True friends stab you in the front
April 11, 2014 11:39 AM   Subscribe

Web comic artists Ryan North and David Malki have been "discovering" obscure books "written" by each other, and posting their finds at BOOKWAR.

It seems to have begun in January with Malki's discovery of North's Going Viral. North, coincidentally, happened upon Malki's Machine of Life. Things have only escalated since.

Highlights:
Don't Say It If You Don't Meme It by Malki
Unmotivated and Incompetent by North
Sex in Your Thirties by Malki
Crashvertising by North
posted by scatter gather (30 comments total) 71 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm in love.

Besides sex in your 30s, this is the best IMO: SUPER GREAT!

Going to need to work "got some butt probs, no big" into a few conversations.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:47 AM on April 11, 2014


oh god this is great
posted by rebent at 11:48 AM on April 11, 2014


I would like to exchange money for Belt Buckles Of Ontario: An Appreciation now.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:48 AM on April 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


I don't know which ones are the real books. There are a couple of real books in there somewhere, right?
posted by Kokopuff at 11:53 AM on April 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh man, now some of the posts I've seen on Tumblr in the past few days make waaaaaay more sense. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or sad.
posted by kmz at 11:56 AM on April 11, 2014


They're all real. I've owned "Sex in your Twenties: I Had Some" for awhile. I usually remember to put it away before parties, but sometimes I leave it out on purpose, ladies.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:59 AM on April 11, 2014


I'd read Space Batman.
posted by jquinby at 12:11 PM on April 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


These guys are two of my favorites and the combination is frankly almost too awesome to contemplate.
posted by tommasz at 12:14 PM on April 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


I hope this won't escalate into an alternative-reality game about sub-prime mortages.
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:19 PM on April 11, 2014 [6 favorites]


I hope this escalates into an alternative-reality game about sub-prime mortages.
posted by Gygesringtone at 12:30 PM on April 11, 2014 [11 favorites]


jquinby: "I'd read Space Batman."

"A Fiction Novel"
posted by chavenet at 12:30 PM on April 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


I like this one, mainly for the second book tucked unobtrusively along the side.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:36 PM on April 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


I like this one, mainly for the second book tucked unobtrusively along the side.

Yeah, though it's a little strange that the spine of the "Holy Bible - Revised and Improved" says "Bleak House" on it. I guess it's like one of those old ACE double novels!
posted by 256 at 1:10 PM on April 11, 2014


Kart Before the Horse: Me and a few other developers had worked out this - demo, I guess you’d call it, where Mario was a horse, and Bowser was a horse, and everyone in the Mushroom Kingdom was a horse now too. We saw it as a culmination of Miyamoto’s dream of Centaur Mario, which we’d been unable to realize for Mario 3…

You would read the hell out of this book. Do not lie. Me? I would also read the hell out of this book.
posted by ardgedee at 1:20 PM on April 11, 2014 [3 favorites]


This is so so good.
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 1:20 PM on April 11, 2014


jquinby: I'd read Space Batman.

But that's a typo. It should be Space, Batman, and there is other book called Space Dick, Tracy.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:20 PM on April 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


well never mind then
posted by jquinby at 1:26 PM on April 11, 2014


Two of the best webcomickers NOT known for their art styles (North's perpetually recycled Dinosaurs and Malki's vintage clipart) show us the power of Photoshop. I feel... oddly inspired. Now, where can I find some appropriate art for "Cortex's Book Club", "Whelkonomics" and "Harry Potter and the Filthy Light Thief"...?
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:01 PM on April 11, 2014 [3 favorites]




Now, where can I find some appropriate art for "Cortex's Book Club"

Have you tried doing a Google Image search for "Markov generator"?
posted by nickmark at 2:19 PM on April 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


The subtitle to True Friends Stab You In The Front is "what we really mean when we're really mean to the people we love" which is brilliant and — quite amazingly — novel. If Google can be believed.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:54 PM on April 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Both of these people are brilliant and hilarious so of course it is brilliant and hilarious when they have a fake feud.

"i didn’t even think libraries threw away books but I GUESS THEY MADE AN EXCEPTION??"
posted by aubilenon at 3:58 PM on April 11, 2014


I can't begin to understand this but I am so glad it's happening.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:00 PM on April 11, 2014


"Inexplicable!" -- Margaret Atwood
posted by valkane at 4:14 PM on April 11, 2014 [9 favorites]


Oh internet, why do you give me such a rich bounty of delights? Surely I do not deserve it.

(Thanks, scatter gather)
posted by straight at 9:44 PM on April 11, 2014


It is moments like this that I am in smiling awe of humans' creative powers.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 10:39 PM on April 11, 2014


I think "Not All Men" is my favorite phrase of 2014.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:05 AM on April 12, 2014 [5 favorites]


Potomac Avenue: NOT-ALL-MAN!
posted by divabat at 10:33 PM on April 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


What I want to know is if they are posing for the photos for these covers. Or are they using existing photos of each other? Or did they do a shoot where they took a bunch of random interesting poses that they're using for this?
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 7:42 AM on April 15, 2014


Galaxor Nebulon: Both of them have run popular web comics for years, contributed to books, run kickstarter campaigns, and had a bunch of media interviews and stuff. Add that in to regular social-media-goofiness, and there's a pretty wide selection of pre-existing photos to choose from.

I'm pretty sure they are not actively colluding on any of these images, though they are of course both playing along with each other about the joke feud as a whole.
posted by aubilenon at 11:40 AM on April 15, 2014


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