Nuts

Book excerpt: Remember how baffling, terrifying, and sad childhood really was? Now you can laugh at it. In this thematically and narratively linked series of one-page stories originally published in the National Lampoon’s “Funny Pages” section throughout the 1970s, the master of the macabre eschewed his usual ghouls, vampires, and end-of-the-world scenarios for a wry, pointed look at growing up normal in the real, yet endlessly weird world. This is essentially a lost Gahan Wilson graphic novel from the 1970s and '80s. Watch as our stoic, hunting-cap-wearing protagonist (known only as “The Kid”) copes with illness, disappointment, strange old relatives, the disappointment of Christmas, life-threatening escapades, death, school, the awfulness of camp, and much more ― all delineated in Wilson’s roly-poly, sensual, delicately hatched line.