Available at finer purveyors of literature, you should now be able to find Marc Hempel's Gregory in convenient pocket-sized format.
Gregory is a very odd little comic about a young boy named Gregory who is confined to a mental institution and straightjacket. Gregory, whose head is shaped like a yam, is largely unresponsive and uncommunicative, occasionally manic and given to monosyllabic chanting. His self-appointed best friend is Herman Vermin, a large garrulous black rat, regularly killed and reincarnated. The only other character who is not an inexplicable alien presence is Wendell, a mouse with a cheese fixation.
This isn't the same fun, wacky stuff as Epicurus the Sage, though both came out at the same time from the same imprint, so they do share a certain appeal. And while Gregory isn't wacky, it is definitely humorous, albeit of a darker variety.
So I don't know if you'll like it, but I do, and so I think you ought to at least look at it. Plus it's cheap.
Bibliographic note: This edition contains Gregory, the first volume, and Gregory II: Herman Vermin's Very Own Best-Selling & Critically Acclaimed Book With Gregory In It, the second volume, published back in the late 80s, early 90s. A second volume containing Gregories 3 and 4 will be out shortly.
Posted by Greg at April 5, 2004 2:18 PM
Seconded, by another Gregory.
Although I wouldn't call it dark. At least, not in a Warren Ellis or Johny Homicidle Maniac dark.
At least, not the one I read (the first "gregory")
If you can reconcile laughing at or with a cartoon of someone with this sort or severe dissability, it isn't that dark. I would say its significantly lighter than, say, itchy and scratchy.
See, I would say that making fun of a child with severe mental impairment is pretty dark 8)
The humor is also relatively low, such as a variety of poo jokes.
Ugugugugugugugugugugugug
He's not a child, as is clear near the end of the first book where he experiences a change of environment (I really don't want to spoil the book.)
Also, I don't see (at least in the book I read, and I really don't remember if I read any of the sequels) gregory being made fun of. He seems more like a profoundly inarticulate Dennis Mitchell.
WEHT Dennis Mitchell? I always liked that strip.
The humor is all over the board, low to high. There is such rich humanity too.