Like Wawa For Chocolate

Still in pursuit, we followed the ball toward a small lake in Motor World that had been earmarked for a fleet of tiny bumper boats for children. The area wasn’t open yet, but the empty boats were being tested and floated on the surface. The ball soared over the grass and smashed into several of them, scattering the others with rippling waves from the impact, which launched some of the boats several feet in the air.

Charlie and Ken waded into the water looking for the hatch. After some difficulty, they got it open. Charlie pulled Frank out by grabbing him under his armpits like a baby. Frank crawled up the bank, coughing and sputtering. He splayed across the grass as we all stared at the ball, which bobbed in the water like it was attached to a fishing lure.

We did not ask for the inspector’s report, nor did we ever hear of one being filed. Ken Bailey returned to Canada. The snow-makers cleared away the PVC. Told to dispose of the Bailey Ball, they rolled it into the woods, where it remained for many years."

oh! the space needle is a cute mascot base for seattle’s MLB team! i wonder how they managed to communicate that in a big foam costume?

oh

oh

if you'd rather buy a plushie - here's the shop he and his wife run!

his wife also been in an accident and has been down and out due to illness and injury

ppal + gfm + site shop

🧡 maxine executes a risky, yet flawless strategy in the newest update of A GHOST STORY on patreon! donate at least $1 a month to get access to comic pages early and support my work!

READ THE UPDATE HERE!

Crisps vs Chips: I gotta admit, the Brits have this one. They're thin slices of potato that have been made crispy. No chipping of any materials involved.

Car Park vs Parking Lot: Equally matched. What's a car park? A place to park cars. What's a parking lot? An otherwise empty lot where you can park.

I got the updated, colorized Pug Davis last week but I forgot to tell y’all about it. Here we go.

Pug Davis originally existed in little individual self-made comics Rebecca Sugar made for cons. It was picked up by Albatross Exploding Funnybooks because Eric Powell saw something in Rebecca that stood out. The black and white graphic novel with cover by Eric Powell has been hard to find for a while. Now I have both!

I reviewed the original Pug Davis a while back if you want to see that. For now, I’m going to just tell you a few things I noticed that were different.

Obviously: The cover is a Rebecca Sugar drawing now, and the comics inside are colored instead of black and white. Colorist is Rachael Cohen, with lettering by Rebecca herself and Warren Montgomery, edits by Tracy Marsh and Eric Powell, design by Phil Balsman. 

A new introduction: An intro by Rebecca warning kids away from it and putting it into context as “an underground comic by a teenager” has replaced the original intro by Eric Powell explaining what he’d seen in Rebecca all those years ago. 

Transcript of intro:

I’d like to start by putting this book into context: This is an underground comic by a teenager!

If you are a fan of my current work, please know THIS IS NOT FOR KIDS! This is a formative comic that I drew in college, from 2006 to 2007. Please look at this artifact through that lens.

Here’s the backstory:

I had been drawing comics since middle school, and in high school, I teamed up with my best friend, Frans Boukas, to make our own imprint, SugarBoukas Comics. We drew comics together, and with the help of my graphic designer dad, we printed and stapled zines at his office and then took them to local comic cons to trade and to give to our heroes.

I had a comic idea called Bonnie and Jess, about lesbian bodyguards traveling the country, helping people and fighting people. Bonnie and Jess bonded because they were both fans of a comic called Pug Davis. Pug started as a comic-within-a-comic, a stand-in for my favorite comics at the time: The Goon, Hellboy and BPRD. I never ended up making Bonnie and Jess (though I reused many ideas from it in later projects), but I did make Pug. I threw it online unceremoniously (the website had the tagline “In Pug Davis, No One Can Hear You Pug Davis”), and I tabled with it at SPX, Otakon and MoCCA, selling very, very few copies.

Pug never quite had a place to live. It didn’t fit with indie comics, but was too raw to come off as mainstream. While the covers promised space adventures and ray guns, the interiors were actually emotional stories about Pug and the Blouse. I wanted to put my spin on the antihero and the “gay sidekick,” and have the adventures take a back seat to the moments they shared privately, worrying about each other and themselves. When I look back on it, I’m alarmed by how honest it is under all the sci-fi tropes and goofy action schtick I was lovingly emulating. I put a lot of myself into the characters, especially into the Blouse … the way his naiveté gets him into trouble, and how he can’t help but be himself no matter how much he’s punished for it. The Blouse can’t quite tell if Pug actually wants him around, and he can’t shake the feeling that he’s a burden. But he’s so proud just to be there, to know Pug personally, and to care about him more than anyone else. So much of this is how I felt during the mid-2000s–trying to break into comics, trying to fit in at art school, navigating sexist jokes and homophobic slurs, and quietly hoping my heroes and peers actually wanted me to be there instead of begrudgingly tolerating my presence.

I wish I could have joyfully, unapologetically expressed myself at age 18, but I just wasn’t there yet, so Pug will always be bittersweet. Trapped in this book is my overflowing love for comics and the fantasy that comics might love me back, even if comics would never admit it in public. 

But the end of the story is that my fantasy came true. I gave this book to Eric Powell, and he loved it for what it was. He gave me my first job in comics (a short backup in The Goon), and he published Pug Davis through Albatross Exploding Funnybooks in 2010. Now he’s doing it again, almost a decade later–and in full color, thanks to the brilliant Rachael Cohen.

Thank you for reading,

RS –Rebecca Sugar

What else is new?

This block was originally empty. Now it has this sweet love note to her parents, her brother, her best friend, her partner, and her readers.

The color stuff occasionally makes me pretty sure I prefer the evocative grayscale Rebecca’s so known for:

But sometimes the color really does make it pop, you know?

I love both!

The new version has these nifty tables of contents, sorta:

And, to my utter delight, it has this:

Bonus content! Bonus content!

Some really cool SKETCHES from the Pug Davis era! Please buy this. Wow.

And there are some comic panels without their words too!