Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Volume One

Tales Designed to Thrizzle #1-4

by Michael Kupperman

Fans and comedy cognoscenti alike, basking devotedly in the glow of Tales Designed to Thrizzle, have made it the smash hit humor comic of the decade. And now the first four issues of Michael Kupperman s revered series are finally collected into one deluxe hardcover. Even better, Kupperman has taken the original two-color printing and made the entire book full color These tales are more thrizzling than ever What are tales designed to thrizzle? Tales designed to thrizzle are about evil girls and their owls. They are about Jesus half-brother Pagus, the Mysterious Avenger, Dick Crazy, scary snakes, delicious bacon, Private Eye Johnny Silhouette, the Silver Knight, Murder She Didn t Write, the Mannister, the Space Patrol, portraits where the eyes move, Pablo Picasso, sex blimps (and their logical inverse, sex holes), the hot boy band Boybank, soccer joust, Underpants-On-His-Head Man, Hercules the Public Domain Superhero, Cousin Granpa, Mister Bossman, Mark Twain, the silent robot Citobor and, of course, the Thirties.The stories in Tales Designed to Thrizzle made their debut in 2009 on the Cartoon Network s Adult Swim program as Snake N Bacon. The show, a mix of live-action, puppetry and animation, stars David Rakoff (This American Life), Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live), Kristen Schaal (Flight of the Conchords), James Urbaniak (The Venture Brothers), and Dan Bakkedahl (The Daily Show), and is produced by Kupperman, Robert Smigel (SNL, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog), Scott Jacobson (The Daily Show) and Rich Bloomquist (The Daily Show).

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Humor, Fiction, Bizarro Fiction, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics

160 pages, Hardcover

First published July 30, 2009

About the author

Michael Kupperman is an American cartoonist, illustrator and comedy writer, based in New York City.
Kupperman created comics and strips for various magazines and anthologies in the 90's. Many were collected in the book Snake'N'Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret (2000).
Since 2005 Kupperman has published his own comic anthological series Tales Designed to Thrizzle through Fantagraphics Books. In particular, the story Moon 1969: The True Story of the 1969 Moon Launch, first appeared in Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2 Issue 8, won an Eisner Award in 2013.
His longer comic stories include the humorous Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 (2011) and the graphic novel All The Answers (2018), a bio of Kupperman's father as a child celebrity in the 1940s.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surreal and absurd - original and thought provoking - wonderful retro art. Some of the pages remind you of the old ads you would see in comic books; x-ray glasses and giant inflatable monsters! There is a disturbing undercurrent through the whole book; as if civilization had come full circle - and was cannibalizing itself.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

These tales thrizzled ma nizzle fo' shizzle!

*WARNING*

This great piece of literature is highly contagious and very humorous. I thoughly enjoyed Michael Kupperman's twisted sense of humor. Some of the highlights included:

* Sex Blimps/Sex Holes
* Boy Bank!
* Pagus, Jesus' Half bro
* NSYNC In "Pirate Scum We Are"
* Snake 'N' Bacon
* Night-time Toilet Section
* How to recognize different kinds of trees and the criminals that hide behind them.

Oh, and let me mention one more time Pagus Jesus' half bro and
Snake 'N' Bacon!

Just send $24.95 to Michael Kupperman today and you'll have this totally awesome book that will keep you up late at night laughing in only 3 -5 business days! Don't delay, act now as quantities are limited and going fast, but don't take my word for it!

[Konna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read full review at: http://thereadingarmchair.blogspot.gr...

First of all, there isn't a certain story in Tales Designed to Thrizzle. This is a collection of funny, surreal and crazy stories, as well as various advertisements for imaginary and totally unnecessary products. It's like watching a variety comedy show in comic book form. But this doesn't mean that various characters from the sketches don't return with new adventures. In fact, there are several running gags throughout the volumes. I can't even describe how funny it was when I came across something that begun several pages (and sometimes issues) before.

I cannot really say that there was a sketch or a character that I didn't particularly like, but there were some that I cared more than the rest. Some of my favourites were Snake 'n' Bacon, Twain and Einstein, Cousin Grandpa and Sherlock Holmes vs. Jungle Boy. Especially the first time we encounter Snake 'n' Bacon, they travel back in time and meet Casanova the night he was murdered. One of the greatest mysteries is still unsolved. That's one of the funniest and most memorable stories I've read. Twain and Einstein also have some great adventures especially in the second volume. As for Cousin Grandpa, you should definitely read the Ever Approaching Grandpa! I can't stop laughing! Jesus half-brother, Pagus, has the funniest running gag in the graphic novel.

All in all, Tales Designed to Thrizzle is one of the most memorable and funny graphic novels I've ever read. Although I wouldn't say that it's perfect, I loved it and I would reread it. Actually I'm constantly describing one sketch or another taken from this book to my friends. I would recommend it to those who want something amusing to read, but you should expect that the craziest things are happening just because.

[Patrick Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed these silly stories. It's old fashioned laughs - Mad Magazine via Monty Python and 1980s-style indy satire of a Fantagraphics/Raw Comics variety. It's great fun, but all in a bunch like this it gets a little relentlessly random. It's also hard to find any bite here - it's good-natured chuckling media and that take themselves too seriously - broadwat shows, old fashioned comics, cop shows etc. However, it's beautifully crafted and frequently brilliantly funny and highly recommended.

[tony dillard jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surreal... Absurd... Insane... Funny as Hell...

There's really no better way to describe Michael Kupperman's 'Tales Designed to Thrizzle.' This 2005 comic skewers just about anything. But what makes it so incredible is that every joke is done with complete seriousness. From parodying buddy cop movies with stories starring the duo of Snake n' Bacon (an actual snake and a crispy piece of meat candy) as well as the unlikely pair of Albert Einstein and Mark Twain to the satire of mass media produced comics like a Bazooka Joe wrapper or those found on the back of a cereal box- nothing is sacred like Jesus' half brother, Pagus! And don't forget the Mannister, the man with the superpower to turn into a banister! Or the forbidden history of when America had a prohibition on pleasure unless it took place 5 feet above or below ground; all of which lead to the rich taking flight in sex blimps. (Don't worry, the lower classes got their kicks in underground sex holes..those dirty, dirty sex holes...)

Man, I'm getting sucked up in the absurdity. Mostly, because this was how my brain works. In high school, I was a founding member of 2 guerilla comedy troupes and we'd do all kinds of crazy stuff like this. Only, we either taped it or performed it during lunch... But man, those moments of surreal humor kept my sane during a very rough high school experience and it was great to blow off a little steam laughing my butt off reading this!

My favorite part of these comics are the ads. They parody just about every odd advertisement you'd come across in an old comic book or in the personals of your local newspaper. Don't skip these! Some of them are so off-the-wall that you'll not be able to help yourself with a chuckle or two- like 'Learn How to Fall Down Stairs For Fun or Profit!'

Great stuff that can't be beaten. Not everything is a winner but you can't lose checking out this strange but brilliant series.

Worth Consuming

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious bits of absurd humor doled out in two-three page bursts. Kupperman is an adept visual mimic, skilled at turning out the heavy-lined styles of old woodblock prints and over-the-top ads that used to promise hidden knowledge in Bronze Age comic books.

His sense of humor is fine too, wry, conceptual and always subverting the authority of the visuals that inspired him. John Hodgman is a good comparison. If you don't find a quick hidden history of Sex Blimps and Sex Holes to be promising (because of a loophole, it turns out the flesh trade is legal 10 feet above or below the ground), this may not be for you.

The last volume of the four seems to lose a little inspiration; several of the gags seem like retreads of better, earlier offerings. But it's still good for a lot of laughs.

[Alex Sarll]

And what better for book number 6969 added to my Read shelf on Goodreads? Nice. Dadaist smut, fake ads, and the odd moment of genuine beauty, most often in the 'memories of the thirties' strips. Few pieces last more than a couple of pages, at least until the fourth issue, but in-jokes recur from one issue to the next, and get funnier every time. Somewhere between Viz, Vic Reeves, the best of the daft end of fanzine culture, and the scurrilous spoof volumes which used to be popular around Christmas - think Not 1982 via the letters page of Sex Criminals. Honestly, people had tried describing this book to me years back, and none of them made any more sense than I'm doing now. But it's proper laugh-so-hard-you-can't-repeat-the-joke-when-concerned-companion-asks stuff.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Kupperman is freakin' greater than Pagus, cheese squirted from cow udders and then fashioned into sculptures of Michael McDonald, AND chimpanzee ping pong tournaments...COMBINED. He also happens to be the funniest comic writer I've read in, well, my entire life. If he formed his own religion, I would follow religiously, happily donning whatever kind of body hair stencils he tells me to wear.

[Derek Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read the original individual issues of Tales Designed to Thrizzle 1-4, but this time I read them collected. I absolutely love Kupperman's sense of humor, and something like this stands in stark contrast to his new book, All the Answers. That's a much more serious, autobiographical, and somber narrative. I just felt that, after reading the new book, I needed to go back to earlier comedic material to get a sense of balance.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

ohh I loved this; I choked on my laughter, no joke

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like your facts a little less than factual and your graphic art a little more retro, then Michael Kupperman's compilation Tales Designed To Thrizzle, Volume One is likely to be right up your armadillo-bowling alley. Not that this collection from celebrated indie comics publisher Fantagraphics has any armadillos in it, actually, but there is still plenty of skewed, surreal art within these covers to unsettle your day.

Take for example the "Fabulous Nut Bra," or the recurring glimpses of "The Mannister," a superhero whose power is to... assume the shape of a bannister (although "Sometimes it's just not enough!"). Features like "Johnny Silhouette" and "Tommy Learns about Harbors," and the duotone clarity of "Cousin Granpa," offer spot-on representations of styles that will be familiar to anyone who grew up with the instructional and uplifting comics of the mid-20th Century.

The ads between the features are probably the best part of the book, though. They are perfectly poised on the boundary between nostalgia and neuralgia... like the one for "Indian Spirit Chewing Gum," whose slogan is "Haunted with real dead Indian flavor," or the insanely detailed educational offerings from the "Dr. Learning Series of Booklets."

If you are already a fan of (for example) John Hodgman's deadpan assertions of (I'm sorry, but it's true) made-up facts, but you would have liked to see them illustrated, then this is the collection for you. It will fit you like a key fits a lock, or like a popcorn shell fits the gap between your molars. And while the tales themselves did not always "thrizzle" me, whatever that word's supposed to mean, they did constitute for me an entertaining, light palate-cleanser to read in between novels.

[Trey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilariously absurd. I was laughing out loud.

Sample lines:
"This one started out as a novel, then I realized the story would work better within the medium of pubic hair."

"Pornographic coloring books are so in right now, man... I just went to the drugstore and they were all out of pink crayons."

"Empathovision is sued out of existence after the special program 'Beating of a Lifetime.'"

"Elderly People! Do YOU have adequate Giant Giraffe Insurance? Call 1-800-555-7261 NOW and our caring, sensitive staff will be on hand 24/7 to INSTANTLY defraud you out of your money- I mean, to ensure that you will be insured against the depredations of Giant Giraffe attacks. Ahem."

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually met this guy at my library before I heard of his work. He, his wife, and their toddler son were delightful! The wife seemed to have the more charismatic personality of the two, but maybe he just saves it for his comics. At any rate, I read some of his stuff in a comic compilation book and thought it was so-so. But this book made me laugh outloud many times. Amazing graphics and truly witty writing. Off-the-wall is putting it midly. And I love his out-of-date advertisement style. My favorite, for some reason, was the ads from the Bathroom Council. "Go to the bathroom!"

[Sherrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Clowes, Ware, and Crumb, Kupperman appreciates retro advertising & design - those forgotten back pages of magazines filled with dubious claims and send-away offers. But Kupperman gives his stories of Depression-era America and his noir-satires a huge injection of absurdism for that postmodern touch.

(After you're done with this collection, you too will love Pagus, Jesus' evil half-brother!)

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book has its moments, and the art is pretty great, but a lot of the humor seems to boil down to "look how random this is. Isn't this so zany and rannnndommmm?" I feel like it's trying really hard, and I want to find it funny because of how damn hard it's trying and how many different styles it's trying to lampoon at once, but absorbing all the random just ends up being exhausting.

[The Irrepressible Crank · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I learned from this book? Simple. Don't get on the wrong side of Twain & Einstein. This book is simply the funniest thing I've read since John Hodgman stopped being hilarious and took up tweeting full time. Plus, it has REALLY GOOD PICTURES! Double win.

[Jinny Chung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unfailingly hilarious. Kupperman is truly a fresh piece of somethin' else.

[Ero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute surrealist comic(s) genius from start to finish.

[Nicholas Ball · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael is a talented artist and writer, and I like the general concept of his humour (Snake and Bacon in its original appearance is pitch perfect), but sadly his randomness doesn't always quite align with my humour so I find myself sometimes appreciating the effort but not, say, wanting to go back and reread a gag he did. (The problem is my specific humour, I have the same hit and miss relationship with Glen Baxter)

If you like his artwork and/or random humour then you can easily add a star on to this review.

This is a collection of the first four (of eight) collections of his comic books. I would recommend people in a similar funk to my situation break up reading the book with an imposed break between each comic - originally there would have been months between these issues - turning a few pages and seeing *another* Grandpa surreal comic in such a short time will be more likely to irritate. It's the same way you can get some pleasure reading a weird word in Mrs Byrne's Dictionary every now and then but you wouldn't sit down and read it for a half an hour.

Or perhaps you would! Anyway, Michael has a febrile imagination and a specific style. God bless him for doing what he does - I like a lot of it, but not quite enough to make me an ardent fan.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somewhere between the publication of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and the retirement of Bill Waterson, the funny pages died. A few sheets of corporate wasteland occupy your Sunday comics section with barely a chuckle to be heard, while the closest thing you can find that could charitably be described as a funny book are Archie Comics, running on wheezes that were tired in 1960. What's mostly left is derivation in four color and grim-faced anti-superheroes angsting up the scenery.

Hallelujah then for Michael Kupperman! He returns with his second collection, Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1, which brings under one cover the first four issues of the same-named comic. And comic it sure as hell is. I'm not entirely certain when I've read anything that made me laugh out loud as often as this volume, with the possible exception of Kupperman's debut Snake 'n' Bacon's Cartoon Caberet. Women who've given birth to multiple children and older readers are advised to secure some kind of adult diaper.

While the earlier book was entirely black and white, much like the individual issues of Thrizzle, for this collection Kupperman has done gone and colorized his classics. Where Snake 'n' Bacon had a looseness to it, gags showing up on one page not returning til twenty pages later, and its cast of regular characters, Thrizzle has a much more cohesive feel. There's a structure -- of sorts -- to the whole enterprise, stories are longer and each reprinted issue is broken up into an adult section, a children's section, and an old people's section, though I've yet to determine any meaningful distinction for all that.

The resulting product reads more like boys' magazines from decades past with their mix of comics, prose stories, and advertisements woven in between articles, running down one whole column, or tucked away wherever a spare bit of space presented it. Scroll through Kupperman's TwitPic archives and you'll find that it was just these 1950s mens' and boys' magazines with their eclectic mix of self-improvement, thrilling adventure, sexual titillation, and anti-commie paranoias that inspire the author.

Such material gives Kupperman free reign to try out whichever style of illustration or story suits his fancy. There are charcoal style illustrated stories like the absurdist "Tommy Learns About Harbors" then there's the pistol packing police thriller featuring Albert Einstein and Mark Twain in Silver Age comics style. We're also treated to cameos from Snake 'n' Bacon (for those not in the know, a duo that is literally a piece of bacon and a snake), Sex Blimps, Cousin Grandpa, Dick Crazy, the Manister (a superhero who turns into a banister) and more from Kupperman's first book.

And every so often, Pagus, Jesus' half brother shows up to laugh and teach us about colored eggs.

Sandwiched in between all this glorious, hilarious nonsense, Kupperman finds room for more bizarre fun, lampooning old style magazine ads. Issues are replete with full page ads for things like 4-Playo 3000, the robot that performs foreplay on your wife, leaving you time to do important things like work on your Lyndon Johnson biography.

Or how about Baby Poop'n'Tell's ad which features such telling testimonials like "We've had to move out of our house because of Baby Poop'n'Tell" and "Aside from the constant stream of poop, her shrill, high-pitched voice announcing every fresh poop is making it impossible for me to sleep." Kupperman gets off a few lovely gags here for these products, a little dig at the ridiculous coupons that used to run in comic books where you were instructed to fill it out and answer "Yes" if you wanted the product and "No" if you did not. What was the point of filling out no? Kupperman wonders too, in increasingly alarmed and amused fashion.

Kuppmerman takes culture, high, low, and in between, and he runs it through a shredder, dropping comedy that pivots instantaneously from Shakespeare to a copywriter who can't stop swearing in his advertisements to a Virtual Sitz Bath video game ("all the excitement of an actual sitz bath"). It's an absurdist romp through Western cultural references with Kupperman as your guide.

And every page is full of one laugh more bizarrely induced then the last. What can you do with the completely serious illustration for "Modern Chimp Barbering Romance"? Or Mickey Rourke pitching pubic hair stencils? Or Henry Winkler as The Fonz making a guest appearance in a classic porno coloring book? It's these lovely juxtapositions of the unexpected and the unpredictable that makes Thrizzle such a gut-wrenching exercise in belly laughs. The jokes are absurd, but even better than that, they're funny. Really and truly, "hey-I-gotta-show-you-this" funny.

[Jon Hewelt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a reread for me, and no matter how many times I blaze through it, Tales Designed to Thrizzle always delights and surprises.

Resembling a pulpy comic book from the 195os--up to and including the ads on the back page--Kupperman sends up pop culture touchstones from every decade, through his own unique brand of absurdist humor.

When I was but a wee lad, I understood "absurd" as "random": not strictly speaking, but most examples of absurdist humor I could grasp amounted to random, unconnected elements entering a narrative to catch the reader (me) off guard. And I built my own sense of humor around that understanding. But as I've gotten older, I've realized that absurdist humor is at its funniest when the absurdity is not just a reference but follows through. To put it another way, that which is seemingly illogical is best served by a strong internal logic.

Kupperman has that absurdist internal logic in spades. He doesn't just reference: he crafts a whole world around seemingly incongruous elements. Parallel dimensions spring up within the pages of Thrizzle, to where Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, a snake or a slice of bacon could solve crimes.

And Thrizzle, I might add, is drawn incredibly well. Kupperman captures the "stiffness" of 1950s comic characters, and that combined with didactic, explicit dialogue makes for a very self-referential, wry contrast with some of the more absurd elements.

In short, Tales Designed to Thrizzle is a whole heap of fun. Some of the stories feel a little long, but there's such a wonderful variety of content in here, and the format encourages you to skip around, that no one piece is ever a drag.

Check it out!

[Bruce · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very silly volume. The artwork was deliberately incongruous, mildly entertaining, and occasionally funny. The best jokes were in the text such as the book review of an imaginary history of food, which claims that capers “are created by force-feeding arugula to cats and then waiting three hours” or the ads for “Dr. Learning Series of Booklets” offering such titles as: “WHAT GOES ON INSIDE YOUR EAR? Wouldn’t you like to know? The truth will amaze you.” or “TELLING BABOONS. They won’t listen. But you’ll know how to tell them.” or “MAKE MONEY WRITING. Ransom letters, stick-up notes, etc.” However, for my money, the laugh-out-loud jokes are too few and far between.

[LordSlaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Lord! This is one hilarious taint-tickler of a book. Absurd, sexy, bizarre, violent, insightful, and strange, this volume smacks me right in the funny-bone with its deftly wielded ball-peen hammer of humor. Not since Zippy the Pinhead and Suburban High-Life have I read a book as funny as this. I had to clamp my hand over my mouth for fear I would guffaw too loudly and wake the dog. Read this book. It is a delight!

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes. A million times yes. This is peak dada, absurdism, enmeshed in pulpy Silver Age art and the vulgarity of human existence. Brilliant, hilarious, beautiful, and loaded with sometimes-obscure pop culture. I don't honestly know many people who would find this as funny as I do, but I wouldn't doubt that they are very, very odd.

Snake'n'Bacon forever.

[Dave-O · Rating 2 out of 5]

If vaudeville-style one-liners really tickle your funny bone, this is the book for you. While I really appreciate both the innocence of this kind of humor and the varied drawing styles, the thrizzle is all fizzle.

[Sonic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious! Just bizarre and silly comic-book-style gags that made me laugh through out the whole read. I might get this for my brothers.

[matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

easily the funniest comic I've read in a long long time.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm hella thrizzled!

[Ruz El · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great book. I recommend every one read it.

(I was forced to buy it.)

[Carol Tilley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read #1 long ago, but I enjoyed the chance to read through issues #1 - 4 all at once. If Glen Baxter, Dan Piraro, and Centaur Comics ever made a baby together, Michael Kupperman is his name.