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Sam Henderson Reviews

May 1996
The Comics Journal #187
Hit List
By Tom Spurgeon

Last summer marked what should have been phase two of "Get Sam Henderson's stuff in one place where everyone can buy it" project, with the collection of the early "Monroe" strips in Wow Cool's Oh That Monroe. This spring we get phase one: Colorado-based Dodecaphonic Books' nicely- packaged 124-page compilation of Henderson's recent strips from sources as varied and inaccessible as Criel and Unusual Punishment, Snicker, Spec, The Stranger, and various self-produced mini-comics.

There are something like 50-60 strips here, with the longest being seven or eight pages. The brevity suits Henderson and his style of savage, biting, sarcastic humor. Henderson realzies the subject matter often doesn't merit more than one brutal kick-in-the-ass punchline. Some of the best sections feature several one-panel comics on a single page or two-page spread. This isn't moronic humor; Henderson knows what he's doing and some of the more satisfying bits of this book are those strips where he pulls apart and analyzes the humor involved or simply acknowledges a strip's abrupt vapidity.

Better critics than myself have been screaming about Henderson for years, including a number of recommendations right here. With tihs attractive, meaty tome, you no longer have an excuse to ignore them.

The ISBN number, for regular bookstore ordering, is 0-9649329-0-3.