Ed vs. Yummy Fur

Brian Evenson delves deeply into the pages of Chester Brown's (Louis Riel, Paying for It) seminal comic-book Yummy Fur, from its beginnings as a mini comic to its afterlife in the graphic novels it spawned. Brian's comics archaeology excavates the discarded fragments of Brown's masterpiece Ed The Happy Clown, examines the never re-printed adaptions of the Gospels, considers the juxtaposition of religion and absurdism, and meditates on the pleasures of reading serialized pamphlet comic-books. The book also features a new interview with Chester Brown, shining a new spotlight on this important work.

“In this illuminating look at Chester Brown’s underappreciated Ed the Happy Clown, Brian Evenson employs a vast array of critical approaches to tell a compelling story about Brown, not only as a cartoonist and intellectual, but as a systematically obsessive reviser of his own work. Evenson takes us through Ed’scomplex history in self-published mini-comics, then in comic books, and finally in its definitive graphic novel version. Paying attention to even the smallest changes, he reveals that seemingly minor adjustments to a drawing or a panel’s placement on the page have a dramatic impact on Brown’s storytelling. With Ed vs. Yummy Fur, Brown’s work finally gets the sustained consideration it deserves.” — Ken Parille, editor of The Daniel Clowes Reader

100 page black and white paperback
Uncivilized Books, 2014