Daily Delirium

    (Fantagraphics, 2003)
™ and © Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

Even when life is good, it can still really suck, at least according to Prado. But those blessed with a comfortable existence can still find enough to grumble about in the form of such day-to-day annoyances as consumerism, office politics, and lazy people. Not content to just grouse about such things over the dinner table, Prado has made his gripes into an art form, polishing them into bite-size nuggets where the true irony and absurdity of these issues shine brightly.

This volume contains dozens of these bits, some new and some collected over the years from Heavy Metal magazine. His first tale, “Put a Dino in Your Life,” typifies the entire collection: In a post-Jurassic Park consumer market in which dinosaurs appear on everything from bumper stickers to bedsheets, vendors try to peddle pet dinosaurs to impressionable youngsters and soft-hearted parents. But one fed-up dad will have no part of it, explaining that, when he was a kid, no one ever asked for a pet dinosaur, blah, blah, blah.

Other tales lack this surrealistic element, but only because Prado is able to convey his point without it. Other comics focus on the mundane, but there are few that embellish it with such frankness, clarity, and humor, which only serve to remind us that these kinds of irritations are meant to be laughed at, not dwelled upon.

— Jim Johnson
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