Kyle Baker is one of the funniest funnybook writers working in the field today, if not the funniest. His Why I Hate Saturn was such a brilliantly funny comic that I still laugh aloud when I think about it today — ten years after I first read it.
He's kind of dropped out of the field for a couple years, apparently to work on commercial illustrations for magazines, and I've really missed him. Vertigo has just issued a new collection of Baker material, called "Undercover Genie."
It's…OK. The funny parts are really, really, really funny. The hard-edged, mean parts are really, really really mean. But about two-thirds of this book is filler, page after page of mildly amusic caricatures of political figures, doodles and sketches. I got my copy for free as a reviewer, but I would have certainly have bought it as soon as I spotted it on the shelf at the comics shop. At $15, I think I would have felt a little ripped off by the time I was done. A book for Kyle Baker completists (a fine thing to be!), but not worth the price otherwise.
