The cover of this third edition of Hoax features a massive purple brain plunked in the middle of a construction site. It’s a fitting image because this weirdo comic requires some definite hard labour to wrap your skull around. Featuring a number of stark black and white comics, Hoax offers a lot of variety, both from a visual and visceral perspective. There’s a temptation to call this work heavy handed because it relies too much, at times, on such DIY hallmarks as profanity, sex, death and politics. However, these tales are so deliciously warped that even these tired themes are made to seem fresh. The most engaging of these comics is “The Red and the Blue,” a pretty morose tale about the banalities of the Christmas season and the chasm that exists between broken families. This story would no doubt ring true for a lot of us, but it’s not sensationalized in the slightest. Rather, it works because it nails realism to a tee and thoughtfully expresses the meandering nothingness of easing into middle age. On top of that, you’ve got a warped little tattler about a couple of feisty-looking fetuses (umbilical chords intact) plus some other comics and a calendar that helped mark various occasions of war, drugs, religion and all the rest of that crap. An effort that is bound to make you brood-in a good way. (Cameron Gordon)
Comic, #3, 36 pgs., $4 CDN, $2.95 US, Mental Note Press, PO Box 230322, Grand Rapids, MI, 49523, U.S.A., www.mentalnotepress.com, [email protected]