prog: (Mr. Spook)
prog ([personal profile] prog) wrote2007-05-11 03:03 pm
Entry tags:

Comix!

After finishing some contract work at the Diesel, ducked into MacIntyre & Moore to wait out the rain, and bought some comics they had lying around.

* A 1970s collection of Howard Cruse's "Barefootz". I had heard of this strip, but hadn't actually seen it on paper before. I know it more as a contemporary of other cartoons from the era that I adore. Indeed, these early examples aren't very good, and the art style's a little creepy. A newcomer probably won't realize that the main character is not supposed to be a little boy, though if you read far enough in from any given point this will become clear soon enough. Think "Peanuts" with T&A and occasional bouts of graphic sex.

* "God's Bosom", a collection of strips about the post-Columbian history of Texas, by Jack Jackson. Published in 1995 but reprinting a lot of stuff from the 1970s through the 1990s. This guy's work is new to me! He's got the scratchy-scratchy style that marks him as a member of the R. Crumb underground school, but more specifically reminds me a lot of John Severin's work (in "Cracked" and elsewhere). A bit heavy on multi-panel layouts of stomach-churning depictions of atrocities, though. Barf.

* "40 Hour Man", a hefty 2006 memoir written by Stephen Beaupre, with comics-style illustrations on on every page by Steve Lafler. I think I'll like it; it's a chronicle of every job the writer had, from a stockboy in the 1970s through his layoff at Lycos. Oddly, folded into the front cover (I only now notice!) is a letter that makes it clear this was a review copy sent to The Dig, a Boston-area indie weekly. That it ended up in a used bookshop with the letter still there makes me a little sad. If I end up writing a proper review here, I'll point the authors at it. Shrug.

[identity profile] toonhead-npl.livejournal.com 2007-05-11 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Fantagraphics also released a collection of Barefootz in the late 1980's or early 1990's if you're jonesin' for more. (Or may much of the same. I forgot what was reprinted.)

Love your Mr. Spook icon. If I had to name my top ten favorite comic books of all time, Tales of the Beanworld would definitely be among them.

[identity profile] prog.livejournal.com 2007-05-11 09:16 pm (UTC)(link)
This was one of those Fantagraphics collections, yah. "Early Barefootz".

I discovered the Beanworld when I got really into comics around 1990, at exactly the age when finding things like can be a life-altering experience. I could have done worse! (And somewhere in the shelf behind my head is a copy of the issue with my own "Do-it-Youself Beanworld" submission printed in it. Too bad I misplaced the autographed award certificate I got...)