New Low

Book excerpt: For more than a decade, Johnny Ryan (Angry Youth Comix, Prison Pit) has been filling the back page of Vice magazine with some of the most transgressively hilarious and politically incorrect comics to ever grace a glossy, national magazine. A New Low collects this impressive body of work, as well as several other surprises. The victims of Ryan’s skewering satire in this collection include: G.G. Allin, Caddyshack, Bill Cosby, E.T., Everybody Loves Raymond, Ireland, Italy, Kenny G, Kid Rock, D.H. Lawrence, Ted Nugent, Russians, Small Wonder, The Shield, Spain, Two and a Half Men, Vice magazine, Wall Street, and so much more that can’t be so easily categorized (such as “Erotic Art Collecting Squirrel” or “Whorenado,” to name but a few). Johnny Ryan’s utterly unpretentious taboo-tackling is an infectious and hilarious bombardment of political incorrectness, taking full advantage of the medium’s absurdist potential for maximum laughs. In an age when the medium is growing up and aspiring to more mature and hoity-toity literary heights, Ryan builds on the visceral tradition that cartooning has had on our collective funny bone for over a century, and A New Low collects almost 100 full-color examples of Vice’s signature cartoonist.