Subject: Review: WHY I HATE SATURN by Kyle Baker

From: [email-masked]
Date: 22 Aug 91 22:55:10 GMT

WHY I HATE SATURN
			by Kyle Baker
		Review Copyright (c) 1991 Alan Wexelblat

%A Kyle Baker
%T Why I Hate Saturn
%I Piranha Press
%G No ISBN or ISSN
%O large-format softcover graphic novel
%O US$14.95 (pay it anyway!)
%D 1990

OK, ok, I admit it.  This is not SF.  It's not even "speculative fiction"
unless you think Saturn really is from the planet of her namesake.  And,
yes, it's a "graphic novel."  That is, a story told largely with pictures,
in which the text is important and is mostly dialogue.

But it's *so* good you have to buy it.  Now.  Like, stop reading netnews and
go to your local comic book store and buy this thing.  And if they don't
have it, make them order it.  It's labeled "for mature readers" which
probably means you have to look a little harder for it, then you have to
flash some ID to the kid behind the cash register.  But do it anyway.

Those of you living on the left coast, particularly in L.A., are excused at
this point.  You're probably not going to think this is a good or funny
book, but it is.  It's right-coast, NewYorkBostonPhilly in-your-face funny.
It's hip, it's cool, it's very post-modern.  Like if David Letterman were
any good, or if Spy magazine was consistently as good as it can be, they
would be almost as good as WHY I HATE SATURN.

SATURN is mostly the story of Anne, a talented, unmotivated freelance
writer.  She's living a life of noisy desperation trying to understand how
she fits in to a society she hates.  She's viciously, side-splittingly
funnily down on fake Mexican restaurants, deliberately damaged hair, and all
the other icons of our late-twentieth-century culture.

Then one day, her sister Laura appears and things start to go really wrong.
Like, Anne has finally given in to her alcoholism, and Laura has been shot
and Laura thinks she's Queen of the Leather Astro Girls of Saturn and there
are some really weird guys chasing her (or maybe they're just using her to
get Anne).

If this sounds serious, it is.  Baker only manages to keep his funny savvy
cool going by using Anne and Laura as foibles for each other and mirrors for
the best and the worst in us.  His insight is superb, his prose is
appropriately sparse (an absolute necessity in the graphic novel form), and
his plot is tight.  It's a shame that Piranha Press doesn't have a bigger
distribution (despite being an arm of DC); I think a lot of people who would
love this book will have a hard time finding it.  Make the effort, it's
worthwhile.

Let me leave you with one of my favorite bits:  Laura has restocked Anne's
refrigerator with food from a "health food" store.  Anne observes:  "Tempeh
burgers.  Why do vegetarians spend so much time trying to make vegetables
taste like meat?  Do monks buy a lot of inflatable sex dolls?"

Find this book.  Buy this book.  You'll be glad you did.