The Furry Trap Hardcover – July 10, 2012

This is a comic that really recaptures the spirit of the old Undergrounds from back in the hippie days. It's very much a no-holds-barred, anything-goes effort.Most of the stories are in color. "Cockbone" and "The Mark of the Bat" are B&W.The art is really excellent, very well-done. It's a cut above standard comic book art. Simmons is really good at capturing a mood and portraying human emotion.Unfortunately, the unremittingly hateful and nasty content makes this a cold and unpleasant read. I felt that Simmons was trying to be witty and shocking but it fell flat. The general tone seemed to be one of accusation and condemnation, against the reader, against the modern world. He seems to be saying that all humans are fundamentally disgusting and malignant and we should just stop kidding ourselves.I bought this book on the strength of the, "Cockbone", story which I originally read in Robin Bougie's, "Sleazy Slice", anthology comic. I was totally bowled over by it. It has to be one of the best comic stories I have ever read. The story flows as part real, part fairy tale, part dream. It's long but it never drags. The mother-son aspect of it is particularly affecting.The, "Night of the Jibblers”, story reaches for poignancy but doesn’t quite make it. And it seems to be saying that old men just surrender to their dissolution, which is accurate enough. This is the only story that had any kind of a heart.The, "Demonwood", story is a particularly nasty one. It seems to be an assault on the sentimentalizing of humble, hard-working Joes. Either that or Simmons is some kind of closet socialist. Heavens!The, "Mark of the Bat", succeeds in being witty. This is an assault on standard super-hero comics. Simmons seems to be saying that super-heroes would be more interesting if they were super-freaks that just followed their own ugly and perverse agendas.The, "In a Land of Magic", story was the hardest one for me to stomach. This story's assault on all the cheap, mindless sentimentality saturating our culture is so harsh and so extreme, it was horrifying and depressing for me. I guess I can’t blame him for wanting to lash out.

Josh Simmons is one of those few great cartoonists who get's better with every piece. The stories are roughly chronological, and Simmons experiments with each one, trying out new tricks and scraping off what isn't working. Look at the colors: Simmons runs through candy cane lane, harsh black and white, muted colored pencils, and groovy limited palates before arriving at an unnerving naturalism. The figures change form big-headed cartooniness to pared down realist proportions. The stories go from humorous and messed up to just plain messed up; by the time Cockbone rolls around, all that's left is crushing despair, with Simmons taking the atrocity as far as he can.The only other comic I've read with that much claustrophobic dread is Demonwood, the last piece in here. It's the best horror film the 70's never made, with Simmons replicating the utterly hopeless sickness of Cockbone without showing a single ounce of gore or sex. Most horror guy's with a vision this perverse pick a style and stick to it, a la Suehiro Mauruo or Shintaro Kago,but Josh Simmons is one driven mofo, always in search of a better way to mess you up. Taken individually, these stories would still be great, fantastic even, but the sequencing in this book just takes things to a whole 'nother level. You're doing yourself a disservice if you read them out of order.

Reading this feels like hanging out with a teenager that's alternately trying to gross you out and impress you with how "edgy" he is. I can guarantee that Simmons thinks he's being ironic/meta/art school/intellectual slumming in his approach to incest, megaviolence, profanity and slurs etc. but it just feels way more Juggalo and lame than anything. I dig the art, though!

A friend recommended checking out anything by Josh simmons and I purchased this book. I'm constantly looking for comics that push the limits. The Furry Trap is no exception. I am now a hardcore Josh Simmons fan and I plan on buying anything he puts out in the future. Thank you Josh SImmons. -Brendon

Not what I expected. Returned it shorty after reading it.

Not for me. Very rape-y. So rape-y it becomes predictable and boring. Dirty jokes from a nervous teenager. Art's good! I feel no need to pick up again

Damn I love this book. Such a beautiful horror show.

On the plus side, I enjoyed a number of the horror stories in Josh Simmons' The Furry Trap. The best of the lot was "Demonwood", a chilling story of a man's encounter with a young demon. It's very bleak and it's effective because of what he doesn't show you. In this case, less is more and this story really resonated with me. I also enjoyed "Night of the Jibblers" and the opening story "In A Land Of Magic" - both were disturbing and what I expected from Simmons.However, many of the stories were not fully fleshed-out ideas and were not effective as "horror" stories. For example, "Jesus Christ" and "A__hole Roommate" seemed like unfinished ideas and did nothing for me. The use of graphic violence and/or sexual deviancy is only effective if woven into an compelling narrative and most of the time the stories didn't fully work for me.If you are unfamiliar with Simmons' work, The Furry Trap is a good place to start. If you are a fan of disturbing images and creepy stories, in the vein of Al Columbia, you may want to check it out.

The first short story is incredibly obscene and horrific. I've been around the internet for long enough that I should be decensitized but apparently that's not enough. The other stories were okay, sometimes random and pointless, sometimes coherent and readable. I dunno, good for Josh Simmons to have gotten this stuff published, bad for me spending my money on it. Cockbone was enjoyable, as was the final short story about the little ghost man. If I had the chance to go back in time, I probably wouldn't buy it again. Don't trust any "greatest graphic novels ever" lists out there if it has this on it.If you liked the farside illustrations, but felt they were lacking penises, semen, open wound penetration, semen penetrating open wounds, nonsense humour, etc... Then this book is for you. If you're old and tired with the state of the world, like me, go find something a bit more wholesome.

So weird and disturbing

Ah man, it's pretty horrible man. It's really grimey. Not what I was expecting, proper grimey. I'm just remembering some bits from it now as I write this. Ugh, not nice. It might be good, I'm not sure, but its deffo grimey.

It’s just not a very interesting or good comic, how anyone thinks this is creepy or weird is beyond me, it’s just trite and unoriginal.

What else can you say about Joshua Simmons other than downright absurdism to the maximum. There are plenty of different stories here...if only he did an anthology of Happy.