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The Bum's Rush

by David DeGrand

The Bum’s Rush #90 All right, I’m going to do my best with this article, I’m really out of my element but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. The Bum’s Rush traditionally discusses what’s new in the comics realm. I’m going to have to admit here that I don’t keep up with what’s going on in the superhero side of comics. I honestly could not care less about the newest adventure of Screwdriver Man or whatever. My interests lean towards newspaper comics, mainly ones that haven’t been published in decades. I also keep up with a few alternative cartoonists that I like. With that in mind, I would like to shed some light on a few recently published books and some upcoming things to look forward to from the opposite side of the comics spectrum. Fantagraphics is currently publishing The Complete Peanuts, which in my opinion is probably the coolest publishing project in history. They are releasing two books a year, each book containing two years of comic strips. Since the strip ran for fifty years, that’s 25 books folks. So far six books have been released, and I would like to briefly talk about the last two. Basically these last two books are pretty much Schulz shaping the strip into what everyone is now familiar with. In the previous volumes, the artwork was still in its baby stages and really didn’t look much at all what the strip looks like now. With these last two books the artwork finally comes together and all of the characters that form the Peanuts universe are in place with all of their quirks that we all love. If you are casually interested in this publishing project then I suggest either of these two books to pick up, many of the strips haven’t been seen since they were originally in newspapers and are still as hilarious and smart as they were decades ago. Another awesome collection from Fantagraphics is "I Yam What I Yam", a massive collection of vintage Popeye cartoons. Reading through this collection is fascinating and readers get to experience first hand how and why Popeye took center stage in the strip Thimble Theater and captured the heart of Depression-era America. It also becomes obvious why this strip is cited as much as Peanuts as being a huge inspiration and influence to almost every cartoonist working. For pure, unfiltered Popeye at his best this collection is essential to fans of classic comic strips. The last thing I would like to mention, since I’m already straying far from this article’s originally intended purpose, is yet ANOTHER collection from Fantagraphics. Terr'ble Thompson is an obscure comic strip by Gene Deitch that ran for one year in 1955 about a boy that lived in his tree house and went on imagined adventures. I had read about this strip for years and has been described as ground breaking and decades ahead of its time, so I have been dying to read it forever. The artwork by Deitch is done in a minimalist style that looks very similar to the animated show The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. The book hasn’t been released yet, but I guarantee that if you like either of the above comic strips you won’t go wrong with this book. Well then, now that I’ve mangled this article into something barely recognizable as something that belongs on the Stumblebum site, I hope you, dear reader, will check out some of these new books and discover some great and influential comics.