Yummy Fur (comics)

Yummy Fur came at a time when alternative comics was still young, and is considered one of its defining titles. It was one of the earliest examples of a comic that would have its first success as a self-published mini. It started in an era when comic books and their characters were generally considered to be ongoing, and finished when the self-contained stories of the graphic novel had begun to come into prominence. Brown's ambitions changed in step, Yummy Fur started with Ed the Happy Clown, which Brown originally did not intend to have an ending; towards the end, he serialized two works, The Playboy and I Never Liked You, which were conceived from the start as self-complete works. Brown would thereafter make the production of graphic novels the main focus of his output. Yummy Fur quickly gained a reputation for taboo-breaking—Ed the Happy Clown plot revolved around a character who could not stop defecating, and whose anus was a gateway to another dimension; then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan's head attached to the end of the protagonist's penis; and a beautiful female vampire, who is out to get revenge on the boyfriend who murdered her, and who usually appears entirely naked. Later, in The Playboy, Brown would detail his adolescent obsession with the Playboy Playmates in Playboy magazine, including explicit scenes of his teenage self masturbating and ejaculating. In the short "Danny's Story", Brown had himself picking his nose, and finished with him biting his neighbour. The book was often wrapped in plastic with an "adults only" label on it, although it is not known if any issues of Yummy Fur were ever banned from any comic shop. The edgy content of the book was contrasted with his straight adaptations of the Gospels which appeared in most issues of Yummy Fur—albeit, adaptations that took a "warts and all" approach, in which characters pick their noses and Jesus is going bald. Yummy Fur had been a catch-all title for Brown's work, but since bringing the series to an end in 1994, he has published new stories, like Underwater and Louis Riel, under their own titles. Much of the work from the series has been republished in book form—the short work in The Little Man—but the Gospel stories and most of the later instalments of Ed the Happy Clown remain uncollected. ==Stories==

Ed the Happy Clown The story that first drew attention for Brown's work—a surreal, scatological tale of dark humour. The story was improvised for the most part, and grew out of a number of completely unrelated short comics that appeared in the earliest issues of Yummy Fur. The story follows the large-headed, childlike Ed, a children's clown, who, after being submerged in the faeces of a man who can't stop defecating, finds the head of his penis has been replaced with the head of a miniature Ronald Reagan. The story makes use of a wide variety of media and comic-book tropes and clichés, such as vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster, aliens, alternative dimensions and cannibal pygmies, as well as a lot of dark religious imagery and potentially offensive imagery—nudity, sex, graphic violence and body horror. Ed was intended to be a character Brown would use throughout his career, but after the first dozen issues, he grew dissatisfied with the direction the story had taken, and also wanted to change his drawing style. Inspired by the autobiographical comics of Julie Doucet and Joe Matt, Brown decided to bring the Ed story to an end in issue #18 of Yummy Fur and spent the next few years focusing on revealing autobiographical stories. Gospels Brown's straight-faced cartoon adaptations of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew, started as Brown, who had been raised in a strictly Baptist household, tried to find out for himself what Christ was all about, and what he really believed. The Gospel of Mark began in the fourth issue of the Vortex series, which was the first issue of new material. The Gospel of Matthew started in issue #15 of Yummy Fur and continued in most issues through the end of the series, and in all but the first issue of Underwater. Matthew is unfinished and has not continued since 1997. Autobiographical comics After completing Ed, Brown moved on to a series of personally revealing autobiographical stories, starting with "Helder" in Yummy Fur #19. The drawing style, done with a brush, became more and more sparse in an attempt to move away from the style of Ed the Happy Clown, which Brown had grown uncomfortable with. Most of the shorter stories, like "Helder", "Showing Helder" and "Danny's Story", took place not long before they were written, but the longer graphic novels took place mostly in Brown's adolescence in the 1970s. Disgust/The Playboy Narrated by a winged, not-so-angelic version of himself, the story details Brown's experiences as an adolescent obsessed with the Playmates in Playboy magazine, while wracked with guilt over his obsessive masturbation, and later his difficulty relating to women as an adult. The story is the source of some controversy, as it graphically depicted a minor masturbating and ejaculating and was also seen by some women to defend pornography. The story appeared in issues #21–23 of Yummy Fur and was originally titled Disgust and later The Playboy Stories. The story was collected in 1992 under the title The Playboy. Fuck (or I Never Liked You) Another tale of Brown's adolescence. Brown has trouble relating with the opposite sex, even when they are the ones trying to connect with him. He is an awkward teenager who never swears, which is picked up by some of the other boys in his school, who constantly pick on him and try to get him to swear. The story also depicts the final days of Brown's mother when he was 17. Brown is a difficult son, and has trouble expressing his affection for her. She has schizophrenia and dies in the hospital after falling down the stairs. Originally titled Fuck, the story was retitled I Never Liked You when collected. ==Publishing history==

Minicomic (1983–1986) In the early 1980s, Brown had been trying unsuccessfully to get his work published by publishers such as Raw, Fantagraphics Books and Last Gasp. He was convinced by his then-girlfriend, Kris Nakamura, to take the work he had piled up and publish them himself as photocopied minicomics, distributing them on the streets of Toronto. Sales got off to a slow start, but eventually picked up. "Sales were brisk", with some issues topping 1000 copies, as Brown sold the books on consignment in bookstores, local comic shops, and through mail order, Brown filled up the first four issues with material that he had produced since 1980, putting out one issue per month. After the fourth issue, his backlog ran out. He had to start producing new material, and Yummy Fur frequency dropped. Comic book All issues had black-and-white contents printed on newsprint, with colour outer covers on heavier stock paper. Collections The Ed the Happy Clown storyline has been reprinted in a number of formats since: a 1989 book collecting material from the first 12 issues of Yummy Fur; a 1992 "Definitive Ed Book", which leaves out much of the later material and also provides a completely new ending; and a nine-issue Ed the Happy Clown series from Drawn & Quarterly with new covers, unpublished artwork and extensive commentary by Brown. The autobiography work has been reprinted as The Playboy: A Comic Book in 1992 and I Never Liked You in 1994, with The Little Man: Short Strips 1980–1995 collecting the remainder, along with other miscellaneous short works from other sources. Brown decided not to reprint the early Yummy Fur stories which had borrowed from other works. The Gospel adaptations also remain unfinished and uncollected. ==Reception==

The series was recognized by his peers early on, such as Seth, who recommended to Bill Marks to pick it up as a Vortex title; and got good reviews from publications like The Comics Journal as early as its minicomic days. Critical views Joseph Witek wrote of the difficulties Yummy Fur presented—in the context of the "high art/low art" split in alternative comics in the 1980s, best represented by division of visions in Art Spiegelman's Raw and Robert Crumb's Weirdo, the combination of Brown's grotesque adventures in Ed the Happy Clown and the straight renditions of the Gospels seem to straddle this line. Chris Lanier, writing in The Comics Journal, placed Ed the Happy Clown in a tradition that included Dan Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Max Andersson's Pixy and Eric Drooker's Flood!, works in which symbols appear with such frequency and importance to suggest significance, while remaining symbolically empty. He finds predecessors for these works in German Dada and the Theatre of the Absurd. Awards The following are awards or nominations for Yummy Fur or collections of work that first appeared in it: ==See also==