Confessions of a Cereal Eater - Hardcover

Maisch, Rob; Hampton, Bo; Hampton, Scott; Plunkett, Sandy; Holmes, Rand

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1561631418 ISBN 13: 9781561631414

Publisher: Nbm Pub Co, 1996

Synopsis

Hereıs Plymptonıs next feature-length animated movie in preparation: a goofy take-off on Œ50's teen horror movies replete with bouffant hairdos and dead teens returning as avenging skeleton zombies! The local soda jerk manager relates the tale of Cheri and Spud, the most unlikely couple you can imagine. One is the queen of the prom, the other a nerd who screws up on her so bad he has to become her slave. With more lunatic reversals than you can shake a Œplymptoonı at, it turns out Cheri gets closer to Spud and loses her football hero boyfriend but with rather tragic consequences. Donıt miss this graphic novel premiere of Plymptonıs next feature!

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Maisch's second volume of autobiographical stories is puerile and dull. The author clearly prides himself on the pranks he has pulled over the course of his life, but they neither amuse nor ring true. The stories are reasonably funny and well-observed when they concern Maisch's misspent youth, but obnoxious when they portray the protagonist in later years, since he doesn't seem to have progressed in wit or inventiveness. For example, "A Quiet Evening at Home" recollects how recent divorced Maisch spent a night in with his girlfriend, dumped a bucket of snow on her in the shower and made her do a striptease on his cabin's porch for the benefit of his neighbors. It's no surprise the next story begins immediately after she's left him. The perpetual frat-boy tone might have worked if Maisch had some distance or insight on these events, perhaps by presenting a narrative in which he learns from his experiences. Unfortunately, each story is simply another increasingly unfunny episode in his life. The volume's saving grace is the art, much of it by new talents from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Paul Hudson's polish and cheeky sense of fun almost salvages "A Quiet Evening at Home." Nick Rummel's angular style and heavy lines fit in perfectly with a story about a group of college guys looking for (and, of course, finding) trouble in the local nightlife. And Robyn Chapman's soft pencils and almost pointillist backgrounds give an air of sensitivity to a clumsily written tale of young romance.
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From Booklist

The latest toiler in the autobiographical comics field comes to the genre as a raconteur rather than an artist. For years, Maisch has regaled friends with exceptionally well observed tales of his not particularly atypical life. Some of those friends are prominent comics artists, and they offered to illustrate the stories, resulting in this book. Maisch's earlier recollections range from the bittersweet remembrance of his first junior-high dance to the far less romantic retelling of how a friend lost his virginity to a prostitute (both stories are beautifully illustrated in a Frazetta-like style by Scott Hampton). Elsewhere, Maisch combines sentiment with adult realism in telling how he brought a washed-up cowboy star who'd been his childhood hero to the shopping mall where he toils as a publicist. Maisch lacks the philosophical insight of Harvey Pekar or the naked self-criticism of R. Crumb, but his gentler, nostalgia-steeped approach, reminiscent of monologuist-writer Jean Shepherd, ought to appeal to those looking for more warmth than bite in memoir-comics. Gordon Flagg

About this edition

• Publisher: Nbm Pub Co
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 1561631418
• ISBN 13: 9781561631414
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 64