Stir-Fry Cinema Podcast Series

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Petey & Pussy

Petey & Pussy
Genre: Graphic Novel

Written and Illustrated by John Kerschbaum


Publisher: Fantagraphics

Release Date: October 29th 2008





     Petey & Pussy is the story of a dog and cat with human heads, and the adventures and misadventures they find themselves in.  With a slew of other animal characters and very few humans, these two balding anthropomorphics occupy the bulk of the story.  This is not actually a good thing, though.

     I did not enjoy this book.  ANY of this book.  It seemed, as I read it, that it had absolutely nothing to recommend it whatsoever.  I only finished it because it was short, and I was tenacious, determined to find some humor in it.  Unfortunately for me, I failed miserably in that task.

     The story is unimaginative and boring.  There are many small asides to it, but the straightforward plot is this.  Petey is a gross and mannerless stray dog, who is friends with Pussy, a cat who wars glasses.  And once again, yes, they have HUMAN heads.  The bulk of the story surrounds trying to retrieve Pussy's glasses when they fall down a storm drain.  there's also a suicidal parrot, Bernie, who wants nothing more than for Pussy to kill him.  There is a mouse that Pussy repeatedly tells how badly he wants to kill.  Most disturbingly, there is a nasty old woman (Pussy's owner) who apparently suffers from dementia and likes to put things up her cat's namesake.  Yep.

     The writing is equally boring.  I think the extent of Kerschbaum's "idea" was to swear a lot and try to be as grotesque as possible, presumably to shock his readers into laughing.  I'm not easily offended, not by any stretch of the imagination.  I am relatively certain, however, that I did not actually laugh once.

     The art is equally sophomoric.  Unique though his style may be, being unique is NOT the same thing as being good.I'm sure there are people out there who greatly revere his artistic "talents" but I'm sorry, I'm simply not one of them.  Also, what he lacked in quality and creativity, he certainly didn't make up for in variety.  Pages go by with nearly identical panels and nothing else.  At one point, I think I stopped looking at the art altogether.  His work seems better suited to the "daily newspaper strip" format than to full length comics, because that is about all I can stomach of it.

     I have tried to find positive things to say about the book.  Oh, have I tried.  Sadly, I just can't.  As I said before, it truly had no redeeming qualities for me.  Not one.  If you have read this and disagree, by all means, leave a comment with your take on it.  Maybe you can help me see it in a more appreciative light.  For now, though, I suppose there is ONE good thing I can say for it:

     At least it's short.

Story: 1 out of 5
Art: 1 out of 5 (at least it's not stick figures)
Overall Rating: 1 out of 5

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