A Softer World: Truth and Beauty Bombs

A Softer World #1

by Joey Comeau, Emily Horne

A Softer World is a thrice weekly webcomic by Canadians Joey Comeau and Emily Horne. It first came online on February 7, 2003. Early comics had been published, intermittently, in zine form. With the launch of the website, the comic has gained wider recognition, most notably when Warren Ellis linked to the comic on his blog, and then began to feature it as a "Favored Puny Human". The comic won the first Web Cartoonists' Choice Award for photographic webcomic in 2007. It often appears in The Guardian and was profiled in the September 2007 issue of the Australian Rolling Stone. reprints the first 180 strips.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Humor, Webcomic, Poetry, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

191 pages, Paperback

First published July 20, 2011

About the author

Joey Comeau is a Canadian writer. He is best known for his novels Lockpick Pornography and Overqualified, and as co-creator of the webcomic A Softer World (with Emily Horne).

Comeau currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. He has a degree in linguistics.

Reviews

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you aren't already a raving, lunatic fan of the webcomic A Softer World, go to its website, [http://www.asofterworld.com], and mend your evil ways. Or buy this book. And then go to the website.

In more pertinent news, A Softer World: Truth and Beauty Bombs contains some the most darkly hilarious, hilariously dark, and just plain strange photo comic strips ever assembled. Joey Comeau and Emily Horne are made out of pure, unfiltered genius. With a jigger of crazy and a tot of MAGIC, of course.

[Erin Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as a teenager, and loved the odd romantic one. I thought it was like instagram poetry and decided to toss it. Re read it and realized it is just hilariously dark. I think I’ll keep it after all.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn’t fully get every page, but found many to be fantastic. Reminded me a little of post secret.

I have the next two volumes.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

the content of the poems/comics is very much of its time — in like, tasteless-in-retrospect and occasional bouts of lolrandom comedy — but the genius of the format is as good as i remember from when i first read these, like, at least a decade ago at now. a few brilliant ones for sure.

[Dessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only four slurs by my count (ha ha ha) which isn’t bad for an early 2000s webcomic I suppose. I spent the first half of this book thinking about how these comics are kinda like poems, or koans, and then the second half thinking about how the comics are kind of a set of jokes, but jokes that are also poems. And yet, at the same time, I think that jokes rely on a sense of tension, surprise, or juxtaposition, and how sometime that can feel mean spirited in a way that even poems don’t feel mean spirited. Hence the slurs. So. Three stars, but man — honestly just a very iconic piece of Canadian indie lit / internet in the 00s, and some of these koans / comics remain very dear and funny to me.

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect combination of love, quiet desperation and crude jokes

[Elyon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and dark, but never satiric, this is an important work. Joey comeau has mastered the art of painting an instant and all its implications with a sentence. While the words are often fictitious they speak about truth in a way the real world cannot: with hyperbole and imagined circumstance that hint at emotions truer than any ever penned. Truth and beauty bombs makes the viewer feel they have been pulled into a place that mirrors our own, and touches on things our universe cannot. It really is a softer world.

[Laura Belle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading a Softer World from the website for years. I have shared strips with my dad, sisters, brother and mom. A Softer World runs the gamut from hilarious to thought provoking. I have often come across one strip or another that describes exactly how I am feeling without being able to put it in words myself. I greatly look forward to owning this book one day.

[Daryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Softer World has something for everyone. Whether you enjoy the funny, the contemplative, or the sad, Joey Comeau's small little sentences hit you straight to the heart in a wonderful and gripping way. These pictures and poetic words stick with you and follow you into your own life and problems. I constantly read and reread A Softer World.

[Science For The People]

Featured on Skeptically Speaking's special episode "Smart Comics for Smart People" on September 7, 2011, during an interview with comic author Joey Comeau. http://skepticallyspeaking.ca/news/we...

[Mellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite web comic, and there's something wonderful about being able to hold it in your hands. The only thing to make me pause in reading was to go find people to show the pages I found particularly brilliant.

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

often irreverent, beautiful, melancholic, sometimes all at once

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

A combination of poetry, prose and photography that manages to be outrageous, irreverent, damn funny, achy, contemplative, evocative and occasionally transcendent.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too many of them are too depressing, but the artistry is beautiful and every once in a while there's one that made me laugh out loud

[Han · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the good old days written this comic was good. It's sadly since jumped the shark but this takes me back.

[Kara Fraser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clever, dark and sometimes sublime.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Halloween read. Dark and inappropriate humor at its finest.

[Isaac Torres · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange mix of melancholy, philosophy and dark humour. Totally worth the read. Will leave you thinking... or maybe not.