Nilbert – Ted Dave’s chronically depressed anti-office loser – is back. And so is this hodgepodge of comic talent, interviews (The Human Lard Dog), short essays (Convenience Stories) and long essays (Rob Dayton’s enjoyable homage to Captain Marvel). Notable efforts include Colin Upton’s The People United, a bleak rain soaked autobiographical story about failing miserably to register dissent against the ham fisted BC Liberals. Colin protests, but just can’t get into it, and concludes, ultimately, that “The People, United, are fucked.” There is a kind of white lower middle class angst to this comic. You find it in Nilbert and Upton and again in Data Entry, a comic featuring a bored office worker, and in Candid by Funnies, in which a bored woman sits on her couch with a parallel story portraying a biker getting into a smash-up in a bar. Despite the hate-my-life overtones, this is a fun, well put together comic totally worth spending your time and money on. (Hal Niedzviecki)
comic, Julian Lawrence, $5, PO Box 78069, 2606 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5N 5W1