Close to Home Uncut #[nn]

John McPherson's Close to Home has always found humor in the everyday absurd, and this collection delivers that sensibility in fine form. The cover sets the tone perfectly: a magician in a top hat and bow tie — billed on his prop boxes as "Zollo the Magnificent" — has apparently ended up in a hospital emergency waiting room, still sawed in half across two wheeled crates, while a baffled woman and child look on and a bewildered nurse peeks in from below. It's the kind of deadpan, slice-of-life comedy that made Close to Home a syndicated favorite, and "Uncut" promises the strips too sharp-edged for the funny pages.