Creased Comics

Reviews Tegan O'Neil | July 29, 2026 What a delightful little book has recently crossed my transom: Creased Comics, by Brad Neely, new from NYRB. The collection is dated from 1995-2010, a fifteen year span than runs from the end of Neely’s youth through to young manhood. A couple dozen pages into the book I had the most remarkable thought: why, this reminds of me of China, IL. So I flipped to the little biography at the end of the book and there it was, big as shit: China, IL. That was a good show in my studied judgement as a critic. Adult Swim as both a cultural force and an outlet of frequent novelty was beginning to wane but still had some rounds in the chamber. 2011 feels about right for that. You probably already knew that, if you knew who Neely was. And some of you have probably never heard of China, IL. It ran for four seasons on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block, late Sunday night. The block had a durable and loyal audience, of which I was one, from the very first night. To have lived through the first rollout of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, in real time, week by week - my god! The world was grim but we were alive. China, IL came in on that wave, a show about higher educati...