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!

Buy or Die! Holiday Catalog

I've created a killer catalog of my graphic novels and T-Shirts for the Holiday Shopping Season. Click on the art below to start shopping.
Happy Holidays,
Steve

http://stevelafler.com/2012/11/20/steve-lafler-catalog-graphic-novels-ts/

Geeks of Doom Reviews Bughouse

 The cover of Bughouse #1 from 1994, which is not part of Menage a Bughouse.

A comic review site called Geeks of Doom gave my 2012 collection Menage a Bughouse a thumbs up review.

While the new book is not exactly breaking any sales records, it's certainly garnering some good press!

You can buy Menage a Bughouse here. Can't think of a better holiday gift, an entire world you can fall into for a few days for a mere $24.99!

The brilliant Jim Woodring gave my new graphic novel collection Menage a Bughouse a very nice recommendation on Boing Boing a few days back.

The post got some nice bounce in the comics industry news, with Heidi MacDonald giving it some play in The Beat and Tom Spurgeon providing a link on his excellent Comics Reporter site.

You can order Menage a Bughouse from the publisher here.

Thanks Jim!

The Comic Bastards gave my new book Menage a Bughouse a rave review!

You can buy Menage a Bughouse from the publisher here. It won't be going through the Diamond distribution system, so please consider buying it direct.

Steve

Complete Bughouse Tour Dates

Here is a complete list of my tour dates for this summer. I'm hitting the road with Menage A Bughouse, the 408-page book collecting my trilogy of Bughouse graphic novels. The tour starts tomorrow in Providence, Rhode Island at ADA Books.

Tour Dates

July 11, Ada Books, Providence, RI, 7 pm

July 13, Bergen Street Comics, Brooklyn, NY, 7 pm

July 14, Locust Moon Comics, Philadelphia, PA, 8 pm

July 17, Boxcar Books, Bloomington IN, 7 pm

July 18, Daydream Comics, Iowa City, IA, 5 pm

July 21, Time Warp Comics, Boulder, CO, 2 pm

July 25, Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, 7 pm

July 28, Cosmic Monkey Comics, Portland, OR, 2 pm

Zip me an email if you'd like more information.

Steve Lafler

Bughouse at Brooklyn's Bergen St. Comics Friday the 13th

Cartoonist Steve 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.

Lafler will be touring the U.S. during July to promote Ménage a Bughouse. The Bughouse tour comes to Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn, NY at 7 p.m. on July 13, with a panel discussion of Lafler's new book. The panel will feature rising art-comics star Austin English and CO2 publisher Gerry Giovinco.

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.

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

Bergen Street Comics, 470 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 230-5600

July 13, 7:00 p.m.

Further info from Steve Lafler

Steve Lafler at MoCCA July 12

The Steve Lafler event at MoCCA has been cancelled. As of Friday July 6th, I am scrambling to come up with an alternate venue in NYC or Brooklyn.

 Cartoonist Steve Lafler teams up with publisher CO2 to release Ménage a Bughouse. a 408-page volume collecting his trilogy of Bughouse graphic novels.

Lafler will be touring the U.S. during July to promote Ménage a Bughouse.

Bughouse original art and Radio Insecto CDs will be among the offerings at Lafler's MoCCA stop.

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. 

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

Tour Dates

July 11, Ada Books, Providence, RI

July 12, MoCCA, New York City

July 14, Locust Moon Comics, Philadelphia, PA

July 17, Boxcar Books, Bloomington IN

July 18, Daydream Comics, Iowa City, IA

July 21, Time Warp Comics, Boulder, CO

July 25, Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, CA

July 28, Cosmic Monkey Comics, Portland, OR

 Photo of Steve Lafler by Jeff Charles

Menage a Bughouse cover

Call (or email) Steve for further information at 503-213-3671.

Ménage à Bughouse Official Roll Out

CO2 has formally announced the publication of Ménage à BUGHOUSE, the 408-page collection of all my insect-jazz comics.
The book is a print-on-demand item--it will not be sold via the traditional book distribution system. The paperback edition is available here for $24.99, and the hardcover edition is available for $39.99.

As an artist, the publication of this volume is a dream realized. It takes the body of work at the center of my life and puts it all on one gorgeous place. Kudos, and big thanks, to Gerry Giovinco and Bill Cucinotta of CO2 for helping me bring this book into existence.

The work in Ménage à Bughouse has previously been published as a trilogy of graphic novels from indie comix publisher Top Shelf Productions. I love the Top Shelf series, each book is a complete jewel that stands on it's own. But you can't knock having all the Bughouse material in one book, and the real bonus here is the larger format--it really features my brushwork to advantage.

I've been blabbing about the new book for a month already, and the fact that I'm going to tour the U.S. this month (July, 2012) to promote it. So, I'm going to put a little something extra in this post. Here, I'm reproducing the foreword to Ménage à Bughouse, a pertinent bit of comics history explaining where the heck this book comes from:

The Coming of Bughouse

I was a bit feverish one October Monday some years back, so I called in sick to my part-time graphics job. Immersed in a wobbly, none-too-comfortable mode, I still found myself possessed of a playful curiosity. Picking up my pencil and a fresh piece of bristol paper, I determined to make one decent drawing before the day was out.

For inspiration, I pulled on some half-baked notions that had been piling up in my mind's eye. About six months prior, I'd read the shocking and lively autobiography of Miles Davis, the jazz trumpet giant of the 20^th century. Miles was a supreme ranconteur, spinning his narrative around the creative leaps of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and many others as well as himself. He was the brilliant bad boy at the center of cutting-edge jazz, getting into hair-raising scrapes as a matter of course.

It was more than synchronicity that David Croenenberg's film adaptation of William Burrough's Naked Lunch appeared about the same time. Croenenberg's film was a brilliant translation of the ethos of Burroughs' work to film, underscored by a sublime Ornette Coleman soundtrack. Actor Peter Weller hit just the right note as Bill Lee, the stand in for Burroughs—dead pan hilarious and desperate at once, all the while embracing his dark destiny.

My fascination with the post-war NYC world that served as a back-drop to the Be-Bop and Beat movements dovetailed perfectly with the mood I wanted to capture in my “one decent drawing” that day. I was pregnant with intent to create a story set in that milleau.

The intent gathered strength and spilled over into the physical world. I quickly sketched a tight little drawing of an insect saxophone player in a pin-stripe suit. I inked the drawing and had my first image of Jimmy Watts—the strutting saxophone genius, capable of explosive innovations at the drop of a hat, yet crippled by addiction to a substance known as “Bug Juice.”

Bughouse burrows into the spirit of the artist, the innovator, the improvisor. I put the nature of creativity itself under the microscope, while at the same time I scrutinized the dynamics of addiction. Why are so many great artists and musicians hopeless addicts? Are they simply escaping pain, or do they seek the key to “the other”, the secret font of knowledge, to put it to work in the service of art? I came to understand that addicts are very good at fooling people, but their supreme skill is self-delusion.

I dove into Bughouse head first, and was rewarded beyond my wildest dreams. I sought to give a unique voice and perspective to each character, driving the narrative forward by writing dialog that illuminated character. The muse showed up, encouraged by my drive and focus, and happily handed Bughouse over to me.

The first nine-page Bughouse story appeared in Buzzard, the underground comics anthology, in the spring of 1993. At the time, I was excited at the prospect of creating enough material to publish a full 32-page comic book of Bughouse.

I would have been flabbergasted, and actually ecstatic, to know that the series would extend to six comic books, one graphic novel and one graphic novella on my own Cat-Head imprint, and a trilogy of graphic novels from Top Shelf Productions.

Now, the entire work is here in your hands, inviting you to embark on a singular adventure to the insect-noir, indigo-tinged world of Bughouse.

Steve Lafler

Oaxaca, Mexico

Spring 2012

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back here in real time, it's July 3, I'm starting my tour in 8 days. If I don't see you out there on the road, I hope you'll consider ordering Menage a Bughouse!

 

Photo of Steve Lafler by Jeff Charles

CO2 Publishes Three New Books, including Bughouse

Captain Obese, Heaven and the Dead City and my own Menage a Bughouse are all available from the CO2 store right here. Each book is available in both paperback and hardcover.

Congratulations to my Gerry Giovinco and Bill Cucinotta, my publishers at CO2, on getting these 3 great books out!

That's Jorge and Felix from the Bughouse book, gettin' down. Acrylic sketch by Steve Lafler

Bughouse Tour in Boulder, Colorado July 21

Here is the straight dope on the Boulder, CO. stop on the Bughouse tour:

Cartoonist Steve 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. Lafler will be touring the U.S. during July to promote Ménage a Bughouse. The Bughouse tour comes to Time Warp Comics in Boulder July 21 at 2 p.m.

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.

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

Time Warp Comics, 3105 28th St., Boulder, CO 80301 (303) 443-4500

Bughousee Book tour at Locust Moon in Philadelphia

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

Bughouse Tour Poster

Bill Cucinotta at CO2 (my publisher) put together this cool tour poster for me. Thanks Bill!

It's not too late to order the new Menage a Bughouse book from my indiegogo page. Just a few days left to snag this complete Bughouse phone book/door stop (and help underwrite the tour!).

Steve Lafler