From the Ashes - Softcover

Fingerman, Bob

3.55

64 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1600106005 ISBN 13: 9781600106002

Publisher: IDW Publishing, 2010

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Bob Fingerman’s speculative memoir (starring Bob and his wife Michelle) set in a post-apocalyptic and nuclear ravaged New York City is a surprisingly perky take on Armageddon. A hip satirical romp though Manhattan’s ruins, From the Ashes is a new spin on the old autobiographical comics genre.

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Review:

Bob Fingerman s Fantagraphics series Minimum Wage always felt semi-autobiographical due, no doubt, to the fact that the title s everyman protagonist was named Rob, not to mention all the intimate, home-hitting details of Rob s relationship with his wife, Sylvia. Years later, Fingerman has revisited his unique, unflinching, true-life tale. Only this time, the backdrop is Armageddon. In his new graphic novel From The Ashes (IDW) subtitled A Speculative Memoir Fingerman casts himself and his wife Michele as survivors of the apocalypse. Rather than getting all grim and weepy, the couple discovers both the terrors and the joys many of them gloatingly misanthropic of seeing most of modern civilization vanish. But the book isn t entirely a send-up of the genre; as warm as he is warped, Fingerman navigates this brave new world of mutants, breeding camps, bigotry, and TV-pundit dictators with a nimble step that balances dark absurdism with a large, open heart. Throughout the book, Fingerman the cartoonist is in top form, refracting much of the freewheeling sensibility he absorbed from his mentor, Harvey Kurtzman, although Kurtzman s EC/Mad cohort Jack Davis is just as evident in Fingerman s sketchy kineticism. As a blitz of astringent satire, an unabashed love letter to his wife, and a love-hate manifesto aimed at the whole human race, From The Ashes is a gem; as an addition to the often-staid canon of post-apocalyptic pop culture, it s a revelation... --The Onion A.V. Club

From Publishers Weekly:

This speculative memoir chronicles the misadventures of writer/artist Fingerman and his wife, Michele, in a postapocalyptic Manhattan. Despite being bombed out and irradiated, New York City is still rife with assorted factions representing the worst of humanity, only now those groups are writ large and lawless since the restraints of conventional civilization no longer exist. While a far cry from the all-out horror of a Mad Max–style landscape, Fingerman's wasteland is overrun with homophobic religious zealots, insane right-wing politicos and cannibalistic foodies, while the last bastions of human decency prove to be a plethora of mutants and zombies (or reanimated Americans, as they prefer to be called). Bob and Michele wander through all of this with a wry acceptance familiar to anyone who's ever lived in New York City, serving as the heart of an end-of-the-world narrative that wrings a wealth of humor from its potentially bleak scenario while making pointed observations about the idiocy of humanity and how it's likely never to change. A fun read, spiced with highly appealing artwork, this one's a solid winner. Plus it gets extra geek credit for inside jokes involving Zardoz and cannibal cinema auteur Ruggero Deodato. (Mar.)
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