Indie Street Reads #38 • 07/21/10
AL BURIAN GOES TO HELL
MIGRAINE
Al Burian holds a special place in my, and presumably most independent comic lovers’, hearts (and not just because he was a columnist at my beloved, now defunct, Punk Planet magazine). He shares this space with someone like Craig Thompson. For, what Burian generally offers is the type of emo autobiography you just can’t set down… the only proof you should need is his seminal work Things Are Meaning Less. With this new extremely personal comic, Burian delves even further into the self-deprecation we all relate to. Here’s the gist: a loose interpretation of Dante’s Inferno told through personal narrative. It would be the understatement of the year to say that our protagonist is conflicted. Often, the things that he loves the most offer the most frustration and he manages to make the reader empathize with extreme precision. As such, I’ve found it impossible to read anything written by Burian without going through cycles of love and hate for the man. Come the last pages, though, it’s always back to a fond appreciation for the crudely drawn maniac. This one is definitely worth picking up, as is the aforementioned Things Are Meaning Less. A side note: it’s impossible not to note the similarities in attitude between Al Burian and Harvey Pekar. Who is Al Burian? RIP Harvey.
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What To Listen To While Reading This Book:
Tortoise – Beacons Of Ancestorship
