Whatever happened to the real underground, man?

You know the one — it specialized in lurid, obsessively-detailed depictions of squalor, depravity, perversion, and societal collapse. It not only embraced decay, it reveled in it. And it was definitely more than a little bit dangerous — back when it was around.

But perhaps rumors of its demise have been exaggerated. Yeah, you’ve gotta look harder  to find it now that high-brow art comics have swallowed up all the territory that falls outside the mainstream, but a small number of die-hard cartoonists either didn’t get the memo, or tore it up and threw it in the trash where it fucking well belongs.

Which brings us to the Forsley brothers, Cameron and Christopher, and the eighth and most recent issue of their irregularly self-published series. Tat Rat.

Everything about this comic is just plain intense — hyper-detailed woodcut style illustrations, rich inky…