Steve Lafler Catalog Update: New Series, Old Faves, and Cool T-Shirts

First and foremost, I'm delighted to offer my brand new comic book set in my adopted home town of Oaxaca, Mexico. But there's more, I've peppered this post with links to the major works from my entire comics career. Thanks for visiting! I can honestly guarantee a fun, weird and unusual ride from all of these here comic books and graphic novels.

Steve Lafler 

My new comic book Death in Oaxaca is here! You can get it from the publisher Alternative Comics or from Amazon at this link for $4.99.

The mundane, the sublime and the bizarre show up in their best party attire in the new comic book series from the creator of Dog Boy and Bughouse. Two expats move to remote Oaxaca, the fabled highland city in southern Mexico. Rex, earnest yet duplicitous, flees from mid-life crisis and fear of death. Beautiful Gertie, cynical but honest, is just plain bored and craves adventure. They contend with Lucha Libre wrestlers and an ancient vampire who prefers chicken, and enjoy the best fresh corn tortillas on the planet.

And of course you need the Death in Oaxaca T-Shirt to complete the experience! OK, so it's in Spanish, so it's really a "Los Muertos de Oaxaca" T Shirt. Here is the Design:

 Available at this link from my Redbubble shop for $26.97. Visit my entire line of shirts at Redbubble here.

My back catalog books El Vocho and 40 Hour Man are available from Wow Cool, the mail order arm of my new publisher. You can also order these titles from my Lulu shop. Here's the books:

 El Vocho. Love at the twilight of oil. Rosa the Latina hottie inventor and Eddie the geek artist meet in a fender bender. Tempers flare but sparks fly and they fall in love. Working together, they create the perfect clean energy motor while being tracked by goons working for big oil.

40 Hour Man. Is it a career, or a series of really lame jobs? Stephen Beaupre (author) and Steve Lafler (cartoonist) pose this timeless question in Forty Hour Man, a hilarious saga of one working stiff's three-decade journey into the minimum wage heart of the American Dream. It's all here - from scrubbing a steakhouse floor with a toothbrush to going bust in the Internet boom. Every bad boss. Every crazy co-worker. All the more shocking because it's true!

 Wait a Minute! What about Bughouse and Dog Boy?

Don't worry, I did not forget about the work I am best known for! I've published two huge legacy volumes with CO2, collecting every page of both series!

Ménage à BUGHOUSE collects the funky jazz noir BUGHOUSE trilogy by Steve Lafler in one volume. Tenor saxophone maestro, Jimmy Watts, leads his talented band of bugs from the swing era into the uncharted maelstrom of Bop. And as he and his band mates claw their way to the top of the jazz world, they must fight the temptation to be consumed by addiction to a substance known as "Bug Juice".

Read Bughouse online at CO2

Doggie Style: The Complete Dog Boy. Imagine an enthusiastic, ambitious young artist of the 1980s who happens to have an enormous golden retriever head on a human body. Given to flights of fancy and the odd meditation on the truly mundane, this Dog Boy searches for meaning, all too often via a six pack of Rainer Ale pounders! 

Steve Lafler sat down from 1882 to 1988 and drew nearly 500 pages of Dog Boy. Most of the time, he drew with no script, and in fact looked to emptying his mind before putting pencil to bristol board. 

The entire results are collected here in in the 488 page omnibus, DOGGIE STYLE The Complete DOG BOY! Now you can pay witness to the genius that flowed from Steve's streaming consciousness as he created one of the most truly independent comic works of all time!

Read Dog Boy online at CO2

AND, one more thing! We've looked at my print books and T-Shirts, lets go ahead and buy a copy of my Ebook, Cat Suit!

CAT SUIT. What kind of whack job would put on a mask and a skin-tight suit and head out into the city after midnight? I mean, what is this guy really up to? What pathology, what perverse proclivity are we dealing with here? Is he fighting crime? Of course not, he’s just going clubbing—and he’s frankly perplexed when the aggressive bar flies & drunks single him out. The guy in question is Manx, a costumed cat man. Available digitally!

A High-Low Look at my Comix Work

At this point it's fair the say that Rob Clough is the foremost writer on art comics. Under that general term, I group comics that are produced for the love of the medium, using it as a means of artistic expression (as opposed to a commercial genre vehicle.) Mr. Clough maintains his own on comics, High-Low, and also writes for the the Comics Journal.

Not only is Rob prolific, but he is enthusiastic, with a stunning, over-arching intellectual and intuitive command of his field. He is not only familiar with a huge body of books and artists, he diligently tracks new and emerging talent. He has the smarts to connect the dots and make articulate assessments of how a book works (or not) on it's own terms, but he also places it within the ongoing world of comics in particular and overall culture in general.

I was happily surprised this week to check in on Rob's comics review blog high-low to find reprinted reviews of my work in his ongoing Sequart Reprints series. Here are links:

Reviews of Bughouse Graphic Novels

Reviews of Tranny and 40 Hour Man

Rob closes his review of Bughouse,  my signature graphic novel series, asking if I will ever portray the main character, Jimmy Watts, as a mature adult who has worked through his demons. Could be, but in the meanwhile I offer this classic Scott Hoover photo of me from the early 90s. Why did I write about addiction in Bughouse? This photo offers a clue.

In all fairness, I should mention that I consider Rob a friend. He does like my work! We've only met in person a few times at SPX, but we are in semi-regular contact to our mutual enjoyment.

Finally, time for the brazen sales effort! Here is a link to the current Steve Lafler graphic novel catalog.

Steve Lafler photo by Scott Hoover.

40 Hour Man -- Still Hilarious

Every so often I remember that the graphic novel, 40 Hour Man, by myself and writer Stephen Beaupre, is available as a free download at Lulu.

This is Beaupre's manic, hilarious account of his various working class jobs, with appropriately nuts illustrations from your truly.
If you've ever had a crap job or an insane jerk for a boss (who hasn't?), then this is the book for you.

The print edition of 40 Hour Man is also available from Lulu, along with other graphic novels from me including El Vocho.

Steve Lafler Catalog Update

Here are up to date links to help get your hands on Steve Lafler graphic novels and T-Shirts.

photo by Scott Hoover

I am searching for meaning and truth in a world ruled by, you know, the rulers. Only through these graphic novels and T-Shirts can each of us reach illumination (actual instructions embedded within each product).

I have a graphic novel store at Lulu.com, where you can find El Vocho, my 2010 graphic novel, 40 Hour Man by Stephen Beaupre and myself, and Tranny.

 I love bugs.

Yes, this graphic novel is about boys dressing up like girls. WTF? I guess you'll just have to read it.

Monster, Car and Guitar T-shirts are available at my Cafe Press store.

I would wear this Wolf Man on a T-Shirt! Would you???

My Bughouse trilogy of graphic novels can still be purchased at Top Shelf Comics.

Some people really like this Bughouse graphic novel, they says it's my best one.

I also have acrylic paintings for sale, generally in the $150 - 300 range for sizes from 8"x10" to 11"x14".
The price includes shipping via DHL, insured. Payment is via Paypal. If you are interested, let's talk. You can click the link of my highlighted name at the bottom of this post to send me an email. Or you can phone me at 503-213-3671.
I do commissions too -- I did a big painting last year for a friend on a Mexican theme (OK, so it was a $1,000 job), but we had a great time with it.

Who am I?! Here is a Steve Lafler interview with Robert Clough at the Comics Journal

Here is a link to an audio interview Steve Lafler with Robin McConnell of Inkstuds Radio.

My goal here, as always, is to buy the next tank of gas for my car, stuff like that.

Thanks!

Steve Lafler

40 Hour Man: The Afterlife of a Graphic Novel

I'll start this post with the hard sell, my 2006 graphic novel 40 Hour Man (actually drawn by me, written by my genius buddy Stephen Beaupre), is available as a Print on Demand book for a bit under eleven bucks on Lulu. The link here will take you to the buy page. It is also available as a FREE download.
Here is a quick description of 40 Hour Man: Is it a career, or a series of really lame jobs? Stephen Beaupre (author) and Steve Lafler (cartoonist) pose this timeless question in Forty Hour Man, a hilarious saga of one working stiff's three-decade journey into the minimum wage heart of the American Dream. It's all here - from scrubbing a steakhouse floor with a toothbrush to going bust in the Internet boom. Every bad boss. Every crazy co-worker. All the more shocking because it's true!

The availability of this title via Lulu is the latest development in the life of a small press title in the post print era. I'll briefly outline the trajectory of it's distribution, it's an object lesson in the difficulty of being a print guy like me in the post print era.
First, I tried to get 40 Hour Man listed in the Diamond Comics catalog. Diamond said no, the book was "not visual enough". Strange, as every book I've put out since the mid 80s has been sold through Diamond. And, every graphic novel I've put out has exceeded Diamond's sales minimums. Go figure, but Diamond is trying to pare down the amount of stuff in the catalog, and is run by bean counters (this is the nicest thing I can say about the company as a whole, but I do appreciate how much of my output they have moved in the past).
I got a break of sorts when the book was well reviewed in Booklist, the American Library Association's review rag, and another when it was picked up by book trade distributor Biblio (a sort of junior varsity book trade distrib). This combo of breaks added up nicely, with 3 - 400 units moved, many to libraries. Through a variety of marketing ploys, I was able to move another couple hundred units.

Sadly, Biblio was not doing well and was bought out by Atlas Books, the distribution arm of vanity press printing giant Bookmasters. Bookmasters is the type of company that looks good on the surface to a small publisher, they can handle production, printing and distribution under one roof, and are well organized. However, they are not really in the book distribution business; they are really in the business of squeezing every damn cent they can out of the small publisher. I'd say they are corporate predators, looking to nickel and dime unsuspecting green publishers with odious charges for every thing they can think of. Their warehouse staff does not cut a fart without charging you 40 cents for every book you have warehoused with them. In short, Atlas/Bookmasters SUCKS.

OK, so I cut and run from being distributed by Atlas. So where does this leave a fine title like 40 Hour Man? Enter Lulu.com, a decent POD outfit. The Print on Demand field is getting crowded, and like Atlas, many of these firms charge high fees for services rendered. I like Lulu, as I can still make a buck and get a good quality book out there.
I like offering the free download, it just makes sense. Hell, the Grateful Dead let the tapers set up to record every show, and got rich and famous. With the print version of 40 Hour Man, I'm adding a $1.00 fee to production cost for me. Mr Beaupre and I both put a fair amount of coin into bringing this title to the public, maybe we can get enough back to buy ourselves a pizza some day!