A review by beatsbybeard
Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson

4.0

Slice-of-life graphic novel about the comics industry and a group of early-twenties indie types in ‘90s NYC. Really nails the emotional details of relationships between (e.g.) friends, lovers, tenants, and bosses, and especially the opaqueness of trying to learn someone else’s past (or decipher our own). There’s some humorous bellyaching borne of the author’s seven-year stint at a major metropolitan bookstore that I – with my own brief window of literary retail employment – related to, although it definitely hits high on the Whine-o-Meter. One review blurb calls it the “Almost Famous” of the comics business, and I’ll second that. Very real, very frustrating at times, very human through and through.