cover image The Many Deaths of Scott Koblish

The Many Deaths of Scott Koblish

Scott Koblish. Chronicle, $14.95 (96p) ISBN 978-1-4521-6712-1

In this lightweight but charming humor collection, DC and Marvel artist Koblish (Deadpool) draws himself dying in ways imaginative, mundane, and frequently impossible. In one comic after another, most only a page long, his smiling, hapless cartoon doppelgänger is devoured by baboons, beaten by a boxing kangaroo, carried into space by balloons, killed by his own hair, and, as many cartoonists have no doubt imagined themselves perishing, left to die of old age at a fan convention while waiting for someone to buy one of his comics. He also falls off a lot of mountains. Some deaths are ironic, others just amusingly cruel. Koblish’s appealing black-and-white line art, with occasional spot color on the instruments of his demise, helps sell the thin concept. His action-comics style is simplified but lifelike, and the unfortunate Cartoon Scott is cute as he naively wanders into one dangerous situation after another like a video game avatar. His fans will pick up this slim collection of cheerfully grim gags as a diversion between Koblick’s bigger projects. (May)