In an essay for David Sandlin’s exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art, curator Dennis Harper describes Sandlin’s multiple volume series A Sinner’s Progress thus: “Sandlin’s interlaced graphic tales explore the shady terrain between ostensive sin and armchair salvation, situated at the crossroads of high art and low brow humor. His allegorical Everyman, Bill Grimm, journeys through a contemporary suburban landscape animated by manifestations of lust, sloth, wrath and the rest of the seven cardinal sins. Produced as hand-silk-screened and limited-edition offset publications, the sardonic narrative cycle reflects anxieties that erupt in an Irish-American stew of evangelical fervor, laissez-faire capitalism and institutionalized intolerance, as Sandlin’s citizen Grimm seeks his own ‘gate of glory.’“

The first volume in this series, The Beast Years of My Life, introduces the reader to Grimm and his indulgent life of pleasures and excess, mainly involving alcohol and sex. His digressions culminate in three “dream” endings.