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Scrublands
A visionary collection of hallucinatory comics from South Africa. Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the debut collection of John Daly, the first book the company has published by a South African cartoonist.
Daly's earlier work has been described as "Tintin meets the Freak Brothers in the Cape of Good Dope." Indeed, Daly's cartoons, offbeat, hallucinatory, and often hilarious, seems descended fromand in some cases an amalgamation ofthe substance-induced work of Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Victor Moscoso, and S. Clay Wilson, filtered through the artist's own unique vision and sense of the absurd.
Daly's approach swings from introverted dreamlike stream-of-consciousness to over-the-top postmodern vaudevillian. "Prebaby," the centerpiece of this collection, delves into creation, survival, random occurrences and the micro/macrocosm. Told entirely without dialogue, it's almost musical in its execution. It unfolds like the storyboard to a wonky existential animated cartoon, and it's no surprise that Daly studied animation for two years at Cape Town's City Varsity College. In contrast, Daly's "Kobosh and Steve" stories come across as a series of routines by a demented Abbott and Costello. Kobosh even visits a down-on-his-luck Bruce Springsteen in one story, while another strip features a pair of micro-fauna questioning their existence as they feed off the rock legend's scalp.
Stories alternate between full-color and black-and-white and range from representational Jim Jarmusch-like scenarios to wild visual excursions, albeit linear ones. We are pleased to introduce a unique new voice to the world of cartooning and predict Daly's mix of deadpan absurdity and surreal imagery will be greeted with enthusiasm by readers and critics alike. Black-and-white comics throughout
Daly's earlier work has been described as "Tintin meets the Freak Brothers in the Cape of Good Dope." Indeed, Daly's cartoons, offbeat, hallucinatory, and often hilarious, seems descended fromand in some cases an amalgamation ofthe substance-induced work of Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Victor Moscoso, and S. Clay Wilson, filtered through the artist's own unique vision and sense of the absurd.
Daly's approach swings from introverted dreamlike stream-of-consciousness to over-the-top postmodern vaudevillian. "Prebaby," the centerpiece of this collection, delves into creation, survival, random occurrences and the micro/macrocosm. Told entirely without dialogue, it's almost musical in its execution. It unfolds like the storyboard to a wonky existential animated cartoon, and it's no surprise that Daly studied animation for two years at Cape Town's City Varsity College. In contrast, Daly's "Kobosh and Steve" stories come across as a series of routines by a demented Abbott and Costello. Kobosh even visits a down-on-his-luck Bruce Springsteen in one story, while another strip features a pair of micro-fauna questioning their existence as they feed off the rock legend's scalp.
Stories alternate between full-color and black-and-white and range from representational Jim Jarmusch-like scenarios to wild visual excursions, albeit linear ones. We are pleased to introduce a unique new voice to the world of cartooning and predict Daly's mix of deadpan absurdity and surreal imagery will be greeted with enthusiasm by readers and critics alike. Black-and-white comics throughout
128 pages, Paperback
First published June 6, 2006
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35 people want to read
About the author
Joe Daly
43 books21 followersJoseph 'Joe' Daly is a cartoonist from South Africa, born in London, UK in 1979.
Daly studied animation for two years at Cape Town's City Varsity College, then shifted his attention to writing and drawing comics. His stories have regularly appeared in the South African underground comics magazine Bittercomix. Internationally, Daly's comics are usually published by Fantagraphics Books in English and L'Association in French. His books include the collection Scrublands, the series The Red Monkey and Dungeon Quest, and Highbone Theater.
Daly studied animation for two years at Cape Town's City Varsity College, then shifted his attention to writing and drawing comics. His stories have regularly appeared in the South African underground comics magazine Bittercomix. Internationally, Daly's comics are usually published by Fantagraphics Books in English and L'Association in French. His books include the collection Scrublands, the series The Red Monkey and Dungeon Quest, and Highbone Theater.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 27, 2013
This was a drug trip of a book. A collection of short comics, Joe Daly's style is eclectic to say the least. I started this just last night and blew through it, mostly due to one story that constituted half of the graphic novel which had no dialogue whatsoever. The stories toward the end were kind of disappointing, but the bulk of them (including the long, wordless one) were pretty jaw dropping.
December 28, 2017
BCDER: 81
Short mostly stoner stories with a South African flavor. Joe Daly entertains me as a cartoonist even with some of the very short slice of life glimpses of what I'm guessing are autobiographical in nature.
The wordless "Prebaby" is the star in my opinion with "Aquaboy 1&2" following closely behind.
A quick, mildly trippy fun read.
Short mostly stoner stories with a South African flavor. Joe Daly entertains me as a cartoonist even with some of the very short slice of life glimpses of what I'm guessing are autobiographical in nature.
The wordless "Prebaby" is the star in my opinion with "Aquaboy 1&2" following closely behind.
A quick, mildly trippy fun read.
September 14, 2015
Society needs drugs.... drugs and comics too.
September 27, 2023
Joe Daly's Scrublands is a series of absolutely hilarious strips accompanied by a few bizarre and surreal longer pieces. A fun medley of stories, some featuring recurring characters like "Kobosh and Steve", and all blend in slapstick humor with surreal stream-of-consciousness situations. Stories like "Art Lover", "The Walk" and "Convention" exist to service a simple punchline, but Daly's cartooning was alluring enough to keep me vested throughout the entire set up. Stories like "Aqua Boy" ponder more existential ideas, but with plenty of wonkiness to keep things balanced. The longest piece in here, "Pre Baby", is a bizarre, psychedelic journey that invites comparisons to cartoonists like Jim Woodring. While not all jokes land, nor are some pieces that memorable, this is overall a nice sampling of Joe Daly's works.
March 19, 2019
How bizzarge. Bizzarf! As strange as Noah's Bizzarch? Good ol' Dagga* humour...
A little more than half of it is populated with human characters which are aggressively fun, funny, refreshing, or any combination of the three!
Sometimes it goes so far "out there" that you just shrug your shoulders and enjoy the beautiful art which is full of radiant color.
RARELY will you get colour from a writer/artist who doesn't work with paint, chalks or watercolours and when you do it's far from this brilliant.
This guy's work needs to be imported like the other gems from his part of the world!
*South African for that green flower that gets you high- he even teaches you how to pronounce it!
A little more than half of it is populated with human characters which are aggressively fun, funny, refreshing, or any combination of the three!
Sometimes it goes so far "out there" that you just shrug your shoulders and enjoy the beautiful art which is full of radiant color.
RARELY will you get colour from a writer/artist who doesn't work with paint, chalks or watercolours and when you do it's far from this brilliant.
This guy's work needs to be imported like the other gems from his part of the world!
*South African for that green flower that gets you high- he even teaches you how to pronounce it!
February 4, 2023
It took me a while to get into the wavelength of this book. Half of the book is one long surrealistic story about the creation of a being of some sort. The other half is made up of stories about various lowlifes, filled with non sequiturs and trivial incidents. I hear the artist's other books are better than this one, but I went to a lot of trouble to get my hands on this volume and I'm not feeling the enthusiasm to go through that much work again.
April 3, 2018
I just didn't get it. The jokes didn't didn't work for me, and other parts seemed smug and tiresome.
August 10, 2020
An enthralling and compelling crime novel that has more twists than a snake with its tail caught in a door. Unputdownable. Great evocation of the Hay Plain in summmer.
December 31, 2011
I like Joe Daly’s work but “Scrublands” is probably his weakest book. It contains very short strips about sexually shaped sculptures or sexually shaped vegetables, some weird stoner humour, and some avant-garde nonsense. Most of the characters look disturbing and monstrous-like as if they were characters from an old MAD magazine strip. The book contains few strips worth remembering though his distinctive drawing style becomes quite likeable after a while, and I can highly recommend his other books, “Red Monkey Double Happiness” (a kind of South African stoner Tintin adventure, very fun read with lots of excellent artwork, this time in colour), and the “Dungeon Quest” series which is a parody of the old board game “Dungeons and Dragons” in comic book form. “Scrublands” is a weak introduction to this great comic book artist and would only appeal to fans of the previous books (like me) looking for more of the same – and not finding it here.
September 7, 2007
I looove a well illustrated graphic novel
December 24, 2008
Stoner comics from South Africa - in the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers style
funny business
funny business
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews