A friend gave me a copy of Labor Days way back in those dark days before NYCC, and I finally got the spare time to actually read it.

And I loved it.

It reads like Lucky Number Slevin meets Clerks and then has a whirlwind affair with Marxist theory and every cheesy spy movie you ever saw. It winks at everything from hip music to celebrities to communists, and allows you to laugh

It has sassy writing, unique art, a wicked sense of humor, uber-geeky theorist references combined with foul-mouthed sex jokes. In other words, almost everything I love.

Labor Days is the story of Bags, a ne’er-do-well who stumbles into the middle of a mess over a videotape that every revolutionary group in the world wants a piece of, and each time it appears that he’s going to get out of trouble, he finds himself falling in deeper.

Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy mock all the revolutionaries–from communists to radical feminists to super-jingo-American-spies–but does so with an understanding that they aren’t going to accomplish anything but at least they’re true believers. The real bad guy is the one who stomps on all their dreams, even if those dreams were outlandish and silly.

And, well, this quote speaks for itself:

“It’ll be all the chicks, beer, and revolution I can handle. And at least some of the chicks and beer you can handle.”

Buy it. Read it. Laugh. Then wait for Volume 2.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Graphic Novels, Oni Press, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.