Casanova Frankenstein

The Purpose of Shittiness

Here’s the link to my latest article: http://www.tcj.com/the-purpose-of-shittiness/

It begins:

I can’t think of another one-page story – and I’m a guy who’s read “The Complete Lydia Davis” – with more concentrated truth or – okay, queasy-making – laughs than “Why Comics Are Better Than Films,” on page 2 of Casanova Frankenstein’s “In the Wilderness” (FU Press. 2019).
Here’s the thesis, delivered by a single character roughly resembling the author, in nine panels straight to the viewer. In a movie, bite off a dog’s penis, or lick the seat of a filthy toilet bowl, or fling a baby against a wall, you catch flak from an animal rights group, or risk fatal disease, or get busted for snuffing an infant. But in comics… ART!

Alone

My latest piece is up at http://www.tcj.com/reviews/purgatory-a-rejects-story/. I think it lost its title (“Alone”) but it begins:

As Tolstoy almost said, in high school, all alternative cartoonists are the same.
Bullied.
Ridiculed.
Shunned.
No one who has read R. Crumb (or any of several others) will be surprised by “Purgatory (A Rejects (sic) Story),” by Casanova Nobody Frankenstein (F.U. Press. 2017). But it still impales the heart.
Crumb, at least, had sisters and brothers.
Crumb, at least, was white.

The Wild One is Thirty-eight

My latest piece is up at http://www.tcj.com/reviews/82891/. (Again I apologize for my inability to provide a clickable link.)

It begins

The first story in the comic The Adventures of Tad Martin, #Sick Sick Six ((Teenage Dinosaur and Profanity Hill. 2015), by Casanova Frankenstein, “the artist, formally (sic) known as Al Frank,” is entitled “Tad Martin Vs. Popeye Rape-Whistle in The Secrets of Corpse-Fucking.” The publisher believed me the perfect person to review it. One week later, a journal editor had the same idea. I was flattered by the attention. At the same time, I thought, How the hell did Creative Writing 101a get me here?