Synopses & Reviews
Finally back in print,
Any Similarity... is a collection of Drew Friedman's earliest comic strips and illustrations, featuring his most obsessively stippled black-and-white panels and his most hilarious wise-guy takes on the stars and demi-stars and never-quite-stars of that swamp we like to call showbiz.
In these strips, many of them written by his brother Josh Alan Friedman (both are sons of the legendary Bruce Jay Friedman: humor genes will tell!), the artist works out his obsession with such celebrities as Jim Nabors, Frank Sinatra Jr., Joe Franklin, Bob Hope, Andy Griffith... and Ed Wood, Jr. film star Tor Johnson, whom Friedman actually catapulted back into some sort of semi-fame when these strips were first published in the 1980s.
Friedman is the kind of pop-culture aficionado whose Three Stooges worship is focused not on Moe, Larry or Curly but on Shemp (whose unmistakable mug graces the new cover of this edition), and whose teasing adoration can often be mistaken for mockery or contempt. But who but a worshipful fan would lavish quite so many dots on the loving delineation of these greats' every pimple and wrinkle?
Review
"I stand in awe of Drew Friedman's technique and the certain flavor of sad old America he captures." R. Crumb
Review
"One of the signature achievements of '80s alt-comics... now back in print in a spiffy new edition. . . Drew Friedman's stipple-heavy photorealism and his brother Josh's gleefully cruel humor combine to craft an alternate history of American entertainment. . . the Friedmans' pioneering work in the field of 'brattily dicking around with icons' remains unparalleled." Noel Murray
Synopsis
A reprint of Drew Friedman's first book of comics from the pages of magazine and elsewhere.
About the Author
Drew Friedman's work has appeared in Raw, Weirdo, SPY, The New York Times, MAD, The New Yorker, BLAB!, The New York Observer, Rolling Stone, Field & Stream, appears regularly in Entertainment Weekly and many other magazines. His collection of portraits Drew Friedman's Sideshow Freaks was published by Blast books in 2011. He resides in Pennsylvania with his wife and collaborator, Kathy Bidus and their two beagles.Writer/guitarist Josh Alan Freidman's books include Tales of Times Square, Tell the Truth Until They Bleed and Black Cracker; his albums include Famous & Poor, The Worst!, Blacks 'n' Jews, and Josh Alan Band. He lives in the Republic of Texas.