Unlovable

I have an enduring, delicious predilection for badly-drawn-on-purpose comics that are both hilarious and awkward.  See also:  www.toothpastefordinner.com

The strip Tammy Pierce is Unlovable has been a regular back-page companion to Bust Magazine for years, and always the first thing I turn to.  So I was more than a little pleased when Fantagraphics came out with a 2 volume collection of Esther Pearl Watson's T.P chronicle, complete with glitter clouds that say "Turd Alert!" and "Do you like breasts?"

See, the best part is: the entire thing is based on the REAL 1988-1989 school year diary of a Texas teenager that Watson found in a gas station bathroom in 1995.  The reason it is so funny is that Watson perfectly captures the humiliation and desperation of adolescence using Tammy's own words.  For example:

Anyone who had the pain and pleasure of growing up in the 1980s will cackle with delight (or groan with embarrassment) at Watson's scratchy renderings of shoulder pads, MacGyver, break dancing, and New Wave posturing.  Obviously not to everyone's tastes, Unlovable is for the discerning comic collector, the purveyor of sweaty awkwardness, the betrayer of tact.  In other words: mine.