I don’t really care a lot for Captain America, or superheroes in general. But, with the Captain America movie fast approaching this Friday, I realized I DO have something relevant to its release that we all can enjoy. I have been waiting since DECEMBER for this thing to make its existence meaningful.

Me and my friends were at a dollar store in Jersey, trying to find the worst Secret Santa gifts possible for people, when we stumbled across the diamond in a coal mine of AWFUL. Dollar store book shelves are always teeming with nonsense, but nothing could ever hope to match up to the vortex of insanity that is the Captain America Sentinel of Liberty Coloring and Activity Book.

Okay, so I had to abbreviate the title.

You’re probably thinking the same thing I did when I first laid eyes on it. “Oh, a superhero coloring book! How delightfully innocuous!” And honestly, if you were to just glance into the beginning of the book, this is what you’d see:

Nothing out of the ordinary, just your standard action pose. Cap’s looking a bit stiff and weird, but nothing to warrant much concern.

At this point, you are presented with a choice of the utmost importance—you can put the book down at this point and walk away none the wiser, or you can absentmindedly flip through the rest of the book while your friends continue to gawk at bootleg Hot Wheels cars.

When unknowingly presented with a decision of this magnitude, you teeter on the brink of maintaining the mundane equilibrium of your existence, or slipping off that tightrope and plunging headfirst into a pile of goddamn crazy.

Well folks, I took that plunge, and I AM NEVER LOOKING BACK.

I don’t think words can adequately convey the horror and fascination this book has provided me with. JUST LOOK AT POOR BEN GRIMM. I have SO many questions about this image. Why is Ben at some shack in the Ozarks? How is he balancing on those steps? What is he reaching towards???

And I stood there and wondered; in the end, what are ANY of us really reaching towards, as we squat upon the steps of a wooden shack we call Purpose? How long must we sway from side to side, looking walleyed out towards someone or something we don’t truly comprehend??? BEN CONVEYS EXACTLY HOW I FELT AS I PAGED THROUGH THIS GLORIOUS TRAIN WRECK. In that moment, he and I were brothers.

MOVING ON!

I am pretty sure this is Vision, with clown makeup on? I dunno.

Daredevil has either sensed a criminal in that box of trash (?) or he is pondering the atrocities Man inflicts upon his Mother Earth.

This was the image that made me realize I needed this book in my life. JUST LOOK AT THAT. HOW DO YOU DRAW THAT AND NOT REALIZE WHAT SORT OF SINS YOU’RE COMMITTING? I love it.

DISCO CAP!!!!

WHAT.

There is so much more I could post from this book. Hell, I should just up and post the whole thing because pretty much EVERY page is insane like this. I really cannot imagine the thought process that went into the conception of some of these images, and how you are able to make these characters so off-model when there is more than ample reference available for them.

But to criticize such things undermines the sheer brilliance of this book. If anything, it was a dollar well spent, and my life has become so much richer in the process.

I’ll probably post more of these on Friday when I have nothing better to do.