Every day this month I'll be reviewing a different independent comic book, based on submissions from the creators of the comic books themselves.

The month continues with a mini-comic from Athena Currier (I reviewed her full comic, Burn Book: The Slut Issue, a few days back) about two notable bosses that she has had in her life, both named Dan.



Currier does a good job in this 16 page comic of giving the reader a strong picture of the lack of power that retail workers have when dealing with their bosses. I am sure that this is a notion that is quite familiar to many people out there, but it is still to see such a visceral demonstration of that feeling in comic-form.

I really appreciated the heft of this comic. As Warren Ellis and Matt Fraction have shown us, 16 pages of a regular comic book CAN read like a 40 page comic if you make a point of making the comic read that way. Similarly, a 16 page mini-comic CAN read like a "full" comic if you make it that way, and Currier does an impressive job of making this comic feel "full."

The name of the comic comes from the fact that her boss while she was in high school working at a video store was named Dan. Now that she is back home from college and working at a coffee shop, her boss is also named Dan.

The two men are drastically different, but the one thing they seem to share is the one thing that many people "in power" share, which is the sense that their workers are there to basically listen to them say whatever they feel like it.

In the first Dan's case, it is to espouse conservative "patriotic" values (like handmade notes on the cover of Brown Bunny warning people not to rent it to anyone under 18 or refusing to put up posters for Brokeback Mountain) while in the second Dan's case, it is to be more "liberal," but still talk down to your workers like they're children.

These are fairly universal themes, and Currier delivers them well (the title of the comic specifically comes from an old employee of the first Dan, who made up a membership card titled PAD - People Against Dan).

This is a fun comic. I honestly don't know how or where you can buy a copy (I'd also like to be able to show you the cover, but I can't find that anywhere). Check out Currier's website here.