Chester Brown is a very peculiar character. It shows clearly in his autobiographical comics that has been publishing since the 80's. Amongst them 'The Playboy' (1992) and 'I never liked you' stand out to demonstrate this side of him.
The artist has surpassed himself with the publication of 'Paying for it', a comic strip memoir about being a John (client of prostitutes), with the 'it' in the title standing for sex. The book is terribly funny where the author declared himself a fervent visitor of prostitutes. After he was abandoned by his lady-love in the middle of the 90's - in fact she had found someone else and brought him home, Chester came to the conclusion that romantic love is a swindle, a joke and the source of disgrace and distress, so he seeks sex and appearance of affection paying for it ever since. Even today, he maintains a very good monogamic relationship (on both parts) with a prostitute. They get together every now and then and it's satisfactory for both (or so he says).
His friends, Seth and Joe Matt, another 2 glorious artists of humorous stories, who appear in his book as characters, confirms that Chester had never been quite right in the head. In the prologue, the great Robert Crumb describes it so: 'Chester Brown is not of this planet. Probably it's result of one of those alien abductions, in which a needle is poked into a woman's stomach to impregnate her. He is a very advanced human. You need only to look at his photo to prove it.'
The photo in question is at the end of the book and it frightens you. But you will read the book 'Paying for it' from cover to cover without wanting a break. And spend a lot of time afterwards ruminating on it. The Marxist theory that marriage is just legalized prostitution seems to have found a new and enthusiastic defender.
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