by Brad Sun. Look, we can all appreciate thematically ambitious, genre pushing, life changing graphic literature, but sometimes you just want to read something stupid that’ll rot your brain. There’s a long history of dumb comics hidden away in textbooks, confiscated by teachers, and thrown in the trash by angry moms, and continuing this venerable tradition is Superfuckers Forever by James Kochalka, a new “for immature audiences only” series about the everyday lives of an offbeat team of alleged superheroes. I say “alleged” because despite the costumes and powers, we never really see them doing anything heroic. Amusingly, most of the short vignettes in issue one take place in media res, after the epic universe-altering adventuring has finished and our heroes are free to lounge around their house and act like obnoxious dumbasses.
Superfuckers Forever may be profane, but it doesn’t seem to be aiming for maximum shock value either. Sure, it’s ironic to see Kochalka’s colorful and deliberately childlike characters talking about sex and drugs, but his illustrations are also genuinely charming and interesting, bringing a dose of cuteness to all the crudity. Likewise, his humor is a heady blend of grade school tomfoolery filtered through the brain of a 40-something cartoonist. One gag, playing on the word “wiener” meaning both a hot dog and a penis, is exactly the kind of thing mischievous kids would giggle about during recess. Children have always been nastier and smarter than the entertainment they’re given, and this book is ultimately for them… if they can find a way to get their hands on it, that is.
But what about the rest of us? The grown men and women who will actually be the ones allowed to buy this thing? Personally, I found Superfuckers Forever to be fun but mostly forgettable, an enjoyable little oddity to be consumed and then discarded, hopefully to be picked up by the aforementioned youngsters that would really get a kick out of it. Even still, there’s something wonderful about a comic that’s so clearly the freeform mind splatter of its author, presented without agenda simply for his own amusement. Comicdom could use more books like Superfuckers Forever, works that eschew any pretense of respectability in order to bask in the ambiance of some authentically trashy fun.
IDW Publishing/$3.99
Written by James Kochalka and Jake Lawrence.
Art by James Kochalka and Jake Lawrence.
6 out of 10
