Minimum Wage Book One: Focus On The Strange

Rob Hoffman, protagonist of the original Minimum Wage graphic novel, returns in a new collection that finds him awaiting the finalization of his divorce. He's living at home with his mother, eking out a living drawing pornographic cartoons, and diving back into the sexual hunting ground that is the NYC bar and club scene. Rob's misadventures in and out of the sheets with three women%E2%80%94a stoner with body image issues, a married post-menopausal children's show entertainer, and a superior from his porn industry job%E2%80%94happen in impressively rapid succession, but all are punctuated by the unshakeable memory of his ex-wife, Sylvia. Rob's world is all-too-identifiable, populated with visually distinct and quirky characters possessing a fleshiness that lends realism to the book's many couplings. Thanks to Fingerman's facility as a writer and illustrator, the city lives and breathes as Rob navigates his way through a maelstrom of urban oddity. Fingerman's previous work was always grounded in candid, realistic examination of the human experience and this tale brings readers more of that, the author's ongoing evolution and maturation as a graphic novelist evident. A humorous and trenchant comic for grownups that leaves the majority of its contemporaries in the dust. (Oct.)