Word: comical
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...tragicomic ensemble story about a combustible family, The Corrections ($26; 568 pages) has the absorbing treacheries of married life, the comic squalors of cruise-ship travel and the shenanigans of global capitalism. It also has language that builds in powerful, rolling strides. And it has characters, the separately unraveling Lamberts, who get very deeply under your skin. So who can blame the amiable and soft-spoken author, Jonathan Franzen, if he sounds a little cheeky these days? "You can get a million people to read your book in this country," he says. "It's not a tiny audience for fiction...
...finish of last year's comedy High Fidelity arrives when the snarling, hyperactive record-store clerk played by comic actor Jack Black delivers a soulful rendition of the Marvin Gaye song Let's Get it On. He can sing!, the viewer gasps. The pleasures of Tenacious D (Epic), the self-titled debut from a rock duo composed of Black and fellow actor/singer/guitarist Kyle Gass, flow from a similar revelation: Black and Gass set themselves up as buffoons with titles like Karate Schnitzel, then proceed to defy expectations with precise guitars, polished vocal harmonies and slamming backup musicians. Their tunes, informed...
...strength of "Legal Action Comics" is the diversity of contributors, making it a must-have for anyone interested in the variety of comic styles out there. However, unwary readers should not expect the most hi-brow material when it's in support of a guy who calls himself "Dirty" Danny. All of the pieces mean to be humorous and Tony Millionaire provides several of the best of these. My favorite contribution of his reads like a devastating, thinly-veiled reference to Rall, about a vicious, self-pitying giant snake roaming around the desert seeking love from the things it devours...
...they continue to behave like actors when they have guitars strapped over their shoulders. As much as their enthusiasm for rock 'n' roll enlivens every fist-pumping riff, it's their flair for performance that makes Tenacious D worth listening to. Black assumes the voice of an array of comic characters on the album, from a sex-obsessed buffoon on "Kielbasa" to a lonely Don Juan rock star on "The Road" (the latter has been praised for its veracity by no less an expert than Dave Grohl, of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, who contributes drumming on the record.) He also...
Likewise Dan Clowes hasn't been heard from since he started working on the "Ghost World" movie, based on his own comic and now an indy hit. "Eightball" #22 (September) contains all-new, vaguely inter-related stories of one to three pages that will be completely self-contained. Clowes' slightly surreal, mordantly funny stories read like devastating critiques of America's mainstream and fringe cultures. They are not to be missed...