Junkwaffel

(Print Mint, 1971-1972, 1983)
™ and ©1971 Vaughn Bodé

(From the Slings & Arrows Comic Guide)

One of the underground’s most prolific artists, Vaughn Bodé produced a large body of work that was variously touching and bawdy, profound and cutesy depending on the strip. Junkwaffel was conceived as a receptacle for obscure, early or unpublished stories, and was inevitably a patchy affair, but certainly contained fine work. Highlights of the run include the powerful and violent anti-war strips “The Machines” in #1, dating from his college days, and “Cobalt 60” in #2, the chapters of which were later collected from disparate sources. By contrast the magazine-sized #5 reprinted Bodé’s charming unpublished newspaper strip “Zooks,” the story of the first lizard in space. Some of the material now appears a tad sexist and inconsequential, but there’s much of interest here overall. The issues have been kept in print by Last Gasp, and all are still available. ~DAR

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