Snagglepuss, Take A Bow

The following originally ran in the Weekly Planet 9/22/18.

Snagglepuss might just be the best comic you read this year.

No, really. No, REALLY.

Impactful. Hilarious. Beautifully drawn. Snagglepuss. From Mark Russell (The Flintstones, Judge Dredd), EXIT STAGE LEFT: THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES is an absolute winner. It’s as rich, dryly funny, and devastating as any comic I have ever read and, yes, it is about the cartoon cat Snagglepuss.

DC’s slate of Hanna-Barbera comics have all been daring, to say the very least. The Jetsons became a futurist fable. Wacky Races was terraformed into a Mad Max: Fury Road race to the death. The Scooby Gang currently stalks an apocalyptic wasteland as a cutthroat crew of survivors in Scooby Apocalypse (R.I.P. Fred Jones). It’s a daring and positively enjoyable approach to having all of this IP lying around and it has been a joy staying on for this wild ride.

Russell himself turned The Flintstones into an all-timer. It’s a socially-conscious, deeply philosophical, and consistently hilarious book that will make you think more about your own life and existence than one could ever expect from a book where armadillos are bowling balls. It dealt with death, war, classism, marriage rights… and the vacuums were elephants. I was profoundly moved by The Flinstones, a comic book featuring anti-marriage protesters and a
prehistoric Carl Sagan. It’s a two volume joy that every fan of off-beat comics owes it to themselves to check out.

After a book like that, expectations on the follow up are high sky. Which is why I’m happy to report that EXIT STAGE LEFT: THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES in no way disappoints.

Set in 1953, during the heat of the Cold War. The House Committee of Un-American Activities is turning up the heat. And a gay southern playwright like Snagglepuss is never gonna make it out of those conditions unchanged. Think Tennessee Williams, if he were a cartoon cat. Snagglepuss, his closeted friend Huckleberry Hound, and everyone in their sphere of influence (including the denizens of Stonewall) has the fire turned up to unimaginable heights in a war for the soul of a nation and its theatre in, again, a comic book about an effete cartoon cat.

This week sees the entire series out in one neat little trade paperback. It’s a book at times hysterical and at others deeply moving (read: a book directly up my alley). I truly believe you are missing out if you don’t pick up the brand new collection of EXIT STAGE LEFT: THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES. Take a bow. Read it before you’re wowed by Russell as he helps resurrect Vertigo.