(House of Harley; 2024)

The latest entry in House of Harley’s “Industrial Strength Comics Compendium” that, in the words of underground comics legend Ed Pinsent, is “laced with heavy doses of insanity, wonder, and escapades inside the dream house. Issue no. 8 is shorter than past iterations of UGLY MUG, but it nonetheless provides all the brilliance and bizarrie we’ve come to expect.

The anarchic “Sound of the Underground,” one of several pieces created by “The Artists of the House of Harley Studio,” starts things off. It consists of scrawlings of cliffs, scissors, chairs, flowers and other ephemera, accompanied by captions that range from “These days, decisions have to be taken below the surface” to “Some fool put glass into a woodchipper.”

Also from those unidentified Artists: “Jack of All Trades,” a comic strip containing instructions on how to get rid of wasps (which concludes with the line “To find out what happens next, sign up to my Patreon”).  No less than three doses of “Mark E. Smith, Music Teacher” are provided, with narratives about a violin assignment performed “for the wildlife” and the drafting of an obscene email.  “Life with Freeda Nipple” involves a naked woman going shopping and “sharks of the air.”

Freeda Nipple

“Bearskin” is a freeform fairy tale inversion by Denny Derbyshire, whose drawing style, involving wide shots and objects with heavily outlined edges, is very recognizable.  We also get two contributions by the aforementioned Ed Pinsent: “RSD Lang, Record Collector,” about a guy travelling back in time to procure a rare LP that (up until the jokey ending) actually stands as a credible example of time travel fiction, and “Windy Wilberforce,” a 1992 comic involving giant ants, literal flowers of evil, maggots and the devil.

Bearskin

There’s also the depraved “Jungle Ruck” by Julian Geek, in which a penis-bearing ape is depicted in a very S. Clay Wilson-esque series of jam-packed panels. It’s the volume’s most adult-oriented piece by far, and will certainly offend many. Yes, that is a recommendation.

Jungle Ruck

Contained with this publication is a tiny booklet called GO FIGURE. It’s a surreal take on art instruction manuals consisting of indistinct female figures, some of them headless, in various contorted poses, and a fittingly unfitting accompaniment to UGLY MUG No. 8.