num_pages: 156
description: Opening with a telling quote from punk band Black Flag ("Drink black coffee/drink black coffee/drink black coffee/and stare at the wall"),  Things Are Meaning Less  is a tough, funny, heartbreaking look at young, disillusioned American life. You might know Al from his zines  Burn Collector  and  Natural Disasters  or from the band Milemarker or his so-true-it-kicks-your-face-off column in  Punk Planet . This, however, is Al's collection of comics published in the late '90s by designer and fellow zinester Ian Lyman. From Portland to Providence, Al patrols his world with a dark, stoic humor. He's a Saul Bellow-ian everyman, up against the wall, suffering the blows, looking for love and loving the metal. Like Al's latest issue of  Burn Collector , the comic-heavy #14, the drawing here is simple but it's the kind of simple that doesn't come with beginner's luck. The stuff here is the result of years of fighting and trouble-making, of mistakes made and a life scratched out among the sticks and stones. As says Al, "These are things drawn on napkins in airports, xeroxed illicitly during work." So goes the work and world of Al Burian.
language: English
title: Things Are Meaning Less
titlecomplete: Things Are Meaning Less (Burn Collector)
genres: Graphic Novels, Comix, Nonfiction, Comics
ratings_count: 179
publisher: Microcosm Publishing