Minimum Wage is sort of like a sitcom where none of the people are particularly attractive or particularly funny. They aren’t actually funny with each other. It’s like if you had a sitcom with a bunch of Newman clones and they never told any funny jokes.
Obviously, Fingerman’s not just going for humor. He’s got a statement he wants to make about marriage, divorce, hippies, metal, Uzbeks and maybe video games. Not video games. Something else is in there. The Internet, maybe.
Some of the pages are paced really well, some of the details are slightly amusing. What’s strange is how Fingerman moves his character through this endless supporting cast. He hangs out with his main friends, then his girlfriend, then some other friend, then some other friend, then the girlfriend again. Maybe if the protagonist was mildly interesting.
Oh, Fingerman’s got the guy’s internal monologue down.
It’s just trite.
CREDITS
Writer and artist, Bob Fingerman; publisher, Image Comics.
Bob Fingerman sure does like holding on to a joke. The opening joke in Minimum Wage has one of the protagonist’s friends making joking advances on him. One of his male friends. Fingerman beats the joke with a stick, not just killing the funny in it–there isn’t any to start–but also looking desperate.