Noah Van Sciver’s latest book, Please Don’t Step on My JNCO Jeans, is a small, short paperback of colour and black and white strips, some of which appeared in his local Ohio paper, Columbus Alive! And, like a lot of Noah’s books, this one is a really fun read.
A few strips focus on Noah’s worries about being lazy but, if you’ve been following this author for some time like me, you’ll know he’s extremely prolific and doesn’t just produce numerous books that he’s written/drawn but also illustrates others’ scripts; basically he’s just being neurotic about his productivity.
Some of the strips are really funny like the stud finder one and going to a cheap dentist to have a tooth pulled and have the dentist (drawn like a cartoonish villain) saying “You’ve just been pwned” as Noah leaves, mouth bloodied! I also liked the running gag of the French-speaking cats with rapiers. Noah tries to write a mass-appeal all-ages comic featuring these cats but each attempt descends into violent darkness.
The strips are a mix of stories from his childhood (like the longest one here, My Last Halloween, set in 1998) to the present-day. And, like most short story collections, there were a few that I didn’t think that much of - his mom’s home-made Christmas ornaments, being afraid of flying, and switching from using a CD player to an iPod, are all fairly banal strips - and this particular collection’s page count is beefed up somewhat with several amusing one-pagers of Noah dressed as Universal monsters.
Mostly though, I really enjoyed Please Don’t Step on My JNCO Jeans and so will any Noah Van Sciver/slice of life comics fans.
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