He goes on to share an anecdote about laughing at a friend's roommate's oversized Morrissey poster (in a word: yes). And, apparently, if you believe this part is confessional, too, Larkin mailed a drawing of an almost-girlfriend to her, with the caption "Cockteaser of the Year, 2004."

Finally, we arrive at the coup de grace of awkwardness. Larkin actually reprints pages—in full color—from his adolescent "Beat-Off Binders." These are images from magazines, crudely cut and pasted, and arranged by theme. We go from panty shots, cleavage, and the Spice Girls, to pages dedicated to Courtney Love, Melissa Joan Hart, and photos of girls from his high school yearbook.

Good grief. It's shockingly funny and stunningly embarrassing. You have to laugh, and you just feel such compassion for the guy.

And here is the crux of Arcade of Cruelty—is it more funny than it is sad, or the other way around? Larkin is bound and determined to prove that he is a pathetic specimen. He'll make you pee your pants with laughter as he takes shots at his own failures with women and such, but are there enough winks for the benefit of the reader to overcome so much self-hatred? You'll have to decide for yourself.

Regardless, plenty of readers won't be able to get past his shot-to-the-gut sick humor. That would include his ironic "rape comedy" ("The Unbearable Lightness of Being Raped"), and a glut of 9/11 humor ("Always Never Forgetting"). In one memorable gag, a plane headed for one of the Twin Towers issues a word bubble that reads "Excelsior!" a la Stan Lee. It elicits a sick, sick laugh that the reader may wish to take back, but, too late, it's escaped. At 76 pages, though, the 9/11 material does manage to overstay its welcome. And in general, the art is pretty primitive stuff. Sometimes just right in its simplicity, but sometimes lazy, too.

In one of my favorite Larkin comics herein, he draws a prison inmate anally raping another; the caption: "You had me at hello."

Larkin had me from the first joke to the last. It's just that he lost me a little, too, by selling the lonely-horny-miserable guy thing so hard. Whatever vein he decides to open next, though, I'd be eager to watch the mess. | Byron Kerman

Visit Joseph Patrick Larkin's website at http://www.also-ran.com/.