A collection of clever and funny short comics

Stark Plug Book(.com) (Rolling Tire Productions, 2017)

Art and Writing: Chap

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Experience fragments from the life of a comic book character who, at one point, decides to quit his job to star in a newspaper strip.

"Stark Plug Book(.com)" is a collection of stories of varying lengths by Steven Chappell (aka Chap). The look of the art reminded me mostly of Gilbert Sheldon (best known for the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers), but the tone of the humor was generally more genteel, as well as more surreal, than Gilbert's work, as is even evident from the book's cover. 

The material presented is as much about the experience of reading comics and the act of creating stories and art, as it is about chronicling Stark and his surroundings, something which becomes increasingly clear as you read. There's even a page that makes fun of the "classified ad"-style encouragements for kids to order toys and other items that used to be commonplace in comic books. There's even a "contest" that involves finding all the airplanes in the book.

Stark Plug and his dog are the main characters in the book, with Stark's chatty coworkers, his mean boss, and a street musician named Bernie the Banjo Bum making up the main supporting cast. I found Bernie to be the most amusing character here, even outshining Stark himself. (The supporting characters mostly drop out during Stark's turn starring in a newspaper strip, but they are back afterwards.) 

Humor-wise, there is a little bit of everything--social commentary, along with commentary on social commentary; sit-com style comedy; self-referential and fourth-wall shattering jokes and situations that both illuminate and poke fun at artistic creation and processes and comic book story-telling techniques; observations on the nature of art; and metaphysical musings in satirical wrappings. The blurb on the cover announces that this book is "nice alternative to television"... and that is truth in advertising!

I ordered my copy of "Stark Plug Book(.com) directly from the creator at www.starkplugbook.com. To my surprise and joy, my package included several little bits of the merchandise that I thought was just humorous fictions on the amusing "classified ad" page I mentioned earlier. So--I was a proud owner of a Bernie the Banjo Bum guitar pick... until it went missing in my recent move. (At least I still have my sticker... and I still hold out hope that my Bernie guitar pick will resurface somewhere!)