On the sixth page, he tells his therapist: “I’ve always told jokes, Doc.” The next paragraph begins a flashback in a direct manner: Which is true. Go back as far as I can remember, and I’m telling jokes. In fact I think he’s right, it was a defense; or it began as a defense. At home, at school. My father, big bastard, keeping that pub in the Mile End road, always handy with his belt. And so on, into the comic’s childhood.
