Press Release
Fumbling lives and loves, a New York City so real you can smell it, people with everyday problems, hopes, and heartbreak — this is the world of Bob Fingerman’s Minimum Wage, a slice-of-life comic that captured a devoted following in the late 1990s. One of that following is Robert Kirkman, who writes the introduction to the definitive edition of Fingerman’s seminal work, MAXIMUM MINIMUM WAGE, a hardcover collection to be released in March.
“Minimum Wage is an important comic,” Kirkman writes in the introduction. “If I were tasked with introducing someone to comics in an attempt to make them love and cherish the medium as much as I do, I’d give them Watchmen, Bone, Savage Dragon, and Minimum Wage.”
At the center of Minimum Wage are Rob and Sylvia, a freelance cartoonist and a beauty salon manager — young, in love, and just trying to make their way to their real lives. An array of vivid characters and New York City “personalities” round out the supporting cast. Fingerman’s previous collection of Minimum Wage, Beg the Question, was nominated for two 2003 Eisner Awards (Best Graphic Novel — Reprint and Best Publication Design), one 2003 Harvey Award (Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work), and one 2003 Ignatz Award (Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection).
MAXIMUM MINIMUM WAGE includes the “lost” first issue of Minimum Wage, Minimum Wage Book One, as well as the script for the never-drawn eleventh issue, and an impressive collection of pin-ups by top comics artists, including Peter Bagge, Guy Davis, Dean Haspiel, Gilbert Hernandez, Joe Infurnani, Roger Langridge, Kevin Nowlan, Dave Johnson, Ted McKeever, Mike Mignola, Jill Thompson and more!
A 384-page, black-and-white hardcover book (with 16 pages in full-color), MAXIMUM MINIMUM WAGE will be in stores on March 20 and retail for $34.99. Its ISBN is 978-1-60706-674-3.
PRAISE FOR BOB FINGERMAN
“Fingerman is a brilliant satirist, artist and mind.” ⎯ Trey Parker (South Park, The Book of Mormon)
“Bob Fingerman is a narrative master, as brilliantly adept with words as with images. His vision is urbane, riotous, and unflinching.” ⎯ Jonathan Lethem (The Fortress of Solitude, Omega: The Unknown)
“Mr. Fingerman is a deeply talented, creative, and disturbed man.” — Max Brooks (World War Z)
“It doesn’t seem fair that Bob Fingerman gets to be such a funny, savvy, cool and smart writer who can also draw. It gives him an advantage and I may need to have him assassinated.” — Augusten Burroughs (Running With Scissors)
PRAISE FOR BOB FINGERMAN’S MINIMUM WAGE (previous editions):
“Fingerman’s visual style is a witty combo of old-school underground-comics grunginess and new-school precision; his dialogue is worthy of the stage — it’s terrific screwball-comedy byplay that rings true. A-” — Entertainment Weekly
“Fingerman’s dialogue is biting and realistic, and his drawing is exceptional.” — Publishers Weekly
“Beg The Question’s episodic, interwoven tales of career disappointments and romantic complications take on the mesmeric quality of a good soap opera…the writing and the art contain plenty of stark, truthful moments.” — The A.V. Club
“Fingerman depicts their eventful if directionless lives with humor and empathy… Anyone who has lived or envied la vie bohème should relate to this dead-on evocation of a contemporary version of it.” — Booklist
“Beg the Question is a coming-of-age graphic novel for twenty-somethings and anyone who remembers being that age. It is a funny, heartwarming, and poignant work. It helps make the case for comics being THE great American art form.” — The Comic Buyers’ Guide
“…a meticulous, smutty, hilarious quasi-autobiographical slice of life about a young cartoonist maintaining grownup relationships while struggling to rise from the ‘low-end of the New York food chain.’ Funny if you’ve been there, even funnier if you still are.” — The New York Press
