Assholes

Simon Kennedy and Chuck Atkins are well-known TV presenters. With their bleached teeth, dyed hair and overly bronzed skin they’re trying to look as young as they did twenty years ago. In the course of an 18-hole round of golf, they endlessly spew out vile remarks – denigrating the caddy, ethnic minorities and especially women. These sexist, racist jocks are utterly repellent in every way, yet Bram Algoed and Micah Stahl keep managing to make them seem a little bit human… until you turn the page and Simon and Chuck once again cross every line of decency.

Algoed’s minimalist illustrations pare this portrait of toxic masculinity down to the essence. The soft pastel tints clash painfully with the utterances of the two main characters, each desperate to prove to the other that he’s a real man. The deceptively simple style gains its strength from the thoughtful use of colour and white spaces. ‘Assholes’ is outrageous, repulsive, disturbing and downright hilarious.