The Collected Angry Youth Comix #3

Johnny Ryan's Take A Joke collects the third volume of his Angry Youth Comix series, and the cover sets the tone perfectly: a grinning man in a plaid suit and straw boater hat cheerfully deploys what appears to be a gag device on a wide-eyed kid in a yellow shirt, with spectacularly gory results. Ryan's loose, rubbery cartooning style makes the absurd violence feel more like a punchline than anything else — which is very much the point. If you have a taste for transgressive, gleefully crude humor rendered with real comic-art craft, this 2011 Fantagraphics collection delivers.