Snark Inc.: A Corporate Fable

by Brian James Gage

Snark Inc. takes place in the small town of Snark, U.S.A., where the citizens dream of owning Snark, the greatest and most versatile material possession on the planet. Everyone works at Snark Inc., producing Snark and making money to buy all the great Snark products on display at their local department store. But something's amiss. Everyone's miserable, and no one knows why. Enter Will, who decides he wants a life free of materialism and greed...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1887128700
• ISBN13: 9781887128704
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Soft Skull
• Length: 44 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 10.3" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

A Perfect Satire

I saw Brian Gage speak at an author panel in Santa Monica, and thought he was an interesting character. A couple months later, I broke down and bought Snark, Inc.It's now officially one of my favorite books. It takes the guise of a kids book, only to then turn the entire format on its head and deliver the reader a completely unexpected message. It's funny, dark, and painfully true. It's a very well thought out commentary on modern society - right down to its appearance of a kids book. I recommend it highly. Check out the Web site too! It's hilarious.

A Fun, Sharp Book...

I agree with the reviews below. Snark Inc. is a great book and does a fantastic job of poking fun of Corporate America. The verse is really charming and the pictures are great.I do have to disagree with the reviewer from Germany. Snark Inc. is a great book, but it's no masterpiece. Lolita is a masterpiece, For Whom the Bell Tolls is a masterpiece. Snark Inc is just a fun book with a sharp slant on consumerism.

A great quick read with a powerful message.

I was at first drawn to this book by the high energy illustrations that kept me wanting to turn the page to see what my eyes would be dazzled by next. Upon finishing the book I realized that there was more to this book than a pretty face, in my opinion brian gage had done a masterful job of weaving a tale that flows with purpose and delivers a strong message in the tradition of Aesops great fables.

Fresher! Cleaner! More Political!

I'm not normally the kind of person that reads comics (or Graphic Novels if you must be that pretentious) but this book caught my attention. In just 44 pages, Gage and Ellsworth turn our self referencing popular culture back on itself, and make what appears to be a children's book a critique of today's culture. With more linguistic economy than Chomsky or Michael Moore, Gage presents a distopian analysis of modern American. He manages to condense pages of written argument, and years of dry debate, into a hip-hop like poem which reads like the best of Chuck D, inherently able to connect with the Playstation Generation. In harmony with the text, Ellsworth's illustrations seem unashamed of their digital origins and cover a range of styles without any showy grandiosity - his economy of line refreshingly humble.Regardless of your personal politics, it's impossible to read Snark Inc. and not feel thankful that there are `twentysomethings' with more on their mind than shallow vengeance for 9/11 and beer. I'd hope that by sharing this book the future presented therein becomes a little less likely.

Smells Like Pop Culture

Looks like pop culture, feels like pop culture and reads like pop culture. But this book is a smack in the face to everything pop culture stands for. It's extremely clever.Snark Inc. is a wolf in sheeps clothing, and definitely a great book to pick up.