Hob - self-published things

AN INSIDE JOB

Black and white with 2-color covers; issues 1-2 are 3.25"x6", issue 3 is 5.5"x8" and contains three times as much material.

	Issue #3 (24 larger pages):
	lucid		the eye altering
	procedure (read it)		day pass
	sleazy		give and take
	the hospital follows me		preview night
	coffee break		i wish i could stop
	dirt floor		late shift
	the street		frying pan
	command and control
	Issue #2 (28 mini-pages):
	who what where		up to date
	hosted		down time
	the action
	Issue #1 (24 mini-pages):
	I'm informed		crime (read it)
	escape- scape		do it yourself
	many mansions		people person

Everyone thinks their dreams are interesting and they're usually wrong; but one good thing about being a depressive obsessive type is that you get some pretty vivid messages when you're trying to sleep. Some of them take a lot of work... sort of like having an extra job for which you are not paid. Comics are well suited to the hopeless task of trying to convey an irrational notion that words or pictures alone can't do. Others have covered the territory a million times better than this, but I can't seem to stop.

The stories are pretty short and are done in various styles and media depending on something or other. The content is often morbid and disgruntled (much of the material was originally recorded in 2001-2002 when I was not the happiest guy) and sometimes cryptic, but, I'm told, often funny.

how to order

About the covers:
Issue #3's cover was silkscreened by John Isaacson. The cover of issue #2 was letterpress printed; if you have the first, nicer printing (purple and black), it was done by Mark Wagner of Booklyn Artists Alliance, who deserves extensive praise and thanks—the later sloppier blue printing was done by me. I hate to admit it, but issue #1's cover was just done with a computer and an inkjet printer.

Reviewers generally like it even if they don't entirely approve:
   "Erratic, angry, adventurous, mysterious and sexual .... a unique deviation from what one can usually expect when opening a self-referential minicomic ... his daring, uninhibited stories become a really interesting read."—Sarah Morean, The Daily Crosshatch
   "I can't say that I really took much away from the experience of reading An Inside Job, but I did enjoy it. .... [A] strange way of knowing its author, excised from concrete reality, constructed entirely through remembered dreams."—Matt Fagan, Xerography Debt #15
   "I'm not the biggest fan of dream comics, but [the] artwork is extremely clean and emotive, and the stories here are interesting enough. I look forward to more non-dream comics."—Heath Row's Media Diet
   "The dreams have a wry and sadly familiar mixture of embarrassment (nudity! fights! loneliness!) and logic."—Gavin Grant, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #12
   "The artist [Hob] will remind most of is David Lasky—both use figures that seem to spring from fertile ground that exists somewhere between European albums, Beatles animation and the more fluid figure work of the New Yorker-style cartoonists, and both use that limber quality to good effect in crafting well-paced narratives. .... [I]t's sort of like watching a talented ballplayer settle into a comfortable groove at the minor leagues; the skill level on display offers some pleasure, but one wishes there were something more at stake."—Tom Backhanded-Compliments Spurgeon, The Comics Journal #257
   "I'm convinced it deserves to be incredibly popular and read by a bunch of people .... great, visceral reading."—Austin English, The Comics Journal online
   And Violet Jones really liked it in The Free Press Death Ship #3—a glowing two-sentence review I can't quote here because Violet forbids quotation in any Internet venue, despite which you should seek out that zine.