Post-Apocalypto

This raunchy sugar-high of a graphic novel captures the fun side of life after an atom bomb attack: things will be weird, but they will also rock. Starring (and authored by) snark-rock duo Tenacious D (actors Black and Gass), and tied to an album and animated series, the venture opens with the two jumping a tank of sharks on a motorcycle (“rent is due, man!”) when the bomb drops. After riding out the blast in an old refrigerator, the dudes voyage across the wasteland with their two-headed dog, Hope. Their odyssey unfolds like half-remembered B movies, featuring everything from a Clan of the Cave Bear seductresses to a Terminator-esque killer android, before getting to their mission: retrieving the Crystal of Gilgamesh from the White House (guarded by Nazis and the Klan) to reverse Earth’s polarity and save the day. The flat colors and slapdash drawing (by Black), studded with non-sequitur graphic sex intervals, give the book the feel of a zine knocked together in a junior high classroom during detention. The frequent music intervals (mostly mock rock opera bombast; plus Donald Trump Jr. gets his own sad villain ballad) limits its appeal to that of an accompaniment fold out to the Post-Apocalypto album. Either way, it’s a self-consciously juvenile lark, best read while playing Tenacious D at 11. (Sept.)