The Bus

The bus #1

by Paul Kirchner

Už se vám někdy stalo, že jste nasedli do autobusu a vysedli někde jinde, než jste chtěli? Zaručujeme vám, že podobný pocit zažijete pokaždé, když otevřete tuto knihu!Přijíždí dopravní prostředek z jiného vesmíru – autobus nezná hranice prostoru, času ani fantazie!Stripy Paula Kirchnera zvané autobus vycházely pravidelně v legendárním americkém komiksovém časopise Heavy Metal v letech 1979–1985. České vydání autobusu obsahuje nejen všechny vydané stripy, ale také šest stripů dosud nezveřejněných. Paul Kirchner laskavě připravil pro české vydání zvláštní doslov.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Humor, Fiction, Art, Cartoon, Comic Book

75 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Paul Kirchner is an American writer and illustrator born in New Haven, Connecticut.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and surreal. This is top shelf humor in the form of reality-altering comic strips about..buses. Great work by Kirchner whom I've met through his newest strip Hieronymus & Bosch. It's authentic and pure art.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the million comics my dad brought home when we were kids -- I don't know if they were intended for us or him, but my guess is both. Being a city kid, I got buses, but I remember coming across it again once in my late teens, and realizing that I hadn't fully understood all of the comics the first time around (read: bus sex).

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This came out when I was heavily into my campus bus driving days. It's surreal but if you've ever commuted or driven a bus, it'll make you laugh. I secretly posted a few pages around the driver's lounge and in the mechanics' shop and everybody loved them. The mechanics really loved the one with the bus posing as a pin-up from a calendar. We probably all needed to get out more. I still have it and it still makes me laugh.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was great! Surreal, always amusing and often funny. Paul's black and white art is extremely visually satisfying.

Also props to him for making this work freely available! I was very pleased to discover the full collection of The Bus strips is online at https://www.tanibis.net/livres/the-bu...

[Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A small but gorgeously wrought masterpiece of surreal comedy.

[Przemysław Skoczyński · Rating 4 out of 5]

Publikowany pod koniec lat 70 na łamach "Metal Hurlant", a póżniej (1987) wydany jako całość, "The Bus" ma dziś status kalsycznego zbioru pasków, w którym Kirchner czaruje abstrakcyjnymi i absurdalnymi historiami, ustawiając w centrum tytułowy autobus i jego pasażera. Większość paneli ciągle zadziwia pomysłowością, łacząc humor z frankowońskim absurdem spod znaków obyczajowych produkcji Moebiusa czy Cazy. Oczywiście wszystko zredukowane do maksimum, nastawione na komiczny, ale często też filozoficzny efekt, bo kilka z tych histori da się zinterpretować tak, by nadać im bardziej ogólny sens. Koniecznie

[Demeter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Krásna snová atmosféra, plná surreálnych prvkov a reálií. Väčšina stripov bez slov, príbehy zrozumiteľné, fascinujúce a presne nakreslené. Staršie, ale stále dobré. #trebacitat

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a daily bus rider I loved this book. The collection of strips covering the absurd and mundane of transit riding make this collection a joy to read. Wonderfully drawn, at times bordering on the surrealistic, this book hit the mark.

[J.T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would give this more than 5 stars if possible. It's incredibly well drawn, smart and really funny.

[Ana Nogueira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty much all I've ever wanted in a comic - surrealism, humor, intelligence, a fantastic set of references. It's incredible how well crafted these are, considering the size/length constraints.

[lila wijaya]

kafkaesque. this is a work of art.
i love buses. buses are so cool.

ok honest review! if you have an hour to spare i highly recommend reading this silent comic. it's a work of art with its surreal appeal and unexpected comic moments scattered throughout. the touch of randomness in every comic is a delight and you never really know what to expect.

https://www.tanibis.net/livres/2012-t...

[StrictlySequential · Rating 3 out of 5]

1st British Futura Ed. = 1987 = £2.95uk / $9.95au / $14.99nz

This is as original of strip as I've seen!
It's so goofy and inventive with such precise and well-staged art but suffers from often being too "out there" since he tends to get over-aggressively abstractionistic.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

These cartoons often cross the line to the surreal, frequently feature the same bus, 2233,, the same rather skeletal driver, and often the same complacent, balding passenger who accepts the strange things happening around him. Funny and sometimes disturbing.

[Peter Landau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I forgot all about these absurd strips that I read in Heavy Metal mag when I was a kid. But I remember how much loved then.

[Alexander Lisovsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Прекрасный образчик тонкого абсурдного юмора в духе "The Executive Coloring Book". Свои ловкие, изобретательные стрипы про автобус Пол Киршнер писал для журнала Heavy Metal с 1979 по 1985, в 1987 выходил их сборник, и вот в 2012 — уже богатое переиздание с твёрдой обложкой, очаровательными фотографиями настоящих автобусов того времени и трогательным послесловием. Более того, по случаю пандемии издатель предлагает электронную версию книги совершенно бесплатно (типа, вместо того чтобы ездить в автобусах лучше почитайте о их насыщенной жизни).



Вот ещё на всякий случай моя мини-галерея. А вот есть и продолжение.

[Teehutari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love The Bus! You never know what will happen next.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Paul Kirchner's the bus brings back memories of the glory days of Heavy Metal magazine in the 1980's, when Julie Simmons-Lynch was editor and the comics goodness was off the charts. If memory serves, the short strips collected in this volume were often used as filler to share space with ads for rolling papers that did not span an entire page.

Which is not to say Kirchner's work is filler at all - his simple, black-and-white six-or-eight panel strips are gloriously fun, marvelously metaphysical, and sometimes quite hilarious. As a frequent bus rider myself, I'm well aware that the more surrealistic pieces in this volume are fully grounded in reality. Someone once described buses used in public transportation as the "four-wheeled festival of human freakishness", and Kirchner both appreciates and celebrates that notion with the bus.

[Rizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

(This review is for both volume 1 and 2.)

What a delightful little book. I've always had a great love for the comics medium, but I'm ashamed to say that I have always struggled to enjoy comic strips the way previous generations seem to. This is the first one that penetrated me, I'm happy to say. It's such a simple, silly little gag comic, but I couldn't help but keep turning the page. The gags are bizarre and surrealist in nature, but never take themselves too seriously. You can't help but root for the poor commuter trying to navigate such an unpredictable and chaotic world. And I guess that's the point, right? It's strangely relatable, and at times, even thought provoking. It's the perfect coffee table book too. I'm glad Paul Kirchner was the one to make me appreciate this particular corner of the comics world, and I'm really looking forward to the recent revival, the Bus 3!

[Colin Murtagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a proper lost classic, I remember reading this in the pages of Heavy Metal magazine, more years ago than I care to remember. It was a strange place for it, sitting besides the like of Moebius, but there was probably no other magazine that would take it.
The premise is fairly simple, a man waits for a bus, he gets on bus, he gets off bus. However this becomes a surreal trip through the artists imagination. Sometimes it's simple little ideas, the driver lighting the cigarette of the model on the poster on the side of the bus. The life cycle of a bus, The bus in prehistoric times.
And then it gets weird.
I adored this when it saw it at first, and I still do.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surreal, absurd and hilarious. Comprised almost entirely of silent one pagers originally published in Heavy Metal in the 80s, Paul Kirchner explored the wide possibilities of the sequential arts medium through recurring gags featuring a man waiting for his bus. Sometimes slapstick, sometimes more subtle, but always ridiculously inventive and funny. It sits somewhere between Looney Tunes and The Twilight Zone. Not all the bits worked for me, but there's food for everyone here

[Sara Platero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recopilatorio de las tiras de "El bus" publicadas mensualmente durante 6 años en la revista "Heavy Metal" en los años 80.

Las tiras cómicas siempre giran entorno a la idea del autobús y, con ese "limitante" creativo el autor se encarga de que cada historieta sea única y disponga de su propio elemento diferencial usando, como principal recurso, el género fantástico y sci-fi.

Recomendable para que las personas que disfruten con los cómics en blanco/negro de tiras cómicas independientes.

[Carlos Nouaille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una joya, como si Escher y los surrealistas estuvieran encargándose de una tira cómica. Viñetas siempre sorprendentes, con un estilo elegante y sobrio —la mayoría no tienen diálogos—, y muy, muy divertidas.

Recopilación de las tiras originalmente publicadas en los 80 en revistas como Heavy Metal USA, la francesa Métal Hurlant o Zona 84 en España.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read Kirchner's Hieronymus & Bosch collection which I greatly enjoyed. I felt like The Bus was even better - the humor felt much more sophisticated and absurd. The cartooning is very sharp, and I like how I can revisit this book by simply turning to any page and having a blast.

[Ricardo Mena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este cómic es sencillamente una obra maestra. Y me da la impresión de que ha pasado muy desapercibido. Es una pena que los lectores no puedan apreciar la genialidad del autor. Espero con este texto animar a la gente a que lo recupere y lo disfrute.
La manera en la que el autor juega con el lenguaje del cómic es sencillamente magistral.

[Francesca Giardiello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una lettura molto particolare, piena di surreale e una comica ironia d'altri tempi.

L'autore si dimostra sagace e pungente mostrando un umorismo di stampo british e molto intelligente, inoltre il volume è pieno di citazioni pop e messaggi nascosti tutti da scoprire.

[Esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me ha gustado pero con “peros”.
Al ser una recopilación de historias que se publicaban en una revista, pierde originalidad y terminan siendo un poco repetitivas, especialmente en algunas que son bastante surrealistas (misma idea pero cambiando algo el enfoque)

[Molly Fiddler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars are way too few to rate this comic strip collection. The humour is surrealistic, yet very simple. I really, really loved it and I'll definitely get the bus 2.

[Zioluc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deliziose variazioni sul tema "passeggero aspetta l'autobus", un tuffo nel surreale davvero piacevole.

[Társis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mes frances est très bizarre. Malgré tout, j'ai réussi à lire ce bel ouvrage.
Merci à l'éditeur Tanibis pour cette gentillesse

[Megumiillusion · Rating 5 out of 5]

master piece