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Getting Through the Holidays…With Prozac

Holidays have you down? Can’t escape the tinsel, carols and mall mobs? Well, neither can Steve Wasserman, which is why he created a Jewish Revisionist Advent calendar as commissioned by the snarky Web site Jewdas.org, to count down the days until the end of Christmas.

Advent calendars typically take the form of large cardboard cutouts with several “windows,” which are opened throughout the month of December — one a day, until Christmas — to reveal a proverb or a bit of wisdom. Wasserman’s Advent calendar, however, takes the form of an online comic called Prozacville, which features a holiday-phobic pill named Prozac, to provide comic relief.

Nearly daily through the month of December, Wasserman updates the alternative British Jewish Web site with comics that provide a less-than-festive take on the holiday season and other topics.

A therapist and university lecturer by day, Wasserman draws Prozacville about themes such as loneliness, love and loss that come up for him and his clients in their respective lives. He created the cartoon several years ago: “It’s ‘Peanuts’ for the Prozac generation,” he explains. A perfect treatment perhaps for the holiday season.

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