryan, with a brain injected into the material... but the funny bone surgically removed. It is not a book for everyone. In fact, it is arguably a book for anyone. And yet, throughout the bleak, self-flagellatory miasma of verbosity, a glimmer of something survives: At least Ivan Brunetti staved off suicide long enough to see this book through print.

...It just isn't entirely clear what this glimmer is, exactly. But it sure ain't hope.
(less)

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Jul 16, 2007

Keef rated it:

Filthy, self-loathing, hilarious, and brilliant. Ivan Brunetti is deeply fucked-up but ultimately likable and understandable.

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Feb 07, 2009

Amy Beth Eisenberg rated it:

You have to be seriously sick to enjoy this book. I sure did! This is basically a collection of Schitzo, all of which I already owned but I loved it so much I had no problem doling it out for this beauty. True misery is a beautiful thing. Ivan Brunetti is suicidal, homicidal, and hilarious throughout, saying all the things we dare to think and then also drawing them. The ironic thing about it is that laughing really makes you feel good.

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Aug 17, 2009

Joe rated it:

Read in August, 2009

Too gross. Too whiney. Too much like every other self-deprecating, self-pitying American cartoonist who likes to draw grody dicks. I actually couldn't make it 1/3 in because I was so bored with the tone but I did skim and read some of the gags in the back also. Not my cuppa.

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May 25, 2009

Peter rated it:

bookshelves: comics

Read in May, 2009

This book would probably be considered obscene in many counties across the USA. Brunetti might be one of those cartoonists who would be in a mental health facility if not for his artistic outlet. He himself admits as much. Definitely not for everyone. It made me laugh out loud.

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Jun 28, 2007

Chadwick rated it:

bookshelves: comics

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: lovers of misery, misanthropy, humor, the most elegant line in contemporary comics

This collection, of the first three issues of Ivan Brunetti's marvelous Schizo, is one of the most beautiful comics i have ever read. Ivan has some issues for damn sure. His therapist writes the introduction. In the letters page for Schizo 2, R. Crumb asks, "Have you ever heard of Prozac?" Brunetti's views in these pages are dark, self loathing and misanthropy are the prevalent textures. However, underneath all of that lies a true bruised hopefulness and a tentative love of the wo...more

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Oct 24, 2009

Barbara Trinh is currently reading it

bookshelves: comics, currently-reading

Owns a copy

Sometimes this book makes me so depressed I want to pull my eyes out and throw them in the air while shooting them with a shotgun.

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Sep 02, 2008

Michael rated it:

Read in September, 2008

if i could give this book a million, trillion stars i would. brutally (uh, brutally BRUTALLY) honest, vulgar, offensive, depressing, and brilliantly funny. it's like being tickled with a feather while a 1000 lb weight presses down on your chest, suffocating you into hysterics. unrelenting, crushing...jeeze, this guy makes me feel so much better about myself i can't even tell you. plus, he's a fantastic cartoonist. seriously, if you can't laugh at some of this stuff (and, oh man, it gets dark) th...more

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Jul 06, 2008

Steve rated it:

Read in July, 2008

I'm not even trying to read much of this at a time. I've read about halfway through the first of three issues of Schizo collected here. The misanthropy is surpassed only by the self-loathing. It reminds me of reading the issue of "Answer Me" where the Goads gleefully cheer on the top 100 serial killers, or the top 100 suicides: I pretty much concur, but at the same time it's a bit heavy and dark to take in all at once.

I laughed out loud at the first page of four-panel strip...more

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Sep 15, 2008

Peter rated it:

bookshelves: comics

Read in October, 2008

Misery Loves Comedy is the first three issues of Ivan Brunetti's "Schizo," followed by some supplemental material from years later. If it were not for that supplemental material I'd have given this book two stars instead of three.

"Schizo #1" has some great moments, as does #3, but after a few pages the nihilism becomes redundant and Brunetti starts to look like he's being offensive for its own sake, like an adolescent.

Sometime after issue #3, Brunet...more

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Feb 03, 2008

Katie rated it:

recommends it for: the anhedonic, serial killers

Maybe it's not fair for me to review this book since I went in with completely irrelevant expectations based on what I've seen of Brunetti in anthologies. The book is a catalogue of how he hates himself and wants to kill all of humanity, with graphic imagery. (To be fair, this is indicated on that jacket.) If he handled the whole thing with a smidge more self-awareness it might even be funny or at least interesting. But honestly, it's boring. Recommended for those who are anhedonic. Still, I'd b...more

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Apr 27, 2008

Mark Desrosiers rated it:

bookshelves: comics

Read in April, 2008

Self-loathing and misanthropy yoked to a common purpose: causing soy milk (and later, beer) to spill out my nose. By far the most hilarious and disturbing book I've read since I put down the Holy Bible.

Despite the title of his comic (Schizo, all four issues of which are collected here), Brunetti is a monument to sanity (even if he did sketch Jesus masturbating with his stigmata).

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Jan 17, 2008

Dave rated it:

The last ten or so strips at the end of the book where he works in color on a smaller scale and avoids esoteric anecdotes (like two pages of him in the tub!) and keeps things simple are the best parts. Otherwise a bunch of rape and suicide jokes. Hey, I didn't do nothing! Why is he yelling at me? My guess is that his comics will soon be some of the best around, once he finds his voice.

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Oct 27, 2008

Tessa rated it:

bookshelves: romans-graphiques

Read in November, 2008

I had to push myself to finish this, and it did get better in some parts. But not enough for me to say that I liked it. I don't want to give praise that is grasping at straws, like I admire the totality of his negative visions!. Because it would be true, but it also really doesn't mean anything. Nothing means anything. We are all worms. I should never have read this.

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May 30, 2008

J rated it:

Read in May, 2008

Perfect intersection of excellent draftsmanship, crippling depression, and incredible offensiveness. I am not sure if I am an awful person for liking this; reading his older stuff really makes me want to check out issue 4 of Schizo, since he has gotten his shit together since then. Hm hm.

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Apr 07, 2008

Amelia rated it:

bookshelves: comix, favorites

Brunetti is real dark. Black, black heart. He goes deep into the hate. He can draw like those fellows in the days of yore, in any style, hilarious. He is a perfectionist and you need him in your life, otherwise you are kidding yourself at least part of the time.

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