'American Elf - The Collected Sketchbook Diaries of James Kochalka' 

Top Shelf Productions, 2012

Written and Illustrated by James Kochalka

American Elf 1999, 454 pages
American Elf 2000, 300 pages
American Elf 2001, 376 pages
American Elf 2002, 368 pages

Since October 26, 1998, independent comics creator Kochalka has kept a journal in comics. Each day's square of one, two, three, or the conventional four panels illustrates a nice or funny or pointed exchange between him and Amy, his wife; an encounter with their cat, Spandy; an interchange with a friend; recording or performing with his rock band; bike riding or driving; partying or traveling; attending a comics convention; appreciating, or not, the pleasures of the day; struggling with that day's entry. Utterly candid, the strips include nudity and bodily functions because, after all, they are everyday phenomena. Kochalka depicts himself as an elf, with buckteeth and long, pointed ears that lead many to mistake the representation as a rabbit. Only once is another comic mentioned: Peanuts, on the day Charles Schulz dies. That is indicative, for Kochalka's work is as graphically innocent as Schulz's, though less intellectual and far earthier in content. It's as if sweet gross-out filmmaker John Waters had reconstituted Schulz's classic with and for grown-ups: vulgar but lovable. (Ray Olson. Booklist)