Borb by Jason Little Review

Borb is the story of Bob, a homeless drunk, and his day-to-day misadventures which are both unbelievably horrible and surprisingly funny.

That might sound like a bizarre pairing - to match stone-cold realism with slapstick comedy - but Jason Little pulls it off perfectly. Borb is an amazing accomplishment.

His teeth are rotted so a free dentist gets him dentures - and then, because he can’t stop drinking, Borb goes on one and accidentally pukes up his teeth into the sea, losing them. He’s exhausted and drunk all the time so he falls asleep walking down the stairs, falls and breaks his leg - then when he gets out of hospital, the same thing happens again, this time to his other leg! They’re funny sketches that also reflect the reality of being a homeless addict.

We learn a bit more of Borb’s character as the story progresses - why he sees signs as gibberish and who the woman he follows is - which adds a level of pathos and tragedy to the comedy. And the story ends the only way it could for someone as hopeless as Borb, even if we grow to like him, and stays true to Little’s approach of depicting the reality of the life of a homeless person.

I genuinely laughed throughout this one and found it absolutely compelling, beautifully conceived and told, and a masterwork of the comics medium. All of Jason Little’s comics are worth reading - he’s an incredible cartoonist - which is why it’s baffling to me that all of his books are out of print. If you can find a copy of any of them, they’re well worth reading, especially this brilliant gem of a book.