Amazing Facts and Beyond
Like a modern-day Robert Ripley, know-it-all nerd Leon Beyond has purportedly traveled the globe assembling the remarkable, if fatuous, facts assembled in this collection of the comic strip that appeared until last year in a St. Louis alternative newspaper. Each sprightly drawn installment proffers a variety of hard-to-believe claims, from a replica of Michelangelo’s David “sculpted out of the white gunk scooped from Oreo cookies” and the world’s largest swimmin’ hole (a 1:1000 copy of China’s biggest body of water) to Clara Weston’s laugh (“so contagious it got her fired from 3 jobs”). Other installments depict such faux-nomina as elephant boxing, the use of dogs as weapons, and the word’s most perilous porch swings, while still others detail the Organ Donor Hall of Fame, the World Gift-Wrapping Championships, and International Doodle Week. The authors boast impeccable alt-comics cred—last year, mini-comics-artist Zettwoch published his debut book, Birdseye Bristoe (2012), and Huizenga’s formally audacious comics, such as Gloriana (2012), have long drawn critical praise—but here they’re just having artfully silly fun. --Gordon Flagg