Never As Bad As You Think – Collected HC

Never As Bad As You Think (Boom! – Immonen / Immonen)

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN artist Stuart Immonen teams up with HELLCAT writer Kathryn Immonen for a fascinating original graphic novel! NABAYT tracks the alarming failures of paranoid urbanites, murderous waitstaff, heart-broken ambulance drivers, mariachi bands, talking cats and dogs, people who like cake and many who wield knives for a variety of purposes. This full-color printing contains all 52 strips from the Immonens’ year-long web project along with two new strips and fresh, revealing bios in a perfect-bound deluxe edition hardcover designed by the House of Immonen. A gorgeous collection in a handsome limited edition!

I usually struggle with buying something that you can read online for free, in almost every case it seemed that it ends up being just an impulse buy that was a reaction to a fanboy’s need to have on his shelf rather than just being happy with reading it as often as he would like. This is the first project in a long time to challenge by belief on this.

NABAYT was an online comic where every strip was based on a random sentence or word (chosen from Illustrationfriday.com). This hardcover collects the fifty-two strip with a couple added bonuses for the purchasing readers. The narration here is completely unique. The free-flowing story travels from character to character without necessarily having nor needing closure on what came before. This would have bugged me when reading online and I probably would have stopped checking it, but as a collection, I find it fascinating and entertaining.

The story bounces from being serious to comical to straight-out enigmatic and back again everywhere in between. At first, I wasn’t sure I was up for it, but because, as the reader I accepted that I was on this wild narrative ride from situation to situation, it became more fascinating / interesting and less annoying. As it states in it’s own intro, this is very much where comic strips meets Monty Python’s “And Now For Something Completely Different”.

The bottom line is that NABAYT has an intriguing story with great art that is expressive, detailed and simplistic all at the same time (made me think of the great big Sunday Pages of yon olden days). And with a price tag of only $15.99 for this hard cover beauty, this is an easy yes for any art or comic geek out there that is not necessarily into capes.

Grade: A

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