Box Office Poison: Landlady from Hell

[alicemacher]

Apartment renting. If you're lucky, you get to rent from a reasonable owner and share a building with people and animals who are halfway civilized. If you're not so lucky...you might just be New Yorkers Jane and Stephen from Alex Robinson's graphic novel Box Office Poison (Antarctic Press, 1996-2000; collected ed. Top Shelf, 2002). One page from Issue 4 (Mar 1997); eight pages from Issue 8 (Feb 1998).

Trigger warning for misogynistic slurs.



Meet Sora Tweed, tyrannical owner of the apartment building much of the novel's cast calls home. Hobbies include: yelling at people for visiting her tenants, yelling at tenants for having visitors, yelling at tenants for being slightly late on their rent, yelling at tenants for making noise, and threatening to call the police for any of the above reasons. Here she's calling on Jane, who shares an apartment with boyfriend Stephen and roommate Sherman.





Some time later, another tenant decides to dispense with being polite even to Mrs. Tweed's face.








Sora has a heart attack on the spot and is hospitalized for six weeks ("or something like that," says Dylan). Jane looks forward to finally having some peace and quiet at home. No such luck, however. First, Dylan starts having her band over to practice. Jane sends Stephen to ask them to play more quietly. They agree to do so, but then turn the amps up even louder. Then, tenant Emil Yossarian's vicious dog starts barking for hours on end.






"How much longer?" All day and night, as it turns out. Then, just as Snoopy finally shuts up and Jane and Stephen sigh with relief...





Jane pounds on Dylan's door, screaming. Emil pops out to yell at her; she threatens his dog in turn.












Home, sweet home.

In my next BOP post, an elderly Golden Age cartoonist tells the story of how his publisher robbed him of his greatest creation.

Comments

[bizarrohulk]

Sora looks like Grey Hulk in drag on that last page.

[halloweenjack]

I quite liked BOP, but I find it difficult to revisit, because of the fate of one particular character. You can probably guess which one.