Two Italian Guys

By Tao Mori
January 18, 2011 - 19:15

There is not simple way to describe what this book is, other than as a writer’s view on Italian-Americans. I hope Chris Yura’s Italian otherwise some readers might be really offended by this book. Yes it has talking vegetables, but sadly they’re not that charming. There’s three different sets of characters that we follow in this book the first is this hitman and his boss. Then we meet the racist TV show cooking host Lou and his ensemble of vegetables. Finally there’s a story about this boy’s who’s family immigrated to the United States when he was very young.
With the hitman story, both characters are kinda jerks. If the author wanted empathy for the characters right off the bat, they don’t have it. The boss treats his hitman like a jerk, which isn’t wise cause hitmen carry guns, especially this one. The hitman recalls his story of killing this guy and his girlfriend, and he’s very casual about it, like it’s another day at the office. This has a comedic appeal to it, but at the same time its very dark. I do wonder if the hitman had planned on whacking his boss or not, it felt like the insult that the boss threw at him was the last straw, but maybe it was premeditated. It does come as a surprise, maybe I shouldn’t have told you what was going to happen, a little late to say spoilers now. Other than the character’s roles we don’t know their names, perhaps that’s covered in the next book.

   The next guy who I’m going to cover is Lou Peppino who’s my favourite in the book. He’s hard to like as he’s quite clearly racist and the characters in the book remind of that fact. Not just any characters either but the vegetables. Can vegetables be racist towards one another? I don’t know, this book doesn’t try to answer that complicated question. There’s also clearly a strain in the relationship between Tommy the Tomato and Lou, which sounds weird, as Tommy married Lou’s sister (I presume a human) and Lou gets offended that Tommy doesn’t take Lou’s side. Clearly Lou expects Tommy to always back him up, but this isn’t the case. This whole conversation happens while the show is live so the audience gets to hear their fight, but we don’t see backlash from this. There’s a lot of recipes in this book too, I’m tempted to try his Marinara sauce as he explains how to make it from scratch instead of out of a bottle. Well I use a can, but I suspect he would frown upon that too.
   There’s another scene later on in the comic where Lou is trying to get into a restaurant, and bribes the attendant to get a table without a reservation only it’s the table by the toilet. This felt a lot like a sitcom sketch, Lou wants to get laid and bribes the attendant, then it turns out he was cheap and he got a piss poor table, cue laughter. Perhaps I wasn’t quite drawn in to the pointless nature of this particular story, but it lacked the same lustre of the previous Lou comic and the next one. The next one has Lou barges in on Tommy and Lou accuses Tommy of eating bad fast food. Lou hates fast food. Tommy explains that the bag contains weed, not fast food and Lou feels like an ass. That’s funny stuff, right there.
   The last story is the immigrant story, about the family who travels from poor Italy to the United States and sets their life up as farmers. The two sons are working blue collar jobs, which they are unhappy with and hardly ever do successful with. The older son decides to get a job with the mob, while the younger son decides not to. I wonder if the older son is going to be working for the hitman we met earlier in the comic, but this distinction is not made clear, except that both stories takes place in Scranton. So perhaps it is the same guy.
   The artwork in this piece is more cartoon looking than realistic looking, but the delivery of the material requires a cartoon approach. The colouring is well done and there are drawings that make good use of shading. This is especially visible in the story about the family immigrating to the United States. Lou Peppino is perhaps the most cartoonish, but then with talking vegetables, I think we have to accept that as the appropriate medium for them to displayed in.
   All in all, not bad, but for my tastes not great. The comedic elements in this are quite funny, but I think this book requires a more mature audience, don’t be fooled by the talking vegetables, this book isn’t for kids.

Rating: 7 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12

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