Chewing Gum in Church (Yikes!) - Softcover

Steven Weissman has published his Yikes! graphic novel series through Fantagraphics; Marvel Comics, Nickelodeon magazine, and many other media outlets have also featured his work. He is the recipient of the industry's Harvey Kurtzman Award and lives in Los Angeles, CA with his wife and son.

Starred Review. The most recent collection of Weissman's whimsically mordant Yikes comics is the first to utilize the traditional four-panel structure of the Sunday funnies, but anyone expecting the standard setup–punch line routine is in for a pleasant, if unsettling, surprise. Combining the "bubblegum" tone and bright color scheme of Bazooka Joe comics with such semicreepy 1960s-era fare as The Addams Family and The Munsters, these bizarre explorations of childhood friendships (not to mention competitiveness and mutual enmity) are hilarious. Weissman milks the jarring collision of sugary cuteness and abject cruelty for all it's worth, and with names like Li'l Bloody (a junior vampire), Kid Medusa, the Pullapart Boy (who literally pulls apart from time to time) and X-Ray Spence, his characters are clearly suited to the task. Stomping on anthills, talking about barf, beating each other up and getting bitten by black widow spiders—these occasionally undead little scamps always seem to be having the time of their lives. Weissman's deployment of vivid pastel colors is equally tongue-in-cheek, but there's more to the art than simple irony. With all its warm, fuzzy morbidity, Chewing Gum in Church gives new meaning to the phrase "sickly sweet." (Aug.)
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