This is another of my late-to-the-party reviews. I've only just discovered graphic designer Andy Hartzell's 2007 graphic novel, Fox Bunny Funny (Top Shelf Productions, 978-1891-83097-6) -- an optimistic three-act tragedy about what happens when your friends and family relentlessly pressure you into becoming something you're not. In this story told entirely in wordless pictures, foxes are predators and bunnies are prey -- that's how it is, that's how it's always been. A young fox boy doesn't get it. He's squeamish about hurting bunnies; in fact, he likes to dress up as one in private. In just 102 pages, we follow him from childhood to adulthood, to a piquant ending in which things change irrevocably.

Hartzell's drawings blend slapstick humor and gut-punch body horror with, in the third and final act, more than a touch of perverse eroticism. It's not a story for kids, but it's a story for everyone, whether you've had identity issues or not.

Jon Allen's 2016 graphic novel Ohio is for Sale (Alternative Comics, 978-1934-46082-5) is a pitch black cartoon animal comedy in which three friends -- young, bored, broke, and unemployed -- share a house together in one of those decaying Rust Belt towns that Allen draws so convincingly well. There's no plot: we simply watch Patrick, Leonard, and Travis going to the 7-11; looking for a job; driving around aimlessly; dying, going to hell, and getting hit on by the Devil; then getting back in time to throw an apocalyptic house party. Nothing matters, and everything carries weight.

I wish I'd had more comics like this when I was growing up.

https://www.amazon.com/Fox-Bunny-Fu...../dp/189183097X
https://www.amazon.com/Ohio-Sale-Jo...../dp/1934460826