Review: "Crowbars Don't Kill People...CROWBARS Do", Volume 1

You know already whether or not you're going to be into this. The cover of this book doesn't lie. Scratchy, amateurish scrawling with what appears to be a Bic pen, tasteless gags, and lots of blood (oh, the book, even though it mostly in black & white, is printed in color so the blood can be red...nice touch, really...)

It probably shouldn't work as well as it does. But the thing is that, about half the time, it actually works...sort of. The author, identified only as "Matian" has some gags and even though his or her artistic skill may be limited, the gags are presented effectively and they are sometimes very funny.

But Matain, more than anything, needs an editor. There's some truly really funny stuff in here, even if you take out the gags that fall flat (and many do), there's enough here for 3 or 4 good issues of a digest-sized 'zine. This obviously wasn't Matian's intent though, because the book is identified as a "coffee table book" so it would appear that he/she meant for it to be this big.

It's a shame really, because ultimately the gags that misfire wind up obscuring the ones that don't, and by the time you're looking at a panel of a shirtless teacher murdering his students on the third-to-last page (SPOILER ALERT!) you're kind of punch-drunk and maybe not remembering the funnier parts of this book.

I can't figure out how much this thing's gonna cost you, but I recommend you head over to www.brokennoses.com and check out the work for yourself. You'll know pretty soon whether or not you're into it.