Hate Annual #8

Lisa Leavenworth-Bradley, suddenly adrift after her son starts school, stumbles into an unexpected creative spark when she and her friend Stacy decide to form a band. What begins as a way to pass the time quickly spirals into a chaotic, heartfelt adventure as they prepare for their first gig at a mysterious, undisclosed location.

In "Reefer Madness Madness," Dave, a weary actor on the set of a lurid marijuana-themed film, finds himself increasingly unsettled by the director's increasingly absurd and exaggerated take on the subject. As the script veers further into melodrama, Dave's growing unease becomes a quiet rebellion against the very message he's being asked to perform.

In "Phlogiston's Last Champion," Joseph Priestley finds himself on the edge of a scientific revelation—just as a mob storms his house, convinced he's betrayed the long-discredited theory of phlogiston. With his life's work at stake and history itself hanging in the balance, Priestley must outthink the crowd before the flames consume everything.

In this delightfully absurd series of two-page strips from Hate Annual #8, cartoonist Robert Crumb (credited as the writer and interior artist) imagines the chaotic, surreal lives of the Alien Family—a bizarre, bickering household of extraterrestrial siblings and parents—each titled after a quirky family moment. From Dad’s bizarre problem-solving methods to Little Sister’s new doll and Li’l Brother’s latest trick, the strips capture the absurdity of family life through a gloriously weird, cartoonish lens.