2 out of 5

I, er, really didn’t enjoy Insect Bath #1.  But I think it achieves its goal of looking like a sicko underground mag, so I’m granting it that via an extra star.  That seems to be the stock-in-trade of publisher Profanity Hill – being distributed in this case, I think – by Fantagraphics, allowing it a slick cover and wider distribution, and as browsing their selection shows a lot of seemingly aborted series, I’m reviewing this now instead of holding on for a #2.

In Comic Shop News, this was billed as a horror anthology, and Sammy Harkham’s inclusion got me interested.  This is confirmed in the contents, with co-creator Jason T. Miles adding a ‘commentary’ to his contribution stating something similar, with the added obnoxiousness of exploring and sharing ‘the spiritual and nihilist cosmic overlap.’  ?  Sure.

Anyhoo, I only really ended up digging one piece in here – Max Clotfelter’s ‘I Eat Mold For a Living,’ which follows Johnny Ryan’s loose-lobed gross-out logic with a Robert Crumb sense of detailing for a gloriously disgusting and creepy and inventive few pages.  I will be checking out whatever else I can find from Clotfelter.  Elsewhere, the book looks to collect a whole bunch of underground Seattle comic-ers (you can follow them around through some small imprint websites all linking to each in some regard – I started with Profanity Hill and branched outward), and the overall messy look of the book and lack of title pages for some strips definitely sells the underground zine thing.  As far as it being horror…?  To some degree.  But that crosses over with gross-out, and so Alex Degen’s inside-cover contributions, the incomprehensible ‘Throw Her Against the Walls’ by Juliacks, and Alex Delaney’s ‘All God’s Creatures’ have elements of horror, but moreso just incite a feeling of… not wanting to read what you’re reading.  (Partially because it’s not interesting, ahem.)  Zach Hazard Vaupen’s ‘The Hair That Cut Back’ is a pretty great script but it’s… purposefully? marred by a super sloppy art and ‘lettering’ style.  The style doesn’t really add to the story.  Harkham’s ‘Nightmare’ ends up being more oblique than usual for Sammy, and at a couple pages doesn’t have the sound mystifying effect as his longer work.  Eamon Epsey gives us some pages of images that don’t really belong here, and then Matthew Thurber gives us some… commentary, or something, on race that gives up in its last panels and thus loses me.  Jason Miles’ work is pretty fascinating – somewhat abstract gross-out artwork, but the oddball effect feels weird with the aforementioned commentary running underneath.

More words than I wanted to allot to this.  It’s cool that Fantagraphics gave this a bump to major comic shops, but if your tastes don’t run toward the hand-staples ‘zine scene, you’ll probably be a bit turned off.