Back, Crack & Sack (& Brain)

Author: Robert Wells
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224 pages
Publish Date: 29 June 2017
Publisher: Robinson
Catalog ID: ISBN-10: 1472136756 ISBN-13: 978-1472136756
Where to buy: https://bookshop.org/a/1457/9781472136756
Author website: https://www.robertwellscartoonist.com/
Review
In this hilarious graphic memoir, Rob Wells takes the comics tradition of self-mockery and
abasement to a new level, regaling us with the workings of all his bodily plumbing, the
mechanics of masturbation, and his worries about the size of his penis, while his graphic
avatar, a portly man with his right hand perma-thrust down the front of his pants, frets
about making a public spectacle of himself by soiling his pants in public.
For our amusement, Wells drops his trousers and undergoes all manner of undignified
procedures at the hands of an array of – mostly unlikeable – doctors and feckless or
bullying nurses. The book is not kind to the medical profession, yet there is much for
healthcare professionals to glean here: good doctors will recognise their rude and
condescending colleagues and sigh with sympathy at Robʼs pain. Rude and patronising
doctors will roll their eyes and tut at his dysfunctional illness behavior. This is a study in
complexity theory with no simple mechanical cures, a case of chronic pain and medically
unexplained symptoms, where most of the attempts at cure come to nothing, while patient
communication and kindness go lacking, leaving our man increasingly skeptical of the
benefits of modern medicine.
I loved this book. It made me laugh out loud on just about every page. Wellsʼs pacing and
visual humour is first class. Filthy and puerile, yet wise and weighty, the book ends how it
begins: a man in a teeshirt, naked from the waist down, telling us rather too much about
his most intimate problems. Excellent.
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