War and Peas: Funny Comics for Dirty Lovers

by Jonathan Kunz & Elizabeth Pich

"Hilarious, morbid, and sometimes oddly touching, War and Peas is among the best of the best in modern comics. You'll be laughing out loud." — Sarah Andersen, creator of Sarah's Scribbles

"One of the most exciting and funniest webcomics in the world," — Bored Panda

From the creators of the hugely popular Instagram comic War and Peas, this offbeat four-panel comic features a dark, fairy-tale aesthetic and a twist ending each time. War and Peas: Funny Comics for Dirty Lovers combine twisted humor with a beloved cast of characters including the grim reaper (seen here as an unintentionally lethal man of leisure), a robot in hopelessly in love with his scientist creator, and a promiscuous yet self-assured witch. Unlike most webcomic collections, this one tells a story using dozens of never-before-seen comics to chronicle the lives of several different characters and their follies during life, death, and their glorious reunions in the afterlife (and the after-afterlife).

• ISBN10: 1524854077
• ISBN13: 9781524854072
• Publish Date: 3 March 2020 (first published 2 April 2020)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Andrews McMeel Publishing
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 160
• Language: English

Reviews

[llamareads]

I don’t follow the webcomic War and Peas, though I have seen a few of their comics before on social media, and I picked up this comics collection based on that small sample.



Each page is separate 4 panel comic with a title, usually a description of the comic or a continuation of the punchline. The art is simple and quirky but it works well with the humor. Some of the comics can get a bit raunchy, but for the most part it’s absurd and macabre nerdiness, usually with a humorous twist. In other words, it’s pretty classic web comic humor.



There’s a set of reoccurring characters, like a robot, a ghost boy, a self-described slutty witch (and her vampire boyfriend), and the grim reaper, which build on previous gags, but otherwise there’s no overarching theme to the collection. Sometimes the characters cross paths, with the witch and the grim reaper as my favorite. The simplistic style means that the book is a quick read, though I think it also has decent rereadability.



Some of the comics worked really well for me (I loved the printer overlords), while some felt like they were trying too hard to be edgy. I think it’s the nature of this style of humor that each particular joke either works very well or not at all for a person, which can make the collection as a whole feel uneven.

Overall, though, any collection that has Death rolling off on a skateboard after breaking up with someone gets a thumbs-up from me!

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog Nonstop Reader.

War and Peas: Funny Comics for Dirty Lovers is a collection of webcomics produced by Jonathan Kunz and Elizabeth Pich. Originally published on their webcomic War and Peas, this collection, due out 3rd March 2020 is 160 pages and will be available in paperback format.

The art is deceptively simple. The single page comics are in 4 panel format, with many recurring characters (Death shows up quite often, for example). The humor is ever so slightly off-kilter and is surreal with elements of magical realism, nerd culture, absurdism, and irony. About half of them elicited a smile or giggle from me.

This would be a good selection for current fans of the authors' work online, or for fans of webcomic style 4 panel art in general. It's a very fast read with appealing quirky art with a modern (somewhat nihilist) aesthetic.

Three and a half stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.