Tales Designed to Thrizzle Volume Two

“Some say the bathtub was invented in hell by the Devil himself! Others believe that it represents a subconscious desire of man to submerge himself in his own excrement.” Welcome to “Scary Bathtub Stories” just one of the multiple worlds within this sidesplitting second collection of Kupperman’s droll and imaginative satirical comics. While perhaps a teeny bit less revelatory than the first volume, there’s plenty of fun, as with “Saint Peter Comics”—he teams up with Quincy, M.E.—or the ongoing adventures of Mark Twain and Albert Einstein, drawn to look nearly identical, who venture into space only to have to fight pesky ghosts in their spaceship. Meet Jungle Princess, who must rescue her fashion magazine Big City Fashion from the wiles of Tigerboss before succumbing to the Senior Citizen, who fills its pages with unhip ads for insurance. Kupperman deploys a stunning arsenal of art styles to bring home the laughs, from stilted woodcut art to a kind of Tintin lite. It’s a good thing this is a sturdy hardcover—it’s made to stand up to the spasms of laughter that will overcome readers again and again. Kupperman is pretty much his own genre of humor now. (Feb.)