claire bowen far-out unbathed leftists. the fabulous furry freak brothers and middle america by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub

But these are comics; men, especially the supporters of the existing social order, hardly fare better. Shelton (and Sheridan and Mavrides) are, after all, in the business of caricature. The easiest treatment is reserved for the Freaks themselves over the forty years of their existence and in the hands of three different artists. Fat Freddy’s Cat, also, is given a range of expressions, situations and dialogues that contribute to its development as a reasonably complex individual character. The (nameless) cat accompanies the Freaks from the earliest strips. He becomes independent as a footnote strip in 1970. The first full-page Fat Freddy’s Cat and His Friends dates from 1974 and the series of seven Fat Freddy’s Cat stand-alone comic books begins in 1977. The cat provides a useful transition between the “hippie sitcom” and “outrageous fantasy”24 periods being, like the Brothers, present in both. The Cat is the true libertarian of the strips. By far the most intelligent and perceptive of the characters, he is also, in the nature of things, the weakest. He depends on the humans for food, is abandoned at least once and exploited often, especially by Fat Freddy who sees the Cat as an opportunity to succeed in various dubious financial exploits.25 Like the Brothers, he spends much time avoiding danger and attempting to extract nourishment and pleasure from a generally hostile environment. His world is wider than that of the Freaks, inhabited not just by humans but also by a variety of animals including dogs, other cats, rats, mice and the inevitable cockroach army. The Cat’s life shadows that of the Freaks, sometimes very closely. The single page strips have the Cat interacting with them, most usually with Fat Freddy, in a feline/human variation of the human to human, “alternative” to “straight” misinterpretations and power struggles of the Freaks-based strips. The Cat, oppressed or misunderstood by the Brothers just as they are oppressed and misunderstood by the non-Hippie world, turns the tables more often, more easily.26 The Cat’s close “shadowing” of the Brothers in a footnote strip continues over longer, sustained narratives such as Grass Roots 27 and A Mexican Odyssey. 28 In the latter the stories of 24 Joost and Randall 25 See, for example, Gilbert Shelton, The Burning of Hollywood, 1978 (Shelton 279-84). 26 The strips may even show the Cat in a clear position of superiority. Shelton’s single page of 1973, for example, shows the Cat feeling sorry for Fat Freddy who is “depressed” and deciding, therefore, to “fix his head” with nine frames of dancing, jumping and general curtain-tearing. When a vastly happier Freddy wants to “get footage” of his antics, the Cat refuses to budge on the grounds that the human needs “a zen yoga lesson.” Gilbert Shelton, Fat Freddy’s Cat, 1973 (Shelton 125). 27 Gilbert Shelton and Dave Sheridan, Grass Roots, 1976 (Shelton 300-31). 28 Gilbert Shelton and David Sheridan, The 7,h Voyage of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. A Mexican Odyssey, 1975 (Shelton 141-64.). 72

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