Greetings and happy Friday! This week I am very excited to share my enthusiasm for two slightly irreverent works that bring me joy. Simultaneously, even!

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The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: 10% Heart, 90% Cuss Words

I’ve already talked about how Judd Winick gets an undeservedly bad rap in comics circles when I raved about his work on Marvel’s Exiles series. However, those aren’t even close to my favourite Judd Winick comics, not by a long shot. The best comics series I think the man ever created was one that he created entirely on his own — writing, art, even lettering apparently — and one that he admitted came out of feeling creatively bankrupt and wanting to just make something fun. I’m talking about The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius. Over the course of 12 black-and-white issues, Winick took a completely joke premise and made something amazing out of it, without ever losing the humour and profanity that was there from the start.

The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius is about, well, a boy genius named Barry Ween. Barry is the smartest human alive; he was self-aware in the womb and was creating artificial life when he hit grade school. This kind of intellectual gigantism has also led to Barry developing a slightly antisocial personality, a kind of callousness towards life, and most importantly, an incredibly foul mouth. His best (and at the start of the series, only) friend in the world, the impulsive and attention-deficient Jeremy, is probably the closest rival Barry has in terms of creative curse words. Most of the first third of Barry Ween features two 10-year-old boys swearing and cussing at each other as they make their way through hilarious science-fiction adventures. Whether it’s aliens who have crash-landed on earth, tears in spacetime that happen to be in Barry’s basement, or accidentally transforming Jeremy into a giant purple dinosaur, restraint has been kicked out the door and the emphasis put on adventure and humour, sometimes at the expense of other pop cultural offerings. Winick clearly loves the things that he’s skewering though, whether he’s using Barry and Jeremy’s dialogue to poke holes in Star Trek’s space-time continuum or making visual homages to famous superhero comics.

The book works just fine that way, and if it had stayed at that level, it would be a pretty good series. However, what starts off as a pure humour book eventually gets some heart. Especially in the last two volumes, things get really personal. It becomes much more than a joke book about a foul-mouthed child genius — it becomes about exploring friendship and life. Except, you know, with ape fights and Stone-Age warrior tribes and laser cannons and parallel universes and jetpacks.

The injection of heart comes from the addition of two new characters. Roxy, a super-intelligent girl sasquatch whom Barry helps fit into human society, is fun and exuberant and playful and a great foil for Jeremy, who crushes on her something fierce. The biggest change, and the focus of the last volume of the series, is Barry and Jeremy’s classmate Sara. Sara is the key to unlocking the real potential of the series, because Barry needs someone to soften him and Jeremy would never be able to do that. Sure, Jeremy’s got a heart that Barry doesn’t have, but Jeremy is basically all instinct, the opposite of the hyper-rational, intelligent Barry who uses his intellect to avoid using his emotions. Sara has a heart like Jeremy but she is also smart and rational and curious with a dose of self-control, which makes her a good match for Barry. In the latter half of the series, Sara shakes up the Barry-Jeremy dynamic a little bit, and while Jeremy remains the most important person in Barry’s life, Barry’s relationship with Sara gives the book new depth.

This series is my answer to anyone who questions Winick’s chops as a comics creator. He pours everything into this “throwaway book” and his talents in plotting, writing, and art shine through in every volume. The dialogue is crisp and funny, and establishes both the characters and their relationships. The cartooning is spot-on, too; the look of each character is perfect, one look at Barry’s pursed lips and furrowed brow or Jeremy’s wide eyes and long, expressive face and the reader is already halfway to understanding what these characters are all about. Winick also gives a lot of attention to action scenes, which always feel urgent and exciting.

Barry Ween is a strange and beautiful combination of themes and emotions; it’s profane and hilarious and heartbreaking. I’m not ashamed to admit that it is the first comic book series that made me cry when I read it over a decade ago, and then again just this week on the re-read. Yes, there’s real heart among the dick jokes and robot exoskeletons. It might seem like I’m over-selling this humour book about a boy genius, but give it a shot. I believe my fanatical devotion to this book will be proven absolutely appropriate.

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Music: This week I also fell head over heels for Girl Talk’s 2010 release All Day. It’s over 70 minutes of incredibly danceable mashups, designed to be listened to all in a row, which I have done five times in the past four days. Girl Talk makes the strangest combinations of artists work incredibly well. There are mashups of performers I love but would never have thought to combine, like Big Boi and Portishead, or The Notorious B.I.G. and Cream, or Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Radiohead. Then there are combinations that I never thought I would like but now can’t get enough of, like Ludacris and Phoenix, Lil’ Kim and the Jackson Five, or Young MC and Kylie Minogue. All Day is more than just a sequence of impressive mashups though, it’s equally impressive how they all flow together. Girl Talk is incredibly skilled at putting together fun little alterations to memorable musical hooks and using samples to transition between moments. Some of the samples are layered so thick that they’re almost auditory illusions; did I really hear a snippet of one of my favourite songs, or did I just imagine it? Whether cleaning house, reading The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius, or going for a run, I could listen to All Day every day.

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That’s it for me this week, my friends. Until next time, have fun and enjoy something others might consider “lowbrow” without shame. I’ll see you in seven days.