When the summer sun baptizes your day with its rich rays of light, would you rather dwell in the darkness instead? While others are prancing about and enjoying the splendors of nature, do you go for the morbid realities of humanity? As families chuckle over life’s silly little happenings, are you cackling with a sadistic glee as you learn of men’s unfortunately humorous woes? Well then this is the list of materials for you. Ranging from the mildly malicious to the unbearably bleak, these will surely satisfy your cravings for black humor.

Louie
A TV show directed by and centered on comedian Louis C. K., Louie is an unapologetic blunt program that pushes the envelope far more than your average sitcom. Louie, a single comedian, must support his two daughters on his meager earnings from his stand-up shows while also struggling against an oddball variety of events that will have you giggling with amusement one moment and painfully grimacing the next. Blending segments of his own stand-up work with clips of his original stories, Louie’s painfully real comedy series has been nominated for over a dozen Emmys and many other awards across the board. Like it or not, Louie’s here to stay to keep you both laughing and wildly uncomfortable.

The Goon by Erick Powell
As an homage to the gritty noir classics of olden, Powell’s comic, The Goon, hits all the right marks. With his vibrant, yet gloomy artwork, Powell’s comics creates a rich atmosphere of crime and wickedness with every gangster facet one should expect: murder, debauchery, mystery, zombies, trans-dimensional travel, cannibalistic hobos, a telekinetically-gifted seal, killer robots, and a gang of giant fish men. Perhaps it’s a little out of the norm, but that certainly makes it all the more entertaining. Telling the story of legendary enforcer Goon and his partner, Frankie, The Goon follows their zany, mysterious, and excessively violent adventures throughout the creepy, crime-ridden city in which they dwell. The only thing you can ever come to expect is bloodshed and obscenity in all of its humorousness.

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
Don’t be fooled, this book merely dabbles in the topics of diabetes and owls. The rest is a profoundly unsettling, yet undeniably hilarious compilation of Sedaris’s fantastically written essays. Critically-acclaimed for his other popular works including Me Talk Pretty One Day and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Sedaris continues to lay on his superbly dismal wit he recounts tale after tale of traumatic childhood incidents. Not for the faint of heart or pure of taste, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls is another Sedaris book that’s truly in a league of its own.

Thank You for Smoking
America’s tobacco industries have an impossibly powerful presence in politics, fueled by lobbyists determined to keep the land of the free puffing away. Thank You for Smoking chronicles a portion of one of these lobbyist’s career. This lobbyist just so happens to be the slickest in the game. Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, spokesman for cigarette giant, Big Tobacco. As he schemes with fellow spokespeople, played by Maria Bello and David Koechner (an alcohol and gun lobbyist respectively), and teaches his son the rights and wrongs of manipulating the people, this story is brought to life with the morbid wit of Jason Reitman, the film’s writer and director. Although Naylor’s situation becomes increasingly harrowing, the movie maintains a macabre, upbeat pace throughout that keeps the giggles coming. Based on the novel by Christopher Buckley