RECENT REVIEWS:

Old Rare New: The Independent Record Shop by Emma Pettit »

The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott »

Omaha Steaks' The Great American Grilling Book by John Harrison and Judith Choate »

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming + James Bond by Ben Macintyre »

Skyscrapers of the Midwest by Joshua W. Cotter »

Readers can expect a little trash and a little treasure from Jimbo's Inferno. Graphic illustrator Gary Panter, "the father of punk comics," designed the Pee-wee's Playhouse set, and his print work has appeared in the RAW comics anthology and the L.A. punk zine Slash. But he gained an arguably different type of art world status with his wildly popular 2004 comic Jimbo in Purgatory. In its successor, Jimbo's Inferno, Panter sends his muscular and loin-clothed protagonist Jimbo back to hell, located in that signifier of social decay: the mall.

Fans of Panter's concert flyers and album covers will love Jimbo's Inferno. The book is poster size, standing a little less than a foot-and-a-half tall, with a blue and gold cover. It's arty, but this is no ordinary coffee-table book: Lines aren't always exact and chicken scratch shading dominates many of the bigger spaces. Yet imperfections like these make for bigger and more beautiful patterns like the meticulous two-page spread of Focky Bocky, the mall that encompasses hell, purgatory and paradise. Its depiction mystifies the eye and reads like a treasure map that's half punk-show flyer, half mandala.

Jimbo and his parole agent Valise make their way through the circles and rings of the seven-sided mallscape in search of the Soulpinx. On their journey they encounter social commentary fortified with meaning, like tattooed girls who've OD'ed or clawed cow-monsters who scare easily. In the map of Focky Bocky itself, destinations labeled "People Mover" and "Nachos and Cheese" remind us of the overabundance of junk in modern civilization. Jimbo warily anticipates the gluttony of consumer culture when he says, "I have some fear of entering Focky Bocky...so much shopping." In this Inferno, Panter cautions that spending our money and stuffing our heads with things we don't need lands us in a capitalist hell -- or worse, stuck in the parking lot.