by BK Munn
Comics in Film: Smithereens (1982).
Billy reads a copy of Robert Crumb's Despair while his romantically-linked bedmates, manic pixie punk girl Wren (Susan Berman) and washed-up rocker Eric (Richard Hell) argue. Even though the girls are crazy for him, Eric is so broke he has to live in a shitty apartment with Billy, a dumb loser who no girl is dumb enough to hook up with. Billy is so dumb he reads only comic books, like this classic existential Underground Comic from 1969, one of many cultural signifiers in the film, set in the blighted NYC of the day, for the ennui and emptiness of the scene and the lack of options for young people, especially young women.
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