The Complete Works of Fante Bukowski [Paperback]

Living in a beat-up motel, consorting with the downtrodden and mid-level literati, Fante Bukowski must overcome great obstacles: a love interest turned rival, ghostwriting a teen celebrity's memoirs, no actual talent  to gain the respect and adoration of critics and, more importantly, his father. Van Sciver has created a scathing, hilarious, and empathetic character study of a self-styled author determined to prove that he's just one more poem (or drink) away from success.Collects the entire multiple Eisner Award-nominated series, which skewers a self-important male literary poser. As literary satires go, its both gleefully malicious and unrepentantly stupid ?a winning combination. At its deepest, Van Sciver has established himself as a thoughtful cartoonist with a talent for exploring the complexities of the human condition with a pointed sense of humor, and Fante Bukowski highlights the combination of desperation and foolhardiness that makes this character an especially compelling trainwreck. [Van Sciver's] take-no-prisoners satire ends up being surprisingly sweet. Readers may cringe at Fante's clueless self-delusion, but as irredeemable as he might be, theyre also likely to root for him just a bit. Fante Bukoswki is the ne plus ultra of mediocre literary white malehood. In his sweaty desperation, his hapless thirst for fame (and beer), his talentlessness, Bukowski transcends fiction. He is in all writers. Noah Van Scivers loutish wannabe writer Fante Bukowski is one of contemporary literatures great antiheroes, bumbling from one humiliating catastrophe to the next with only the smallest glimmer of self-awareness. Van Sciver [has] struck gold with his masterful skewering of the self-important, self-proclaimed tortured geniuses who stink out the fringes of the literary world.