Fractured fairy tales? They're nothing compared to The Arsenic Lullabies.
Randy:
One of the more unusual small publisher efforts I first saw at a Small Press Expo was Arsenic Lullaby, an anthology book by a single creator that featured some truly disturbed, and often hilariously funny, material. Now he's back with a new #1 and a slightly altered title.
Don:
I'm a fan of twisted humor. My appreciation of The Collected Prison Funnies and other books is a testament to that fact. In Arsenic Lullabies, though, I encounter a creator who doesn't just cross the line, he pole-vaults over it.
The Arsenic Lullabies #1
written & illustrated by Douglas Paszkiewicz
Don:
A teenage girl hides her pregnancy and when the time comes to deliver, she discards her child. A kindergarten student approaches a bizarre man who help her deal with a young boy who bullies her at school. A man gets even with his dismissive wife by refusing to come to her defence in the face of a strange threat. Hilarity ensues.
Randy:
It seems only fair to begin the review with the same warning that I've seen Paszkiewicz and company offer so many times: Arsenic Lullabies is not for everyone. There's good taste, just within the bounds of good taste, just outside the bounds of good taste, tasteless and then there's The Arsenic Lullabies. A few glances at the samples on the website or in these pages include gags about Auschwitz, Anthrax, zombie fetuses, teenager mothers abandoning their babies in toilets, child molestors and a truly twisted take on the tooth fairy.
However, if you've got a broad enough sense of humor and are remarkably hard to offend, this book is laugh-out-loud funny. Part of it is just the same reaction you get when anyone dares to be this outrageous, but Paszkiewicz definitely has a sense of comic timing and manages to convey his ideas in a way that is hilarious. I'm reminded in some ways of The Far Side, with some of the most bizarre recurring characters, although it's a little more out there than Gary Larson ever got. The opening gag about initial attempts at delivering Anthrax was hysterical, and I have to admit that I get a huge kick out of the cynical and completely immoral Voodoo Joe.
Don:
Randy, I think you know I'm not easily offended by any stretch of the imagination. I have a twisted sense of humor and an appreciation of black comedy. Too often, though, my impression of Paszkiewicz's work was that he was aiming for shock value. Some of the ideas are clever, but I just wasn't amused. It seemed as though he took the most taboo of possible subject matter and combined it with humor not to comment on society, but solely to offend. I don't see the greater comment here, just some sophomoric, lowbrow schticks.
There are elements in the book that didn't fall into that category, though. Aliens being enraged that their sun had been named for some schlub's wife struck me as quite clever, for example, and it spoke to mankind's limited perspective, how we cannot think beyond ourselves.
Randy:
There is a bit of a feel of "let's get our friends together and put on a show" with Arsenic Lullabies, which is to say it isn't the most professional production you'll ever run across. The print quality is a small step up from mini-comics, and even the humorous warning about typos at the front has a missing word typo in it. There are misspellings and dropped words galore. However, the pacing of the strips, whether they're one-page gags or a few pages, is pretty solid, speaking to an ability to communicate that is at the heart of the cartoonist's trade.
For more information about The Arsenic Lullabies, visit
