Hotwire Comix & Capers

When was the last time you were truly shocked by a comic? Take a look at this collection and you could be. Editor and bad boy cartoonist Head has created an anthology that seeks to recapture the spirit of the underground comics movement. The stories range from the outrageous—like Head's own lurid, over-packed, ultra-violent noir pastiche "Mindless Thrills!"—to the surreal, like Max Anderson's wordless tale "Car Boy." Other tales are subtly melancholy—"Family Circus" by Carol Swain—or the just plain strange—a retelling of the story of Faust in the style of Jim Davis (R. Sikoryak's "Mephistofield"). The only thread connecting the divergent styles of storytelling and art is the unlikelihood that any of these stories would be published by the mainstream comics industry. Although the story approaches vary so greatly that readers might be confused, this collection manages to capture the anarchic outsider spirit of good subversive cartooning. (June)