Cola Madness

Legendary underground cartoonist Gary Panter´s comics are typically anarchic and fun, but they also delve deeper. Drawn in 1983, printed in 2001 and released here for the first time, Cola Madnes stars Jimbo, Panter´s enduring punk everyman, sharing billing with a cast of idiosyncratic characters including Bob War; his calamitous brother, Uncle Garcia; a smart-talking dinosaur and beleaguered guardian in a bathrobe; and Kokomo, a native in an unspecified tropical land colonized by oil companies. The delightfully inane story offers a selection of Panter´s themes: Humanity´s troubled relationship with nature and technology; the tension between restraint and the uncontrollable urge; family relationships; and Jimbo´s endearing, comical self-doubt. Panter´s black-and-white "ratty line" drawing style offers great economy while suggesting a broad range of graphic styles, from art brut to bathroom graffiti, and calls to mind the work of legendary cartoonists Jack Kirby and Osamu Tezuka.