Creased Comics
Writer/Artist: Brad Neely
Publisher: New York Review Comics
Publication Date: April 2026
With respect, Brad Neely is a madman. In Creased Comics, out this month from New York Review Comics, you get to find out just how much. Each single-panel comic plunges you into an off-kilter, typically surreal world that requires you to find your bearings, get into the minds of the characters, and at times stare at the comic awhile to figure it out.
Sometimes I laughed immediately, other times I chuckled after a few minutes (or hours!), and yet others I’m still scratching my head about. Sometimes thinking less hard is actually what’s required to find the joke, trusting your first impulse. It’s risky, often dark humor, with a generous helping of vulgarity and violence, so if you like shock humor it might be your jam.
The cleverness and absurdity were what kept me coming back for more. There is some satire too, especially the mocking of particular states of mind. The cartoons’ influences seem wide-ranging, from religion to rural culture, horror to history. Animals with human-like thoughts, strippers, and ennui also make appearances, but truly, expect the unexpected here. Sometimes the universe of a single comic was so fascinating that, even humor aside, I found myself returning to ponder it and its implications.
Neely’s style feels intentionally “naive” and loose in some ways. Yet the simple, sometimes scratchy line work and irregular lettering belie the fact that he also has strong perspective and composition and uses iconic shapes based on clear anatomical understanding and structure. His color is exclusively flat, but it’s also very clean. The result is something that looks rough at first glance but has strong bones.
I wasn’t sure how the order of cartoons was chosen, but they have an organic flow and are interspersed with autobiographical reflections from Neely, in an insightful one-thing-led-to-another exploration. He shares his roots in the American South, his religious background, his father’s hunting habits. He also gets into how he never met the first publisher of Creased Comics, and later, how making a ringtone for a friend in the commercial arts led to bigger things.
Apparently these comics are from a large trove that began with submissions to a student newspaper and later were distributed online in webcomic form. Neely has since made a name for himself professionally in other humor media, including writing for South Park and creating the Adult Swim series China, IL, as well as writing the novel You, Me, and Ulysses S. Grant.
An illuminating 2024 quote from Neely in an interview with The Creative Independent explains some of his thoughts on humor: “…I like works of art that feel personal and balanced with all sorts of silly and serious, profundity and profanity, with anything in there that feels like it was urgent to the artist. […] I’m a big admirer of the modernists as much as the postmodernists and I like the pastiche mixing pot approach. Perfect example are the Beatles—I like the silly stuff as much as the serious. It makes it feel human, alive and deep.”
Neely’s statement on humorous works rings true for his writing as well as his art. From a casual glance, what he selects might seem flippant, or even random, but there is deeper meaning underlying both to give you an experience that resonates, often on several levels.
Judging from an old Reddit Ask Me Anything thread and comments on his YouTube channel, Neely has attracted a devoted, longtime fanbase who enjoy his wackiness, cross-disciplinary talent (including songwriting, voice acting, and light animation), and enthusiasm for odd and outrageous topics, and are thirsty for more. This collection seems likely to please them.
As a newcomer to his work, I’m impressed by his versatility and desire to make things that feel inspired. If you don’t mind some gore and skewering of sacred topics, Neely might just tickle your brain too!
Creased Comics is out this month from New York Review Comics.
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