Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories
Writer and Artist: Nicholas Gurewitch; Cover: Nicholas Gurewitch
Dark Horse Comics
This is the first of a large stack of books which remained on my shelf since sometime in 2007 awaiting a review. I’m finally tackling that stack, and this one was on top.
For anyone unaware of Perry Bible Fellowship, I can only assume you’ve wasted your time watching Youtube videos of cats rather than read the best comic strip on the web and in print. Perry Bible Fellowship is what Blondie and Family Circus made a baby, sent it through The Twilight Zone, and had it spend a week with Timothy Leary. It’s bizarre, twisted, subversive, and quite simply the best humor on the web or anywhere else. If you haven’t read it yet, start now.
The Trial of Colonel Sweeto was the first shot at a print collection of Gurewitch’s work. As such, it debuted with a low price tag of $14.95, offering virgin readers an inexpensive way to try out the strip. The printings sold out, and the book went out of print: partially so that an updated, expanded version could be released as The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack with additional never-before-seen material, and partially because Hasbro’s lawyers got their knickers in a twist because the cover art looked too much like Candyland.
It’s just as well that we have a new version, because the Almanack far exceeds the original book. The comics are printed much larger and one per page. The never-before-seen section is expanded with a lot more material including sketches, some early sketches of finished comics, and an interview of Gurewitch done by David Malki.
If you happen across a copy of The Trial of Colonel Sweeto, it’s well worth the purchase. But, if you have a choice, go for the Almanack. It’s well worth it to see the scar-eyed sharks, the wishing well, the unicorn power shirt, and the kitten mailed to heaven again.
A bizarre Fox News Red Eye interview with Nicholas Gurewitch