The Snake Pit Book: Daily Diary Comics 2001-2003

by Ben Snakepit, Aaron Cometbus (Foreword by)

Overview

Ben Snakepit draws his life everyday in 3 comic panels. This was his first book, collecting quite a few various zines. After describing dozens of various Snakepit titles I'm going to defer to the wisdom of Jimmi Payne's Punk Zine, "Taken individually, each strip resembles what a friend would say if you asked what they had done that day. Ben sifts through the minutiae of life as well as the full experience of time in a day. This is different than James Kochalka's work as there is no pretense at narrative or point. The narratives in Snakepit open up on the macro level. If Snakepit is to be read on the toilet, a mere bowel movement is enough time to live months through the protagonist's eyes. Patterns emerge and story arcs materialize and years of common actions load into a highly concentrated snapshot that wakes you up to the ongoing machinations of life beyond your present day. This has led many to label Snakepit an existential text." Introduction about doing cocaine by Aaron Cometbus.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621067146
Publisher:	Microcosm Publishing LLC
Publication date:	12/17/2013
Series:	Comix Journalism , #1
Edition description:	Second edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Ben Snakepit has drawn a three-panel comic strip about his day, every single day since 2001. His comics have been collected in nine books over the past two decades. His books have received glowing reviews in publications like Vice, Maximum Rocknroll, Wizard magazine, USA Today and GQ.

Born along bold, black-and-white lines in Berkeley, CA in 1968, Aaron Cometbus began publishing Cometbus at age 13, months before Maximum Rocknroll got off the ground in 1981. A few years later, Aaron participated in the Gilman Street Project and started his band Crimpshrine. By 1989, Crimpshrine had broken up and Aaron steadfastly focused on Cometbus, which he honed to focus on "punk anthropology," partly to create a legacy bigger than his broken-up band. He was involved with many more part time and project bands over the next twenty five years, such as Pinhead Gunpowder, Thorns of Life, Cleveland Bound Death Sentence, Redmond Shooting Stars, The Blank Fight, and filling in for Green Day and This Bike is a Pipe Bomb. Cometbus became a consistent and determined force to be reckoned with predating trends and inspiring legions of imitators. After over thirty years of steadfast involvement in the scene, virtually everyone you meet has an anecdote about meeting Aaron. Cometbus, when at its best, which is most of the time these days, is a perennial reminder that if we just apply hundreds of thousands of hours to one solitary task across 40 years, we too could become a Great American Classic. 

Editorial Reviews

“Ben’s shitty comics have created a book that’s impossible to put down, with lessons usually reserved for more pretentious art.”  —Vice

“Ben’s comic is the visual embodiment of what I really enjoy about DIY punk. On the surface, and to the casual observer, it may not look like much. But there are the watershed days [...] It shows that, yeah, music’s important to Ben, but it’s driven by the people behind it all, what beats in their hearts, and not what’s on their t-shirts.”  —Razorcake

“Snakepit stands out for the foolishness of the protagonist’s life. The endless punk rock shows, drinking binges, and rotating girlfriends makes life seem both utterly meaningless and yet still there’s a power there . . . or at least an energy of some kind. A little crudely lived, but with gusto, and crudely recorded as little comic strips.”  —James Kochalka, Vermont Cartoonist Laureate

“Every three-panel daily entry has a song-and-artist slug (e.g., ‘Beat on the Brat—Ramones’) as epigram more than title and very often begins or ends at a rock show. [...] Perhaps Snakepit’s life is in a rut, but he’s basically happy, especially when he has a girlfriend, and what he records simultaneously with his own adventures is a bohemian, or lumpen bohemian, scene healthier and miles less pretentious than, say, Verlaine and Rimbaud’s Parisian niche or the Beats’ conclaves in Paris and San Francisco.”  —Ray Olson, Booklist

From the Publisher