Real Americans Admit: “The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done!”

    (NBM)
™ and © NBM

It’s rare in the world of comics to have a writer solicit people on the street for story ideas. The last writer one might suspect of taking this route would be controversial and highly opinionated editorial cartoonist Ted Rall. But this is, nonetheless, what Rall did for this volume, and the results are often more scathing than some of Rall’s own work.

This book is a series of short tell-all confessionals by uncredited and often anonymous people, as adapted by Rall. Years ago, Rall made a point to ask every person he met what they considered to be the worst thing they had done in the course of their lives. Compiling this volume from a number of the replies, Rall proves that the most perversely entertaining stories are the ones that are true.

Not that all of these stories are entertaining in the pleasing sense, as the title suggests. Most are dark, disturbing, or disquieting. One writer confesses to once locking a rival from his teen years in a casket, an experience that scarred the victim for life. Another admits to a period of his life that centered on nothing besides devising the demise of his neighbor’s cat. These aren’t bedtime stories, folks.

But they’ll somehow appeal to the morbid and darker side in many readers. Rall has unapologetically provided a series of compelling stories that instill a sense of guilt, but not one strong enough to prevent the reader from turning the page.

— Jim Johnson
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