The Biologic Show, Number: 1

by Al Columbia

he Biologic Show is a comic book series written and drawn by Al Columbia. The first issue, #0, was released in October 1994 by Fantagraphics Books, and a second issue, #1, was released the following January. A third issue (#2) was announced in the pages of other Fantagraphics publications and solicited in Previews but was never published. "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool", a color short story with a markedly different art style originally intended for issue #2, appeared instead in the anthology Zero Zero. In a 2010 interview, Columbia recalled that the unfinished issue "looked so different that it just didn’t look right, it didn’t look consistent, and it didn’t feel right to keep putting out that same comic book, to try to tell a story where the style is mutating."[1] The series' title is taken from a passage in the William S. Burroughs book Exterminator! (in the chapter "Short Trip Home"). The passage in question is quoted briefly in a story from issue #0, also titled "The Biologic Show".

Each issue of The Biologic Show contains several short stories and illustrated poems. Many of the pieces deal with disturbing subject matter such as mutilation, incest, and the occult. Issue #0 introduces three of Columbia's recurring characters: the hapless, Koko the Clown-like Seymour Sunshine in the opening story "No Tomorrow If I Must Return", and the sibling duo Pim and Francie in "Tar Frogs". (Both "Tar Frogs" and the aforementioned "The Biologic Show" had originally appeared in the British comics magazine Deadline but were partially redrawn for Columbia's solo book.) Issue #1 is dominated by the 16-page Pim and Francie story "Peloria: Part One", intended as the start of an ongoing serial. It includes another character, Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy, who reappears in Columbia's later work. Upon the demise of The Biologic Show Fantagraphics announced that Peloria would be released as a stand-alone graphic novel,[2] but this plan was also abandoned.

Genres: Comics, Horror, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

26 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

At the age of 19, he was hired by Bill Sienkiewicz to be his assistant on Alan Moore’s, Big Numbers.

Since then you may have seen some of his numerous other works such as Pim & Francie, Doghead, and The Biologic Show.

He is also a musician and artist.

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tragic that the Peloria graphic novel never materialized.

[Carlos CRT · Rating 3 out of 5]

The drawings are marvellous. That said I wasn't satisfied with the plot at all. It stars off ver well but then I wanted more adventures.
In Number: 0 there are many stories but in this one there is one that concerns Pim and Francie, whom both I love and also the siamese evil sisters.
It was good but not AS good as the previous one.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn’t usually something I’d read, but I decided to read it anyway. I had found #0 online and found it very interesting, so naturally, I wanted to read #1. The first issue was more interesting to me, but what really scared me about the second issue was the image of the corpse on the last page. It gave me vivid nightmares like nothing—especially not a comic book—had ever given me before. Read this book if you want to be disturbed or terrified.

[Gabriel Infierno · Rating 5 out of 5]

te amo al!

[marcii☆ thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

AL Columbia sure was something, and on something