R. Sikoryak

A fairly amusing gimmick. Some of the quote and cover pairings worked better than others, and some of the connections seemed pretty tenuous. But, my favorite was Trump as Tubby from Little Lulu. The two seem perfectly matched, separated at birth even. I'd like to see a whole book of Tubby covers and Trump quotes.

It's always a good idea to re-read the Constitution every once in a while, if only to remind yourself how maddeningly vague and annoyingly specific it is. And if the complete text is presented in a format that pays homage to more than a century of comic strip and comic book history, well all the better!

Each page becomes a guessing game of recognizing characters and classic comic book covers (with a sort of answer key in the back). I counted up more than 300 recognizable characters from the show more offensive Yellow Kid to the diverse cast of Lumberjanes. The cast of Dykes to Watch Out For shares a spread with that of Adventure Time. The Far Side is paid tribute across from a sampling of Adrian Tomine. Barbie and Linda Barry's Marlys are contrasted. All the characters are illustrated in garb appropriate for the 1780s.

Sikoryak does a damn good job of capturing all the different art styles, though it's not really specified if he is doing it freehand or by tracing or digitally manipulating the originals. Looks good regardless. show less

This is a work of genius. It reprints Apple’s iTunes terms and conditions, but each page puts some of the text into a reworked comic page. Flipping through inherently challenges your comics knowledge—I was better than I thought I might be at superheroes, I remembered the newspaper comics I hadn’t seen for years instantly, and I’m deficient at indies though some are distinctive enough to come through. And the contrasts between image and text are somewhere between hilarious and show more disturbing—for example, when the Family Circle page shows the mother surrounded by children harrying her and we see the list of things you can’t do with Apple’s services (infringe copyright, defame someone, etc.). show less

This was never supposed to work as any kind of genuine narrative, and for the most part it doesn't, but every now and then, in amongst the incredibly brilliant in-jokes and pastiche, and the completely absorbing game of spot-the-reference (helpfully fully detailed in the end notes) there are moments here within panels that achieve a quite brilliant synchronicity between cultural-historical reference and contemporary legalese.