The comics collective Meathaus was formed in 2000 by a group of School of Visual Arts students, and its members have already gone on to great success — drawing for titles like Fables, Demo, and Omega the Unknown. Members include Brandon Graham (King City), Ross Campbell (Water Baby), and Dash Shaw (who's profiled in this week's magazine for Bottomless Belly Button). So when Meathaus announced their first full-color anthology, we got pretty excited — so excited that we couldn't choose just one of the outstanding stories from this awesome book.

That's why we're declaring this week Meathaus Week on Vulture. We're printing three full stories from the anthology — one of the best comics of the year.

Today: "Empire Service," a grimly funny New York story from Zohar Lazar, an illustrator whose work has appeared in GQ, The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, and on They Might Be Giants CDs.

Meathaus: S.O.S. will be published by Nerdcore in July.

"Empire Service," by Zohar Lazar

Meathaus Week:
Farel Dalrymple's "Fotogloctica"
Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button (excerpt)
Profile of Dash Shaw [NYM]