Crass Sophisticate

Posted: Tuesday, October 3, 2006
By: Darren Schroeder

Cover of Crass Sophisticate Creator(s): Josh Reinwald, Justin and Breat Rosenberg
Publishers: Self Published
From: USA
Price: $1.50 (US)

In which a man gets drunk, smears poo on his face, gets into a fight and upsets his girlfriend by pooing his pants. Plus there's another story in which another man explains in quite a lot of detail why he would never, ever make love with another man.

I've never really been convinced that poo makes a satisfactory subject matter for story telling. People usually want nothing to do with it and that's probably a sensible thing, unless you aim to make your fortune in sewerage systems or laxatives. Poo doesn't entertain me at all. It gets my attention all right. But, that's it. This comic's use of it did nothing useful with my attention. I read on and all I got was more poo, some swearing and a fist fight. So what? Who cares? I don't.

The second shortest story was more interesting. The character's detailed description of a loving, homosexual liaison that he immediately disavows is funny and strangely touching. I can't help feeling it would make the character happier than he is willing to admit. After all the poo, this touch of humanity was intriguing.

Both stories are illustrated in a messy, scribbly style that hasn't reproduced very well. The line work is thin and scratchy. The character designs themselves, are engaging, with expressive faces and three dimensional cohesion. These features come together to create a messy underground comic that for the most part fails to engage the reader, but has hints of talent.

In a Word: Scatilogical.



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