REVIEW: Snelson Comedy Is Dying No.5 (of 5)

Dying never felt so good. Paul Constant puts together a sonata in the swan song of “What’s The Deal With Comedy? “. An artist who’s finally packed it up but is confronted with an online community empowered to violence by his message interpreted with a twist. Eventually the violence comes to his doorstep as he attempts to live a hermetic existence off an insurance claim and things turn into a Mark David Chapman situation that colorist Lee Loughridge is able to play off Fred Harper’s pencils and nails the translation of realistic anxiety of the life or death situation that I am sure Eminem could empathize with when he got his home broken into last year by a Stan.

The characters , the situations – everything in Shelson’s world is hyper-real and even though the story is told primarily in third person, it almost entirely feels as if “What’s The Deal With Comedy” is an out of body experience. Perhaps this is because the comedy touches on topics that are all to disappointing in this world, brings light to them and does not try to make light of these topics, but inadvertently ends up getting more than a laugh out of the hard nosed material, something that comedian’s like the title character could only dream of.

When looked at deeply, “Snelson” is as bitter are warning against adulation than old testament tales. Urging the fact-checking of endorsements, and support – since not all of it is to be accepted as everything under the sun is open to interpretation. Reminding reader’s that when the world is at your door, no matter how hard you try to hide, one must eventually answer to the demands of living as long as they are breathing. The danger, the sarcasm, and the dashed hopes with a little peephole for the opportunity of success to peek in, Constant has done his homework on the modern jester and the art of comedy : loaded with hard truth and ending with a little something to make anyone in an audience smile.

Score : 5/5

(W) Paul Constant
(A) Fred Harper