This 200-page, double-volume set has something for everyone. The after-midnight edition from over 60 artists’ cartoon “diaries” has a range from strange to serious to outrageously funny nighttime adventures. If you’re an insomniac, this collection will make you feel right at home. There is no shortage of after-hours partying keeping people up either. Another common theme is the recollection of childhood nights; the monsters that disturbed your young nights are graphed out according to age, and a first all-nighter is remembered. The Drip by Hob is one of the more serious tales in the compilation. He sketches out his stressful duties as a night nurse in an intensive care unit with little backup and people’s lives resting in his hands. One particularly sad strip by Patty Leidy touches on the amount of wakefulness our sleep may allow, just enough to know something is amiss, only to wake and realize your lover is dead and will never return to bed. A teenage favorite is Mari Naomi Schaal’s late night sneak in. She feels a suspicious sensation, and, upon flicking the light switch, finds both herself and her boyfriend covered in freshly acquired menstrual blood. Just then her mother’s footsteps approach, and she enters to narrowly miss said boyfriend running into the closet and to discover Mari desperately wiping blood off herself. There were only a few pieces that didn’t capture my interest. Overall, this is a great collection of artists and their works; one you should tell your cartoon-loving friends about. (heze douglas)
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