Andrew Leland’s Christmas Links

1. Petey and Pussy

This graphic novel by John Kerschbaum is horrible. You have to look away as Bernie the parakeet pecks off his own leg. I can’t imagine an uglier human being than his owner, the “old lady.” Each awful gag slides easily into the next in this hysterical and well-told narrative. The strip is brilliantly drawn with a modest and almost affectionate grace. Johnny Ryan is the only other living cartoonist whose books make me want to simultaneously vomit and bring everyone over to admire what’s making me vomit.

2. Hal Higdon

If you are a bearded piece of shit and you want to figure out how to run a marathon without blowing out both your knees, Hal Higdon dot com breaks down all the essentials, preemptively answering your every pudgy little query, day by day, mile by mile. He also makes insane, September-11-themed pop art.

3. Paper Rad’s YouTube Favorites

Paper Rad make animations that combine top-shelf anti-comedy, perfect high-art dadaism, and an industrial ladleful of good LSD. Their YouTube “favorites” channel is an amazing collection of new-age fan-fiction computer-animation space junk that could have all been fabricated by Paper Rad themselves, though it’s actually the deranged and “authentic” source of their work.

4. Kathy Grayson’s Myspace Blog

I am an 76-year-old widowed hog farmer living on a barge that floats in the center of Lake Superior, and sometimes, I get lonely. Reading Kathy Grayson’s MySpace Blog takes me out of my head and off the barge. It makes me feel like a butt-naked microscopic little flying tinkerbell who’s gotten trapped in an awesome NYC art curator’s digital camera. Fueled on vegan french-toast crumbs and cocaine, I surreptitiously visit the studios of all the best new artists and go to fun parties with them. Then I go dump that day’s pigshit over the side of the barge.

Andrew Leland has a blog.