Review: ‘The Alcoholic’ by Ames and Haspiel
The Alcoholic
By Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
DC Comics, October 2008, $19.99
The main character of T[[[he Alcoholic]]] is one Jonathan A., a writer who looks very much like writer Jonathan Ames and whose life has been exceptionally similar to Ames’s. Those who have read Ames before know that this is nothing new: he is his own best subject, either transformed fictionally in novels like [[[I Pass Like Night]]] and [[[Wake Up, Sir!]]] or poured out in his rawly hilarious nonfiction in [[[What’s Not To Love?]]] Jonathan A. is and is not Jonathan Ames; The Alcoholic isn’t a memoir but a novel (a graphic novel – very graphic in places), and so we must treat A. as a fictional character.
(I think I’ll refer to him as A. from here on; it adds an oddly Kafkaesque air – or, and perhaps more appropriately, a sense of anonymity and confession.)
The Alcoholic is A.’s life story – or at least as much of his life as concerns alcohol and sex – from 1979 through late 2001, high school through early middle age. It opens in August 2001, as A. is waking up in a station wagon in Asbury Park, with an old, very short woman trying to seduce him after a long night of drinking.

From the creators of the Harvey-nominated
First Savage Dragon went in with the endorsement. Spider-Man followed up with the inauguration appearance. Then Mad. Now we have the upcoming Captain Action #5 from Moonstone, where the hero actually becomes Obama.
At the Television Critics Association meeting on Friday, Nickelodeon announced that they were giving the go-ahead for 26 additional episodes of the computer-generated animated series The Penguins of Madagascar, for a total of 52 episodes. A Nickelodeon and DreamWorks Animation co-production, The Penguins of Madagascar is set to launch on the network Saturday, March 28 at 9:30 PM. The series will air regularly Saturdays at 10 AM starting April 4.
In the middle of a weekend movie recap article with the fascinating headline "

Today’s installment of comic-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest…
