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THE WANG
by Stan Yan
($9.95,
Squid Works)
Review by Mark Campos
Slack And Slackability, part two: This is the comic that
Previews didn't want you to see the cover of! As you can see, what got their winkles in a wrangle was the image of a "virtual boyfriend" – which, to me, looks more like a blister-packed cold capsule than anything remotely sexy. Yet, they felt that the youth of America would turn into frothing pervs if exposed to the sight of such a thing. Whatever.
"The Wang" is struggling college student Eugene Wang, who as we meet him is trying to study for finals while enduring a joint attack by his guilt-tripping mom and his sexually rapacious girlfriend. Wang manages to study, but things go all Portnoy on him.
Stan can draw the big fun stuff, but man-O, is this book marinated in sex. There's Oedipal tension, dildi, a dreamed threat of sodomy, characters with names like Peter Wacker and Dick Handler .. it's a Russ Meyer's "Pilgrim's Progress". There's also some sharp satire of bottom-feeding office life, and a scary brush with a scam-cult; but the ending is unsatisfying, Eugene should overcome but things just tootle to a stop. And while I'm griping, that merry-go-round font used for the lettering makes my eyes sting. As extended dick jokes go, though, this one is pretty funny, and contains a couple of funny surprises.
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