Acme Novelty Library

These comics are really wonderful. The humor is adult in nature but told by a child character. One of the first things that came to mind was Stewie from Family Guy. Stewie and Jimmy are virtually the same character, they even look similar, with a similar hate for their mother! I think that the stories are written well for being humor. I think many times writers that try to be funny can be very unsuccessful in comics because they try so hard with it. This just seems to flow naturally as if its the way the writer would actually speak.

I absolutely love the story where Jimmy is a delusional old man and buys the back scratcher then thinks about walking up to random young women and using it on them. That whole story, how he tries to call his dead mother and he finally gets through. Soon after she starts showing up at his house but you never see her face. Later Jimmy tries to commit suicide by shooting himself and it doesn't work. All he can say is "Jeez, that's weird, I thought it would work." And then he just walks around with a band aid on his head to cover up the hole. Its this goofy story juxtaposed against this streamlined art that really amuses me. I love the artist's illustration style, its a type I've personally always been drawn to. I like the cleanliness of it and how seemingly simple it is, yet its so technically well executed that the average person just can't do that type of precise work. Heck, I don't even know if I could.

Returning to the similarities of Jimmy and Stewie... I wonder if Stewie was actually inspired by the character of Jimmy Corrigan. To me the similarities are so obvious that it would be hard for me to believe he wasn't. Both are 'geniuses' even though they're both just little boys with incredibly vivid imaginations. They both also have a real attitude like they know how smart they are and aren't afraid to show it. I think its fair to say that their resentment for their mother is very similar too. Stewie tries to kill his mom in many episodes of the show and while Jimmy doesn't really try to do that, he still calls her a bitch and disobeys her. But the second something goes wrong they both just really want their mommy.