A new "BLAB " Storybook. This ABC for sinners spotlights creator David's Sandlin's alter ego, recounting his lurid life in rhyming couplets: a "sintamental education" in 26 easy steps, from Adultery to Zealotry. This is the fifth "BLAB " storybook, a series showcasing sequential artists from Monte Beauchamp's annual "BLAB " anthology. Each volume is presented in a faux-children's book format, though aimed squarely at adults and young adults. Sandlin's storybook composes what can best be described as narrative painting, taking advantage of the way in which painting (art) allows the artist to bring together the conscious and the subconscious, the rational and the irrational, the realistic and the dreamlike. Working in the cartoony style he has perfected over the last 20 years--something of a cross between Thomas Hart Benton and "MAD" magazine--Sandlin delivers hellfire and damnation via a lurid graphic style and hyperbolic rhetoric that strongly suggests sarcasm. But keeping the work fresh and engaging, beyond the sheer visual intensity, is an equally unmistakable earnestness.