Cruel has never been so cute and funny as in the hands of the "Yikes" gang. Steven Weissman's "Yikes" comics and characters are some of the most adorable and idiosyncratic cartoon creations in print today--beloved by the masses and the cognoscenti alike. Over the last decade, readers have been delighted by such strange and hilariously cruel books as "Don't Call Me Stupid, Champs, White Flower Day," and "Chewing Gum In Church," Like Huckleberry Finn, Mickey Mouse, and Hannibal Lecter before them, his characters--Li'l Bloody, the Pullapart Boy, Kid Medusa, X-Ray Spence, and "Sweet" Chubby Cheeks (just to name a few)--have affixed themselves in our collective cultural imagination. Indeed, it's hard to recall a time when they weren't a part of our lives, hustling about "Milltown," perfectly drawn and perfectly awful. The cast seemed to appear fully formed by the end of the 1990s, and ready for their "close up." Every success story has its humble--or arrogant and mean-spirited--beginnings, and now Fantagraphics Books is tickled pink to present "Mean," collecting Weissman's early, self-published, unpublished, and otherwise rare "Yikes" comics. Enjoy your favorite characters' awkward, embarrassing first appearances; watch them stumble from their early, crude glory into their mature sadistic and masochistic selves. Li'l Bloody and the Pullapart Boy steal candy, X-Ray Spence answers his fan mail, and Kid Medusa falls in love (twice ). Early critical attention, while overwhelmingly positive, often questioned what Weissman "was on" when he came up with these odd tales of young friendship. Read "Mean" and guess for yourself.