Friday, November 7, 2008

The Man Who Loved Breasts

The Man Who Loved Breasts - Robert Goodin (Top Shelf, 32p $4)
This comic contains three stories, all written and drawn by Robert Goodin.  The book gets its title from the first of the three pieces. There is no better way to get a sense of the look and feel than a six page preview on the publisher's site

The Man Who Loved Breasts tells us about Stanley, a man who works in an unfulfilling, repetitious and dead-end job for years. He decides that he needs a change, and that he should be doing something he is passionate about, but there is nothing that he is actually passionate about, or so he thinks at first. After a bit of consideration it comes to him... Breasts. He is passionate about breasts. He loves them all equally. 

A number of things are sort of funny about this. Other than a giant phallic nose, there really doesn't seem to be much of anything overly sexual about his desire to see and touch and be around bare breasts as much as possible. He's a guy who wants to handle boobs, which seems pretty sexual, but it is more like it fills a need in him than that it arouses him. The vocation he finds to satisfy his need is that of custom bra salesman. In that job, he actually helps people. I am not a lady, mind you, but even my mother laments the days when there were people who helped you find the exact right fit for a bra. Yeah, the idea of it being a guy seems a bit creepy, but I dunno... So this dream of his is going great until the new feminism of the late 60's comes along burning bras in it's wake and putting him out of business. Fortunately for him, the boob gods don't seem to condemn suicide. I enjoyed it and thought it was fairly clever.

George Olavatia: Amputee Fetishist - This is a strange one too. A strange man is in a clinic, about to give a semen sample for testing. The whole thing is his trying to communicate that he can't get aroused by anything short of an amputee. It is another sort of interesting study of people's desires not being easily explained to others.

A 21st Century Cartoonist in King Arthur's Court - This one made me laugh a lot. It is a pretty straight forward gag. It kind of underlines the fact that although we are awash in miracles and innovations, how many of us know even to a basic degree just how any of it works. 

I enjoyed this. 

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