Reading Paul Howard: The Art of Ross O’Carroll Kelly offers a thorough examination of narrative devices, satirical modes, cultural context and humour, in Howard’s texts. The volume argues that his academic critical neglect is due to a classic bifurcation in Irish Studies between high and popular culture, and will use the thought of Pierre Bourdieu, Sigmund Freud, Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida to critique this division, building a theoretical platform from which to examine the significance of Howard’s work as an Irish comic and satirical writer. Addressing both the style and the substance of his work, this text locates him in a tradition of Irish satirical writing that dates back to the Gaelic bards, and includes writers like Swift, Wilde, Flann O’Brien and Joyce. Through textual and contextual analysis, this book makes the case for Howard as a significant and original voice in Irish writing, whose fusion of the three traditional types of satire (Horatian, Juvenalian and Menippean), has created a parallel Ireland that shines a satirical light on its real counterpart. As Freud suggests, humour is a way of accessing aspects of the psyche that normative discourses cannot enunciate, and Howard, through the confessional voice of Ross, offers a fictive truth on twenty years of Irish society, a truth that is not accessed by discourse in the public sphere or by what could be termed literary or high cultural fiction.

Fame. Fortune. Screaming girls. The adoration of strangers. I've had it all before, yet nothing could have prepared this Horny Little Devil for his new life in the City of Angels. Sacked as the coach of the Andorra rugby team and on the run from the sister I never knew I had, I decided to head west, vowing to win back my wife and daughter from a risk assessor predicting economic doom for the world. Imagine my shock when I discovered that my old dear, on a nationwide book tour, was already busy charming America out of its collective elasticated pants. With Trevion, a 1991 Gulf War-veteran-turned-celebrity-Svengali, on my side, not to mention my brand new bromance with a gym instructor called Harvey, I was determined to become more famous than even her. But one nose job and one abdominal resculpt later, I no longer knew where reality ended and reality TV began ...

Comic book heroes are taking over the popular culture world. This title includes a brief overview of the industry, a grading guide, and features an interview with a comic book insider.