Abysmalation: Collected Short Works

Abysmalation is a book by a Josh Bayer, (author of Ignatz-nominated Theth, Tomorrow Forever, creator of the comics anthology Suspect Device, editor and writer for All Time Comics) collecting an array of fast and loose comics and obscure short pieces on everything from an acid trip to imagining himself the new artist of Garfield to an anecdote about encountering Daniel Johnson. The work here ranges from personal to experimental, some completed in ink, some scrawled in pencil on the backs of his gas bill. Reading these, you get a sense of someone using a pen to channel and rise above the demons of anxiety, paranoia, and depression with the full force of an unstoppable, macabre creative mind. 

"Bayer’s melty character design and anarchic, scribbly sensibility merges with a rock-solid sense of composition; the book is set like pages pulled from a notebook photographed on a messy countertop. This varied, frequently confrontational, and unsparing introduction to Bayer’s aesthetic offers rewards for readers who stick with parsing his riotous quavery line." –Publishers Weekly