Blubber

Hernandez (Hypnotwist; Scarlet by Starlight) leaves virtually no taboo undepicted in this volume collecting the first five issues of his “Blubber” comic book series. It opens by describing the nightmarishly surreal, scatological mating habits of cryptids called “doogs” and becomes even more shockingly transgressive in the stories that follow. An incontinent professional wrestler disrupts an orgiastic secret ritual, much to the chagrin of the fan who invited him. A priest suffers a sexually charged nightmare featuring zombies and a faun. A cavalcade of characters drawn from superhero and pulp conventions engage in vicious battles and sexually explicit misadventures, often simultaneously. In one of the final stories, a fuzzy snowman-like creature, gazing upon an exaggeratedly buxom woman, quotes Akira Kurosawa: “To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.” In the next panel, the creature, overcome with lust as the woman unbuttons her shirt, exclaims, “The artist has lost all credibility!” This might not sound hysterically funny in the abstract, but readers who encounter the moment after absorbing the unbelievably provocative content preceding it may well find themselves doubled over with laughter.