Scrublands

(Fantagraphics, 2006)
™ and © Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

How about this? South African creator Joe Daly, in his first published work in America, has turned in one of the best graphic novels of the year.

Not enough? This anthology, whose entries range from several single-page stories to one 70-page epic, all touch on such unrelated but recurring themes as birth, eroticism, religious intolerance, and mind-altering substances. And vegetables. And Bruce Springsteen.

More? Daly does all this in a variety of writing styles, from comedy to drama to a sense of the mundane. And with an impressive array of artistic styles, as well, from that of R. Crumb to Peter Bagge to Gary Larsen (The Far Side). Far from disjointed, this eclectic set of efforts is not only ripe with meaning on literal, existential, and surreal levels, but it also serves as a superb showcase of Daly’s endless talent. It’s not hyperbole to say that this graphic novel is like nothing else out there—and it excels because of it.

— Jim Johnson

From the Publisher:

Scrublands is a place no reader has gone until now—the inside of South African cartoonist Joe Daly’s head and, coincidentally, the title of his American debut collection of short comics stories. Daly’s work has been described as “Tintin meets the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in the Cape of Good Dope.” Indeed, Daly’s cartoons, offbeat, hallucinatory, and hilarious, seem descended from—and in some cases an amalgamation of—the substance-induced comics work of R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Vaughn Bodé, Victor Moscoso, and S. Clay Wilson, filtered through the artist’s own unique absurdist vision.

The stories in Scriblands swing from introverted dreamlike stream-of-consciousness to over-the-top postmodern vaudevillian. The wordless “Prebaby,” the book’s centerpiece, is musical in execution, and unfolds like the storyboard to a wonky existential cartoon (it’s no surprise that Daly’s studied animation for two years at Cape Town’s City Varsity College). In contrast, the “Kobosh and Steve” stories are like a series of routines by a demented Abbott and Costello. Kobosh even visits a down-on-his-luck Bruce Springsteen in one story, while another strip features a pair of micro-fauna questioning their existence as they feed off the rock legend’s scalp.

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#1

April, 2006
Cover Price: $16.95
1 copy available for $13.50

Joe Daly