The funnies are pretty much built on a solid foundation of insanity: we’ve got screwball characters who defy reason and logic for the sake of a punchline and explicitly tetched characters like Krazy Kat. But in all the annals of comicdom, I don’t think that there’s a comic that portrays pure, horrifying madness like Hans Phildius’s Dad in Kidland does.

I’ve long held a personal belief that children are, in fact, clinically insane by any reasonable definition. They have imaginary friends, they act without rationality, they have no control over their emotions… I don’t hold it against them, really; it’s not their fault they’re crazy. It’s just something you’ve got to grow out of. Dad in Kidland is as perfect an illustration of this idea as I could ask for, as it’s based on a simple conceit: what if adults acted like children? When the behaviors of children are attached to grown-ups, the pure craziness of childhood is lain bare for our enjoyment.

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