Don't Block the Box

Local comic artist Box Brown has a theory on why Everything Dies.

by Brian James Kirk

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Published: Mar 10, 2010

Neal Santos STRIP-PER: Brian "Box" Brown's exestential funnies are on display at Brave New Worlds.

[ funny pages ]

Even with thousands of daily readers, Brian "Box" Brown struggles to keep his fledgling comic strip career afloat. To pay the bills, he's been a freelance illustrator, office jockey and porno-cataloguer at a rental shop. "That's one of the most exciting things about comics," Brown says. "You have to scrape to make a living."

Perhaps that's why Brown — best known for Bellen! (boxbrown.com), his online daily strip about a couple confronting deep issues like YouTube stardom and snow storms — is thinking existentially. In his new Everything Dies graphic novel series, Brown seeks answers from the world's religions, lightheartedly questioning end times, Scientology and the many seemingly unfinished explanations for what happens when we finally depart this crazy planet.

This month, Brave New Worlds is displaying original panels from the novels with Brown's pop culture-inspired watercolors.

City Paper: You turned to your fans for donations to fund Everything Dies. How did your campaign work out?

Box Brown: It was a really great experience doing that whole thing. I'd wake up, and be like, "Wow, this person just donated $150 to the campaign." It was a cool thing to see that there are people who believe in the comic.

CP: I'd say that Bellen! is more to-the-point funny. Everything Dies has a slow-cooking wit.

BB: Bellen! is cute little slice-of-life-type things. With Everything Dies, I'm trying to make a point. People do so much crazy stuff because of religion. It's a group who believes in their own religion and that everything else is ridiculous. It's all kinda ridiculous.

CP: Why do you think your interest in religion is focused on death?

BB: That's what ties all the religions together. They vary on their rituals and stories, but all of them have some answer for what's going to happen when people die.

CP: It doesn't seem like fertile ground for humor, and yet Everything Dies is funny.

BB: Telling stories in the context of comics can sometimes be funny. Muslims believe that at the end of the world, God judges everyone. When you're waiting to be judged, you're in the desert. It's really hot. So you draw a bunch of people waiting in line and sweating and stuff. That's what they literally believe. From certain standpoints, the facts are funny.

(editorial@citypaper.net)

Box Brown | Through March 31, free, Brave New Worlds, 45 N. Second St., 215-925-6525, bravenewworldscomics.com

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