Joe's Bar

Joe's Bar is a waystation on the boulevard of broken dreams, a dark harbor for slowly sinking ships, a lost-and-found center for lost souls trying to find themselves in a violent world. The air is smoky and smells of Raymond Chandler's cigarettes, but there are no heroes here - only the heroism of frail lonely humans looking for a way out of the labyrinth of their own alienation, searching for affection, self-esteem, a way to survive twenty-four more hours. There's a profound sadness and tenderness in these stories of a haunting kind never seen in comics before. Munoz and Sampayo work like one brain with two bodies: Sampayo's stories are elliptical and subtle; Munoz's powerful expressionist drawings take dazzling risks. There are no cliches' here, only comics that dare you to look , think and feel. - Art Spiegelman.