Cartoonist
Steve Lafler brings his Bughouse Book Tour to Locust Moon Comics and
Movies in Philadelphia on July 14.
Lafler
teams up with publisher CO2 to release Ménage
a
Bughouse.
a 408-page volume collecting Lafler's trilogy of Bughouse
graphic novels, Bughouse,
Baja
and Scalawag,
previously released on the Top Shelf imprint.
Bughouse
is the story of Jimmy Watts and his band of jazz playing bugs. The
character driven story is set in a stylish “insect-noir” world,
invoking an indigo-toned Manhattan of the early 1950s. Be-bop is
king, and the alluring substance “bug juice” threatens to destroy
the players against a backdrop of romance and intrigue.
Lafler
puts the creative life and the pitfalls of addiction under the
microscope in this tour-de-force collection, tossing his name into
the hat for contention as the Great American Cartoonist.
“I
was inspired by The
Autobiography of Miles Davis
as well as the movie adaptation of William Burroughs Naked
Lunch”
quips Lafler. “The post-war Be-bop jazz and Beat literature scenes
of New York called to me as an apt setting for an extended work”.
Critic
Rob Clough named Bughouse
to his top 100 graphic novels of the first decade of the new century
at number 22.
The
event is July 14 at 8:00 p.m. Locust Moon Comics and Movies, 4040
Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Lafler will sign books &
art, and perform a short set of Oaxacabilly music, a blend of
country-punk and hysterical hillbilly cacophony.
Ménage
a
Bughouse retails
for $24.99. A hardback edition will be available for $39.99. The
large format book (8.5 x 11) showcases Lafler's fluid brushwork.
“Steve
Lafler is a master cartoonist and his work is in a class by itself;
an unpredictable amalgam of fun, intelligence, breeziness and
glorious strangeness that keeps your eyes fed and your synapses
sizzling.” --Jim Woodring
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