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The Customer is Always Wrong
A young woman’s art career begins to lift off as those around her succumb to addiction and alcoholism.
The Customer is Always Wrong is the saga of a young naïve artist named Madge working in a restaurant of charming drunks, junkies, thieves, and creeps. Oakland in the late seventies is a cheap and quirky haven for eccentrics and Mimi Pond folds the tales of the fascinating sleaze-ball characters that surround young Madge into her workaday waitressing life. Outrageous and loving tributes and takedowns of her co-workers and satellites of the Imperial Cafe create a snapshot of a time in Madge’s life where she encounters who she is, and who she is not.
Told in the same brash yet earnest style as her previous memoir Over Easy, Pond’s storytelling gifts have never been stronger than in this epic, comedic, standalone graphic novel. Madge is right back at the Imperial with its great coffee and depraved cast, where things only get worse for her adopted greasy spoon family while her career as a cartoonist starts to take off.
The Customer is Always Wrong is the saga of a young naïve artist named Madge working in a restaurant of charming drunks, junkies, thieves, and creeps. Oakland in the late seventies is a cheap and quirky haven for eccentrics and Mimi Pond folds the tales of the fascinating sleaze-ball characters that surround young Madge into her workaday waitressing life. Outrageous and loving tributes and takedowns of her co-workers and satellites of the Imperial Cafe create a snapshot of a time in Madge’s life where she encounters who she is, and who she is not.
Told in the same brash yet earnest style as her previous memoir Over Easy, Pond’s storytelling gifts have never been stronger than in this epic, comedic, standalone graphic novel. Madge is right back at the Imperial with its great coffee and depraved cast, where things only get worse for her adopted greasy spoon family while her career as a cartoonist starts to take off.
Unknown Binding
First published August 8, 2017
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About the author
Mimi Pond
14 books142 followersMimi Pond is a cartoonist, illustrator, and writer. She has created comics for the Los Angeles Times, Seventeen magazine, National Lampoon, and many other publications. Television credits include writing the first full-length episode of The Simpsons, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”, and episodes for the shows Designing Women and Pee Wee’s Playhouse. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the painter Wayne White.
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September 22, 2025
When I got this book at the library it had a “Chinese” fortune left in it as a bookmark, or as I prefer to think of it, a personal psychic message intended just for me, possibly a key to the very story I am reading. It reads:
“IF YOU CAN BEFRIEND YOURSELF, YOU WILL NEVER BE LONELY”--Panda Express
So true, I think! But I’ll get back to this later.
My mom helped get me a job when I was in high school (1969-72) at Schensul’s Restaurant in Eastbrook Mall in Grand Rapids, Michigan:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1541779...
It didn't feel as bleak as this photograph has it. I was hired there as a sous chef (nah, I was officially a “second cook” because it was a mall restaurant, where they really don’t have anything as fancy as a sous chef. I was an assistant to the head cook and worked there for a couple years). It was a socially significant experience for me, for sure, and maybe for all of us who worked there!
I, this shy boy who had never dated before then, connected socially with a range of kids, and got invited to weekend drive-in movie nights (1970-72). Boys and girls together in cars, sometimes watching B movies (I recall Vincent Price’s “Premature Burial”), drinking cheap wine (I had had no experience with this until then! Boonesfarm, which you could maybe get for 79 cents a bottle then, maybe less), eating jumbo bags of cheese popcorn and peanut M & Ms and . . . learning to “make out.” So much fun. I couldn't believe my luck, me, this skinny freckled curly-haired boy, with big ears! Life was good! Formative life experiences for many of us, obviously. Some of us began to date each other. Some of us went camping together! Oh, and getting to this book, we loved to make fun of the customers, banding together against them.
Mimi Pond, a few years younger than me, publishes her second volume documenting (in somewhat? very? fictionalized fashion), the time in 1978-1982 she waitressed at the Imperial Café in Oakland, CA, which was WAY hipper than Schensul’s, and still is. Over Easy was her first book about this period, and I liked it a lot, it was mostly an episodic crazy tale of the seventies I could relate to as a person of similar age. She wasn’t a teenager, though; she was in her early to mid-twenties. (So it’s a story of more than just making out and Boonesfarm wine, let’s just say).
With comedy writing and humorous comics background, Pond knows how to entertain us, and can most of us relate to her story? Sure, we all have worked jobs like that, and some of us still do. With annoying/amazing co-workers. Partying with some of them! Pond waitressed as she developed her art. And decades later, she contacted people who were working with her then, and incorporates many of their stories into these books.
The central focus of the present book is Mimi/Madge’s friendship with Imperial manager and philosopher-poet Lazlo, who is the ballast for all of the drugged-out crazies in this late seventies story. In a lot of the stories Lazlo is bailing his workers out of trouble, taking them to clinics, taking care of them in various ways. We see Lazlo doing this time and again with Mimi/Madge.
This is a long but never (for me) tiring book about Mimi’s life at this time, and the world of drugs and beer and sex and music and bad relationships and madness and hilarious weird characters swirling in and out of the Imperial restaurant universe. And it is dark at times, and scary, but it also has very sweet moments, and turns deeply touching in ways that surprised me. No spoilers here. Pond knows how to tell a story, she knows how to make us laugh, she knows how to make us care about a range of people.
Side note: Mimi Pond was a writer on the very first Simpsons episode! She published her early cartoons in The National Lampoon, a great satire mag of the time. So in this volume we see more (than in Over Easy) of Pond working on her art with the aim of sending her stuff out for publication and eventually moving to New York. I loved this story and want it to continue. I have a feeling this might be the end of it, though.
In the end, the above Panda Express fortune is actually one important theme of the story, as Madge leaves the restaurant, self-sufficient, having gained some foundation of self-confidence. You get the feeling she will never be lonely! And then, that also has worked out for me! Amazing psychic fortune cookie wisdom!
“IF YOU CAN BEFRIEND YOURSELF, YOU WILL NEVER BE LONELY”--Panda Express
So true, I think! But I’ll get back to this later.
My mom helped get me a job when I was in high school (1969-72) at Schensul’s Restaurant in Eastbrook Mall in Grand Rapids, Michigan:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1541779...
It didn't feel as bleak as this photograph has it. I was hired there as a sous chef (nah, I was officially a “second cook” because it was a mall restaurant, where they really don’t have anything as fancy as a sous chef. I was an assistant to the head cook and worked there for a couple years). It was a socially significant experience for me, for sure, and maybe for all of us who worked there!
I, this shy boy who had never dated before then, connected socially with a range of kids, and got invited to weekend drive-in movie nights (1970-72). Boys and girls together in cars, sometimes watching B movies (I recall Vincent Price’s “Premature Burial”), drinking cheap wine (I had had no experience with this until then! Boonesfarm, which you could maybe get for 79 cents a bottle then, maybe less), eating jumbo bags of cheese popcorn and peanut M & Ms and . . . learning to “make out.” So much fun. I couldn't believe my luck, me, this skinny freckled curly-haired boy, with big ears! Life was good! Formative life experiences for many of us, obviously. Some of us began to date each other. Some of us went camping together! Oh, and getting to this book, we loved to make fun of the customers, banding together against them.
Mimi Pond, a few years younger than me, publishes her second volume documenting (in somewhat? very? fictionalized fashion), the time in 1978-1982 she waitressed at the Imperial Café in Oakland, CA, which was WAY hipper than Schensul’s, and still is. Over Easy was her first book about this period, and I liked it a lot, it was mostly an episodic crazy tale of the seventies I could relate to as a person of similar age. She wasn’t a teenager, though; she was in her early to mid-twenties. (So it’s a story of more than just making out and Boonesfarm wine, let’s just say).
With comedy writing and humorous comics background, Pond knows how to entertain us, and can most of us relate to her story? Sure, we all have worked jobs like that, and some of us still do. With annoying/amazing co-workers. Partying with some of them! Pond waitressed as she developed her art. And decades later, she contacted people who were working with her then, and incorporates many of their stories into these books.
The central focus of the present book is Mimi/Madge’s friendship with Imperial manager and philosopher-poet Lazlo, who is the ballast for all of the drugged-out crazies in this late seventies story. In a lot of the stories Lazlo is bailing his workers out of trouble, taking them to clinics, taking care of them in various ways. We see Lazlo doing this time and again with Mimi/Madge.
This is a long but never (for me) tiring book about Mimi’s life at this time, and the world of drugs and beer and sex and music and bad relationships and madness and hilarious weird characters swirling in and out of the Imperial restaurant universe. And it is dark at times, and scary, but it also has very sweet moments, and turns deeply touching in ways that surprised me. No spoilers here. Pond knows how to tell a story, she knows how to make us laugh, she knows how to make us care about a range of people.
Side note: Mimi Pond was a writer on the very first Simpsons episode! She published her early cartoons in The National Lampoon, a great satire mag of the time. So in this volume we see more (than in Over Easy) of Pond working on her art with the aim of sending her stuff out for publication and eventually moving to New York. I loved this story and want it to continue. I have a feeling this might be the end of it, though.
In the end, the above Panda Express fortune is actually one important theme of the story, as Madge leaves the restaurant, self-sufficient, having gained some foundation of self-confidence. You get the feeling she will never be lonely! And then, that also has worked out for me! Amazing psychic fortune cookie wisdom!
September 6, 2017
. . . if I pay attention, every day is full of marvels.
This book continues the story that began in Over Easy, as Madge, and her coworkers/cohorts at the diner find themselves in scrapes too numerous to count. I laughed, I cried, and I even shuddered as Lazlo and Madge went searching for Lazlo's missing 14-year-old daughter in Oakland'sseamy scary underbelly.
Makes me wonder what happened to all the people I used to work with . . .
This book continues the story that began in Over Easy, as Madge, and her coworkers/cohorts at the diner find themselves in scrapes too numerous to count. I laughed, I cried, and I even shuddered as Lazlo and Madge went searching for Lazlo's missing 14-year-old daughter in Oakland's
Makes me wonder what happened to all the people I used to work with . . .
September 23, 2017
I remember Over Easy as being pretty lighthearted. This was much darker, with almost nonstop action. I was riveted while reading and now feel vaguely unsettled.
June 17, 2020
A person wholly faithful to novels would have easily missed spectacular masterpieces--all painstakingly put together in blocks, with cartoons and images which speed up the narrative (if there even is one!), which economize by using drawings instead of words (and there are words, too [and then just think for a moment just how important those word bubbles or captions truly are, when wordy writers simply get away with!]
Anyway, this time The Customer is Always Wrong is the right one! As in, brilliant, a masterpiece, and... a work that could only have been put together in this way.
The setting is a restaurant bar, the protagonists are denizens, wait staff, bosses, of said establishment. And that it genuinely rings true is no joke: they even have a gay speed freak dishwasher! pregnancies, first loves/hardcore crushes, drugs, sex, and very many funny things occuring to blue-black-white characters. It is hard not to fall for them, to recognize many as Important, other Trivial. The sweetheart is Laslo, who rightfully states "Everyday is full of marvels. Everythign is struggling to be part of the story." Notice how these cute pictures... come alive!
Anyway, this time The Customer is Always Wrong is the right one! As in, brilliant, a masterpiece, and... a work that could only have been put together in this way.
The setting is a restaurant bar, the protagonists are denizens, wait staff, bosses, of said establishment. And that it genuinely rings true is no joke: they even have a gay speed freak dishwasher! pregnancies, first loves/hardcore crushes, drugs, sex, and very many funny things occuring to blue-black-white characters. It is hard not to fall for them, to recognize many as Important, other Trivial. The sweetheart is Laslo, who rightfully states "Everyday is full of marvels. Everythign is struggling to be part of the story." Notice how these cute pictures... come alive!
March 29, 2021
I had a really hard time getting into this for the first couple of chapters. I didn't understand what the premise of the story was or if it was going to be a bunch of snippets about working at a restaurant. It didn't quite feel like a sequel either because as much as I loved Over Easy, I couldn't for the life of me remember the characters. Had I known how much I was going to end up liking this one, I would have done a back-to-back reread starting with OE.
It would be hard to explain all the subplots going on in here, but suffice to say, it is about the life and comradery between these bunch of crazy characters who all work at the Imperial Café. We've all worked with similar groups of people you will never forget, whether you got along with them or not.
I was not expecting the ending
Perhaps there will be a third book about Madge's experiences in NY.
I highly recommend the books be read back-to-back, starting in order with Over Easy.
It would be hard to explain all the subplots going on in here, but suffice to say, it is about the life and comradery between these bunch of crazy characters who all work at the Imperial Café. We've all worked with similar groups of people you will never forget, whether you got along with them or not.
I was not expecting the ending
Perhaps there will be a third book about Madge's experiences in NY.
I highly recommend the books be read back-to-back, starting in order with Over Easy.
August 18, 2017
"The Customer Is Always Wrong" by Mimi Pond is the exceptionally good follow up to "Over Easy", the adventures of waitress and artist, Madge.
In a world where we're constantly being fooled into watching or reading or listening to some manufactured nonsense, "The Customer Is Always Wrong" is a dose of honest, super classy, no-bullshit, storytelling and cartooning.
It's smart and touching and relatable and everyone who loves stories about life and real people should read it.
In a world where we're constantly being fooled into watching or reading or listening to some manufactured nonsense, "The Customer Is Always Wrong" is a dose of honest, super classy, no-bullshit, storytelling and cartooning.
It's smart and touching and relatable and everyone who loves stories about life and real people should read it.
December 8, 2017
The Customer Is Always Wrong is an unexpected love story: a rocky relationship between that town and job that you just can't seem to leave even though it's sucking the life right out of you. This book does a great job showing that there may never be a "right" time to start the next chapter of your life. Illustrations and conversations were addictive, just like the characters.
February 27, 2018
Over Easy felt very contained within the diner. This one broke out of that and spread into Oakland.
I always appreciate a view into someone else's life. And this definitely satisfies the voyeur in me (though technically fiction, this is clearly barely veiled autobiography).
Pond's work is accessible, the story is well-told, and the aesthetic of her art is consistent.
That said, there were some moments that seemed unnecessarily racist and/or transphobic (pages 71, 79, and 97 stood out). I know she is depicting a different time, but she's already selecting only parts of the past to tell, so why include those bits without addressing them constructively?
I love the way she gets at the nitty gritty, though, so I'll probably continue to read whatever she puts out.
I always appreciate a view into someone else's life. And this definitely satisfies the voyeur in me (though technically fiction, this is clearly barely veiled autobiography).
Pond's work is accessible, the story is well-told, and the aesthetic of her art is consistent.
That said, there were some moments that seemed unnecessarily racist and/or transphobic (pages 71, 79, and 97 stood out). I know she is depicting a different time, but she's already selecting only parts of the past to tell, so why include those bits without addressing them constructively?
I love the way she gets at the nitty gritty, though, so I'll probably continue to read whatever she puts out.
August 24, 2017
Fuckin-A this book is brilliant.
May 9, 2018
ExcUSE me but this is a MASTERpiece.
Holy frijoles truly a new gold standard.
Holy frijoles truly a new gold standard.
December 7, 2020
Good lord, this was so much darker than I expected it to be. I thought this was going to be about the customers but it's a continuation of the last book. It focuses entirely on the staff and goes until the day she finally moves away.
One thing I don't like about both these books is the underlying theme that you've wasted your life if you don't monetize what you love and "chase your dream." She looks down on everyone else around her and is kind of insufferable. She even asserts that the others are avoiding her because they're jealous of her ambition and it's like uhh no. I'm sure it's because you're arrogant and judgmental and they don't want to deal with it.
Even Lazlo's story is presented as a tragedy because he didn't follow his dream to be a writer, as if that would have fixed his problems. There were so many people who loved and cared about him! He wasn't a failure. He just had an untreated mental illness or three...like everyone else in this story.
I'm totally for making a change if your life isn't working for you, but that's not what she's advocating for. She's very much like, "Your career will fulfill you." It's such a shallow way to look at life. It's like centering your life around finding "Mr. Right" and judging everyone who doesn't. Like hey man, there are other ways to find happiness.
I wont even bother with the other things that aren't perfect about this.
I wont bother with what I liked about it either because I wouldn't really recommend it, but I did read the whole thing in a day, so there's that.
One thing I don't like about both these books is the underlying theme that you've wasted your life if you don't monetize what you love and "chase your dream." She looks down on everyone else around her and is kind of insufferable. She even asserts that the others are avoiding her because they're jealous of her ambition and it's like uhh no. I'm sure it's because you're arrogant and judgmental and they don't want to deal with it.
Even Lazlo's story is presented as a tragedy because he didn't follow his dream to be a writer, as if that would have fixed his problems. There were so many people who loved and cared about him! He wasn't a failure. He just had an untreated mental illness or three...like everyone else in this story.
I'm totally for making a change if your life isn't working for you, but that's not what she's advocating for. She's very much like, "Your career will fulfill you." It's such a shallow way to look at life. It's like centering your life around finding "Mr. Right" and judging everyone who doesn't. Like hey man, there are other ways to find happiness.
I wont even bother with the other things that aren't perfect about this.
I wont bother with what I liked about it either because I wouldn't really recommend it, but I did read the whole thing in a day, so there's that.
September 8, 2017
Cartoonist and illustrator Mimi Pond’s The Customer Is Always Wrong is a graphic novel billed as a “fictional memoir based on personal experiences of the author.” I suppose that was put in there so Pond is not James Frey’d by Oprah on national television for any added artistic flourishes. Oh, and it is fantastic. Like a cross between Charles Bukowski and the motion picture Empire Records, The Customer Is Always Wrong will have you wondering why exactly you care so much for this ragtag crew of dirt bags.
The action takes place at the end of the 1970’s in Oakland California at the Imperial Café (based on Mama’s Royal Café coffee shop, an iconic institution for the area). The staff, led by the waitress and struggling humorist Madge, is young and full of hopes and dreams and lots and lots of cocaine. Everything rings true—the characters can be maddeningly self-absorbed and selfish, but also funny and caring. There are moments that sneak up on you then punch you unapologetically in the ticker leaving you gasping and wondering how on Earth did that happen.
The Customer is Always Wrong is riveting. It’s rough and funny and unpleasant and heartfelt. In other words, it’s messy just like life.
The action takes place at the end of the 1970’s in Oakland California at the Imperial Café (based on Mama’s Royal Café coffee shop, an iconic institution for the area). The staff, led by the waitress and struggling humorist Madge, is young and full of hopes and dreams and lots and lots of cocaine. Everything rings true—the characters can be maddeningly self-absorbed and selfish, but also funny and caring. There are moments that sneak up on you then punch you unapologetically in the ticker leaving you gasping and wondering how on Earth did that happen.
The Customer is Always Wrong is riveting. It’s rough and funny and unpleasant and heartfelt. In other words, it’s messy just like life.
June 2, 2018
A follow-up to Over Easy, Mimi Pond finishes out her two-part memoir in this volume. Oakland in the '70s was a fascinating place. Pond captures all of it beautifully, even the darker aspects: her co-worker's heroin addiction; the time some Columbian drug lords mistakenly beat her up before realizing she is a cartoonist/waitress and not her co-worker who lives next door; the complicated personal lives and romantic entanglements of her fellow diner employees; and the troubled relationship between her boss and his rebellious teenage daughter.
Pond, though she does partake in some common vices of the time (cocaine, marijuana), is also painfully aware that she is destined for better things than waitressing in a diner. Compared to her friends, she is painfully square. She chooses to spend time at home, drawing rather than partying, and working as much as she can to save up for a move to New York. The crazy circumstances of the 70s conspire to try and prevent her from leaving, but she eventually finds a way.
Absolutely worth reading, right along with Over Easy. Like stepping through a time machine to visit a specific neighborhood in Oakland.
Pond, though she does partake in some common vices of the time (cocaine, marijuana), is also painfully aware that she is destined for better things than waitressing in a diner. Compared to her friends, she is painfully square. She chooses to spend time at home, drawing rather than partying, and working as much as she can to save up for a move to New York. The crazy circumstances of the 70s conspire to try and prevent her from leaving, but she eventually finds a way.
Absolutely worth reading, right along with Over Easy. Like stepping through a time machine to visit a specific neighborhood in Oakland.
August 4, 2018
A quick easy read, but with some disturbing imagery and characters. Finally was able to finish a book .
August 27, 2018
The story was so boring and I didn't enjoy the graphics as well.
May 7, 2019
So racist. I honestly couldnt finish it.
March 3, 2018
Over Easy, the first book in this fictionalised memoir, felt a bit too meandering. The Customer is Always Wrong is all about the consequences of those free-wheeling, drug-fueled years. Really the books should be read back to back as this volume definitely completes the story. It's fast-paced and rather sad as people are hurt by their actions. I want to give a lot of people hugs and a few others a swift slap in the face.
March 19, 2018
I liked it, but maybe there was a bit too much of everything.
November 24, 2017
This is a wonderful graphic novel - told from the point of view of the protagonist, Madge, an aspiring cartoonist working as a waitress at a coffee shop in late 70s Oakland. The coffee shop is part of a punk scene - most of the characters are taking various drugs but use them judiciously, without getting "hooked" on them. There are some though who fall victim to heroin - one character, a fellow waitress, almost OD's in the back of the restaurant, but the staff manages to revive her. The book gives a glimpse 30 or 40 years on at the attitudes and behavior of the youngish crowd in the Bay Area neighborhood - the days when stereo systems were foremost, and people did not of course have smartphones or personal computers.
The character of Madge is of course the author of the novel, Mimi Pond, and the book is based on her real-life experiences as a waitress working at a restaurant in Oakland called Mama's from 1978-82, along with recollections and stories she collected from fellow staff members that worked at the restaurant.
Madge is working as a waitress as she waits for a big break - to get a cartoon published in the New Yorker, perhaps. At one point, romantic involvements and the complexities of friendships with imperfect people prevent Madge from drawing as much as she would like. Here's Madge thinking about her avocation as she works as a waitress: "I have my drawings and my cartoons to sustain me, something outside to focus on."
This graphic novel is great - it definitely grips you, the sort of book you cannot put down. It can easily be read and appreciated in under a day. The restaurant manager is the inimitable, wise, yet also ultimately imperfect Lazlo. Yet it is Lazlo who everyone relies on ultimately and it is Lazlo who always comes through to save the day. Unfortunately, Lazlo has a number of problems of his own - although it is never clear exactly what he is running away from, the origin of his pain.
The center of the book for me was the conversation Madge had with Lazlo, the restaurant manager/Latin scholar, toward the end of the book. I'll include a few quotes from that section:
Lazlo: "One thing I've figured out ... is if I pay attention, every day is full of marvels. Everything is struggling to be part of a story."
Lazlo: "...all my energy goes into being depressed because I can't hide behind bourbon and speed anymore."
Lazlo: "I want to face whatever frightens me before it tries to kill me again. Or before I wind up wasting the ... years I have left. Sometimes I think all this repressed pain surfacing is just another sign of dying, like closing out all your accounts."
Later, Madge thinks:
"There is no comfort, not now. What's the point of wiping away tears that will never stop?"
Lazlo's final message to Madge:
"When we say goodbye
Let's make it fast
Like ripping off
A band-aid
It only hurts
For a second
We only need
One perfect word
Love
To the divine Madge
1/6/82
LM"
I won't say more since it would spoil the book for other readers - other than this was a fantastic graphic novel, well-written, and well-drawn.
The character of Madge is of course the author of the novel, Mimi Pond, and the book is based on her real-life experiences as a waitress working at a restaurant in Oakland called Mama's from 1978-82, along with recollections and stories she collected from fellow staff members that worked at the restaurant.
Madge is working as a waitress as she waits for a big break - to get a cartoon published in the New Yorker, perhaps. At one point, romantic involvements and the complexities of friendships with imperfect people prevent Madge from drawing as much as she would like. Here's Madge thinking about her avocation as she works as a waitress: "I have my drawings and my cartoons to sustain me, something outside to focus on."
This graphic novel is great - it definitely grips you, the sort of book you cannot put down. It can easily be read and appreciated in under a day. The restaurant manager is the inimitable, wise, yet also ultimately imperfect Lazlo. Yet it is Lazlo who everyone relies on ultimately and it is Lazlo who always comes through to save the day. Unfortunately, Lazlo has a number of problems of his own - although it is never clear exactly what he is running away from, the origin of his pain.
The center of the book for me was the conversation Madge had with Lazlo, the restaurant manager/Latin scholar, toward the end of the book. I'll include a few quotes from that section:
Lazlo: "One thing I've figured out ... is if I pay attention, every day is full of marvels. Everything is struggling to be part of a story."
Lazlo: "...all my energy goes into being depressed because I can't hide behind bourbon and speed anymore."
Lazlo: "I want to face whatever frightens me before it tries to kill me again. Or before I wind up wasting the ... years I have left. Sometimes I think all this repressed pain surfacing is just another sign of dying, like closing out all your accounts."
Later, Madge thinks:
"There is no comfort, not now. What's the point of wiping away tears that will never stop?"
Lazlo's final message to Madge:
"When we say goodbye
Let's make it fast
Like ripping off
A band-aid
It only hurts
For a second
We only need
One perfect word
Love
To the divine Madge
1/6/82
LM"
I won't say more since it would spoil the book for other readers - other than this was a fantastic graphic novel, well-written, and well-drawn.
June 12, 2021
As a black woman and Oakland native I found the author’s portrayal not only alarmingly RACIST, but also unauthentic of anyone born and raised in Oakland. This would be however a book I assume would resonate with the many gentrified or out right bigots.
June 18, 2018
A good book or graphic novel manages to suck you into its reality and makes you forget about your world. When you finish the book and look around you, you find yourself disoriented, with your foot still in the door of that reality, continuing to go about your day with the essence of that world still in the back of your mind.
Mimi Pond succeeds at this, bringing the reader into her life as a waitress in 1970's Oakland. There is a richness to Pond's storytelling, in that her characters, even if they are peripheral, have a humanness to them and stand as clear cut individuals. I was able to step inside a life entirely different from my own, and find value in all of her experiences and the people in her life.
This is the sequel to her first graphic novel memoir, Over Easy. I would say, though, this is even better than the first part. My review for the first book was mostly negative because it ends with a sense of hopelessness and lack of direction for the protagonist. The protagonist was mostly just floating around, taking little action to pursue her true desires, allowing time to pass and pull her away in its currents. When I finished that book, I left the world she created for me as her reader, feeling the immense apathy of that era, absolutely frustrated. But this book picks up from there and shows the character waking up from that haze and going back to working towards what she wants for herself. It is the ending I wanted for the first book, but it is better that we had a second novel, because in this book I was able to better appreciate her little world through her struggle.
Mimi Pond succeeds at this, bringing the reader into her life as a waitress in 1970's Oakland. There is a richness to Pond's storytelling, in that her characters, even if they are peripheral, have a humanness to them and stand as clear cut individuals. I was able to step inside a life entirely different from my own, and find value in all of her experiences and the people in her life.
This is the sequel to her first graphic novel memoir, Over Easy. I would say, though, this is even better than the first part. My review for the first book was mostly negative because it ends with a sense of hopelessness and lack of direction for the protagonist. The protagonist was mostly just floating around, taking little action to pursue her true desires, allowing time to pass and pull her away in its currents. When I finished that book, I left the world she created for me as her reader, feeling the immense apathy of that era, absolutely frustrated. But this book picks up from there and shows the character waking up from that haze and going back to working towards what she wants for herself. It is the ending I wanted for the first book, but it is better that we had a second novel, because in this book I was able to better appreciate her little world through her struggle.
August 22, 2017
"Does this mean that, as much as we hurt, we're not the people closest to him?"
I sat for a good ten minutes after finishing this book, reeling over the unanticipated symbiosis between Madge and me in regards to loss. Recently, a very important person in my life passed relatively suddenly, struck down by the ever colossal cancer. All of Madge's experiences with Lazlo are relative, and everything she knows to be him are purely independent of the rest of the world.
At the end, Ruthie, Lazlo's wife says, "But Lazlo? That guy you knew here, at this place? I didn't know that guy."
It's almost as if the entire book (and the previous "Over Easy") is presented as snippets of what life is. We go through life with some kind of volatile innocence, and we believe things to just be as they are. Anecdotes, events, life. Probably a little hackneyed if taken out of my personal context (and I can see how it feels like a literary device), but tying up Madge's waitressing journey with a death further extrapolates on the theme.
We are thrown into this life at the Imperial Cafe with Madge, and all we know is she is saving up to go to New York. We suspect she will be leaving the Bay Area for New York by the end. Not much of a story there. It's like in Seinfeld when George Costanza suggests to the NBC executives that people would sit around and read books on his and Jerry's proposed show about nothing. So obviously there's gotta be cocaine, mafias, character tension, etc., but for some reason, maybe because it's in graphic form, the whole thing feels more visceral and real rather than conjured up. All events feel like snapshots, kind of like reading F. Scott Fitzgerald (I believe he's even referenced in the book).
Anyway, I really loved this one. Good drawings. Good dialogue. Loveable characters. Makes me want to go to a diner right now and have some eggs and coffee.
I sat for a good ten minutes after finishing this book, reeling over the unanticipated symbiosis between Madge and me in regards to loss. Recently, a very important person in my life passed relatively suddenly, struck down by the ever colossal cancer. All of Madge's experiences with Lazlo are relative, and everything she knows to be him are purely independent of the rest of the world.
At the end, Ruthie, Lazlo's wife says, "But Lazlo? That guy you knew here, at this place? I didn't know that guy."
It's almost as if the entire book (and the previous "Over Easy") is presented as snippets of what life is. We go through life with some kind of volatile innocence, and we believe things to just be as they are. Anecdotes, events, life. Probably a little hackneyed if taken out of my personal context (and I can see how it feels like a literary device), but tying up Madge's waitressing journey with a death further extrapolates on the theme.
We are thrown into this life at the Imperial Cafe with Madge, and all we know is she is saving up to go to New York. We suspect she will be leaving the Bay Area for New York by the end. Not much of a story there. It's like in Seinfeld when George Costanza suggests to the NBC executives that people would sit around and read books on his and Jerry's proposed show about nothing. So obviously there's gotta be cocaine, mafias, character tension, etc., but for some reason, maybe because it's in graphic form, the whole thing feels more visceral and real rather than conjured up. All events feel like snapshots, kind of like reading F. Scott Fitzgerald (I believe he's even referenced in the book).
Anyway, I really loved this one. Good drawings. Good dialogue. Loveable characters. Makes me want to go to a diner right now and have some eggs and coffee.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 30, 2019
Here is what I wrote in my email recap from our book club meeting on this one:
We had a lovely meeting about The Customer Is Always Wrong at Kristin's gorgeous home while gorging on Kristin's gorgeous gougéres (and Larissa's German sharlotka, and Jasmina's biscuits, and Beth's quiche-y pizza). We were all surprised to learn that the book was actually a sequel to Mimi Pond's previous, which we felt went a long way to helping us understand why there was such a lack of character introduction in this one. We also spiraled out onto a long and awesome discussion of each of our histories as waitresses / customer services workers / chambermaids. It was delightful.
That will have to do because I don't remember much more, other than a deep regret that I hadn't read the first book first. This was a beautiful slice of life memoir, though, full of fascinating and dopey and complicated characters. It did make me miss waitressing.... those were the days.
Here's photo evidence of all that deliciousness:
We had a lovely meeting about The Customer Is Always Wrong at Kristin's gorgeous home while gorging on Kristin's gorgeous gougéres (and Larissa's German sharlotka, and Jasmina's biscuits, and Beth's quiche-y pizza). We were all surprised to learn that the book was actually a sequel to Mimi Pond's previous, which we felt went a long way to helping us understand why there was such a lack of character introduction in this one. We also spiraled out onto a long and awesome discussion of each of our histories as waitresses / customer services workers / chambermaids. It was delightful.
That will have to do because I don't remember much more, other than a deep regret that I hadn't read the first book first. This was a beautiful slice of life memoir, though, full of fascinating and dopey and complicated characters. It did make me miss waitressing.... those were the days.
Here's photo evidence of all that deliciousness:
November 10, 2024
Eine junge Frau arbeitet als Serviererin in einem Kleinstadtcafe. Sie will sich Geld zusammensparen, damit sie nach New York ziehen kann und dort ihre Zeichnerinnenkarriere beginnen kann. Inzwischen wird sie aber in allerlei Lebens- und Drogenexzesse von Mitarbeiter:innen und Kund:innen verwickelt. Sehr gut.
August 20, 2017
Mimi Pond has done it again! Go get this -- and its prequel "Over Easy" -- now. I read this in one sitting, consumed with the story, and am now going back to admire the art again. I loved it so much.
March 16, 2019
I really enjoy graphic novels and the immediacy of the mood and setting of a story. I loved vicariously living an eventful early adulthood with Madge.
August 13, 2017
I first "met" Mimi Pond when she first started appearing in the National Lampoon. In those days, I sought out all the cartoon magazines that I could, such as Punch and The New Yorker. It was the next step up from Mad Magazine and I got to recognize her cartoons, the way I recoganized Shary Flenniken, who did Trots and Bonnie in the same publication.
Since then, I have followed her work, as best I could, and was happily surprised when she published her memoir of her time working as a waitress through, or rather after art college Over Easy .
I didn't know there was more to tell, until she came out with this latest, the second part of her story, of her time as a waitress, while she tried to establish herself as a cartoonist. This wraps up her story nicely, and shows that the world of restaurants, and easy drugs, and what happens to all the people in the first book.
You don't have to have read the first book to understand what is going on, in fact it has been three years since the first book came out, and I didn't bother to reread it before I dived back into it, although, once I did finish it, I went back to reread Over Easy again.
If you have liked Mimi Pond in the past, if you have read her other books, well, this is really nothing like them, although the humor is there. Here she is examining a time in her life, where she is running around, with what we used to call a "bad crowd". She is young, on her own, and trying to escape Oakland, after having escaped San Diego, to get her career on track to being a cartoonish.
It is a hefty book, coming in at nearly 500 pages, but the story needs those pages to be there, to see what was happening, to tell her version of what happened, thought as she says, she has moved things around, to make a better story.
Would recommend this to everyone, to those who want to be cartoonists, to those who have been in the service industry, to those who have eaten at restaurants, and to those who know how Oakland was in the '70s.
Since then, I have followed her work, as best I could, and was happily surprised when she published her memoir of her time working as a waitress through, or rather after art college Over Easy .
I didn't know there was more to tell, until she came out with this latest, the second part of her story, of her time as a waitress, while she tried to establish herself as a cartoonist. This wraps up her story nicely, and shows that the world of restaurants, and easy drugs, and what happens to all the people in the first book.
You don't have to have read the first book to understand what is going on, in fact it has been three years since the first book came out, and I didn't bother to reread it before I dived back into it, although, once I did finish it, I went back to reread Over Easy again.
If you have liked Mimi Pond in the past, if you have read her other books, well, this is really nothing like them, although the humor is there. Here she is examining a time in her life, where she is running around, with what we used to call a "bad crowd". She is young, on her own, and trying to escape Oakland, after having escaped San Diego, to get her career on track to being a cartoonish.
It is a hefty book, coming in at nearly 500 pages, but the story needs those pages to be there, to see what was happening, to tell her version of what happened, thought as she says, she has moved things around, to make a better story.
Would recommend this to everyone, to those who want to be cartoonists, to those who have been in the service industry, to those who have eaten at restaurants, and to those who know how Oakland was in the '70s.
October 15, 2017
Similar to Mimi Pond's previous fictionalized memoir, Over Easy, this fictionalized memoir is intermittently interesting, but overlong and aimless. Somewhere in the last 100 pages I realized that story was actually about the relationship between Madge and Lazlo, but the preceding 350 pages never really made that clear. The book is largely a series of quirky stories about quirky people doing drugs. Most of the characters seem interchangeable and unlikeable. It's unfortunate, because there are some amusing and touching tales hidden in the book. You just have to be willing to care about characters who are never going to grow or change.
June 8, 2017
PDF - A solid semi-fictionalized memoir, carried by a colorful cast of supporting characters (in fact, protagonist Madge is often simply the lens through which we witness other people's stories, as their tales subsume her own). The art is effective. This doesn't approach the top tier of graphic novel memoirs, Fun Home, Marbles, etc, but it fits comfortably a shelf or two below them.
February 9, 2018
An introduction, or an afterward - something was needed but missing to give the work some context.
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