Bughouse and Dog Boy: Steve Lafler's Legacy Collections from CO2

With the help of publisher CO2 Comics, I've realized a long held dream over the past two years with the publication of two legacy volumes collecting my two long running comic book series, Dog Boy and Bughouse. I've spent three decades pushing at the limits of the comics medium, challenging myself to create works that expand the range and possibilities of narrative art. I'm delighted that Gerry Giovinco and Bill Cucinotta of CO2 have collaborated with me to produce two spectacular volumes celebrating my contributions to the comics form thus far.

Back in 1981, I published my first comic magazine Mean Cat at the dawn of alternative comics. I thought myself happy to push this one comic book into the world, claiming my own small corner of comics immortality. Really, I knew better. I'm just as gung-ho now, some 32 years later, to produce outrageously great comics work and proselytize until I've won over the entire universe!

I worked furiously throughout the '80s on my Dog Boy series, ultimately producing a good 500 pages of comics. Along the way, Dog Boy #1 from Fantagraphics in December 1986 garnered orders of more than 10,000 copies, signaling the arrival of Dog Boy as a force to be reckoned with.

This past summer, CO2 put it all together in Doggie Style: The Complete Dog Boy, a 488 page collection. It's a walk through some of the best alternative comics of the day, delivered in a classic brush style with my singular improvisational narratives, sometimes psychedelic, at turns overtly political.

In the summer of 2012, CO2 published Menage a Bughouse, the 400 page collection of my Bughouse comics. Bughouse covers the career of the all insect band of the same name as they rise through the ranks, bringing Be-Bop jazz to life at the end of the swing era. The lead character Jimmy Watts is the avatar of the new style with his sublime tenor saxophone work, but struggles for survival as he battles addiction to "bug juice."
Bughouse began as a series on my own Cat-Head Comics imprint before moving to Top Shelf for a trilogy of graphic novels.

These two books promise an entertaining and unusual journey, delivering highlights from the fringe of three decades of alternative comics. No devotee of alternative and independent comics should miss these!

Ordering Links:

Menage a Bughouse

Doggie Style: The Complete Dog Boy

copyright 2013 Steve Lafler