Ah yes. The battle of the sexes. The mating game. The eternal struggle. Boy meets girl. The oldest story in the world! Since the dawn of recorded history, poets and painters and dreamers of all types have pondered the mysteries of the human heart, producing works that speak throughout the ages with their universal messages of longing and fulfillment.

And then there's this.


So what we got here is your basic grotesque homunculus, suffering from any one of numerous debilitating, eventually fatal diseases, being crotch-punted by a sexy comic book woman who's doing that sexy comic book woman thing of showing off both her boobs and her butt at the same time, as the appealing cover illustration to what is purported to be a guide by someone named "Bru-Hed" on how to 'get girls'. I recall seeing "Bru-Hed" on the comic book racks as some kind of weird comedy title that didn't appeal in the 1990s - maybe a more freakish version of Now Comics' "Ralph Snart", maybe - and with the passage of time, has only accrued a further patina of off-putting strangeness, and quite possibly starring the last person (and I use the word loosely) whom would be expected to deliver relationship advice. But maybe that's the joke, right?


Let's get right into it. "Bru-Hed" is apparently a caricature of a doofus male chauvinist, an Archie Bunker type man's man who careens through life being "politically incorrect" and "telling it like it is" to a lot of wimpy effete liberals and crybabies who can't handle his realness. I assume. Maybe we'll see more to "Bru-Hed" besides his attempts to sexually assault strangers with increasingly nonsensical euphemisms.


Nope; what we got here in this "Guide To Gettin' Girls Now" is a series of one-page strips in which "Bru-Hed" comes on to women in various insulting ways, and is then violently attacked. Comedy gold, ladies and gentlemen.


What's that? After two of these strips repeating the same gimmick you find things getting a little stale? Well, buckle up cowboy because that's the only joke we have, and we're taking it all the way. But will "Bru-Hed" limit his focus to default white women, or will he find ways to include people of other ethnicities? Because you know minority groups don't want to be left out when it comes to the attentions of "Bru-Hed".


This is the part where you wonder if this comic is making fun of people who make fun of black people, or if this comic is just making fun of black people and is using a weird big-headed character as camouflage. Because it's really hard to tell. It's also hard to tell that this is a black woman. Cartooning - and satire - is hard.


Who keeps letting this guy into bars? Where'd all the bouncers go?


Finally "Bru-Hed" is poised on the brink of an actual sexual encounter, but wouldn't you know it? Turns out that the only woman who will respond to his advances is actually a transvestite.

I don't honestly believe this would stop "Bru-Hed". Then, afterwards, we might get a one-page strip where "Bru-Hed" muses on the fluidity of gender roles, the hunger for real human contact we all share, and perhaps the fleeting nature of ectascy in our complicated modern world. Or maybe he'd just get hit in the balls again.


When all else fails, sexually assault a woman in a dark elevator. It's OK though, because you can laugh off your rape with a joke beloved by elementary school students! The next ten pages of this comic detail his arrest, trial, conviction, sentencing, and hard time in prison, right? Right?


Nope, it's time for "Bru-Hed" to take us through a parade of the different body types women may have, and what being attracted to each type says about you as a man, and incidentally, many things about the mentality of this comic's creators.


Parading a two-page spread of boobs and butts across your comic book? This is no longer satirizing sexism, if it ever was; this is just sexism. Eight different extremely descriptive paragraphs about eight different sets of breasts means there's more to this than just making fun of dopey mouth-breathing hairy man-men with giant heads and polka dot boxers. Way more.


Finally the ladies - or a lady - get to sound off as "Bru-Hed" neighbor Michelle gets to tell us how sometimes men say one thing and they mean another. Like for instance, when men say this comic book is "funny" they mean something completely different.

But hey, we've been through a lot here, maybe we've learned something, maybe "Bru-Hed" can bring it all home and deliver a hopeful message of togetherness and understanding, right?


Nope! More women, more culturally-specific come-ons, more "Bru-Hed" being punched. If it's funny once, it's funny seven or eight or twelve times!

Oh "Bru-Hed", will you ever find sexual fulfillment?


Yes! Finally! It looks like "Bru-Hed" is going to ignore propriety and local and state law and throw away the last shreds of his self-respect to engage the services of a common streetwalker for a few moments of coitus. I hate to break it to "Bru-Hed"... but this prostitute is also probably a man. Just go with it, "Bru-Hed." It's been obvious for the last ten or twelve pages that you're overcompensating for something. Or, more likely, you can only be aroused when a woman's beating you up. Which is totally fine, you know!

Still, you should see a doctor. Acromegaly can be fatal.

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