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Johnny Bullet
Comic Strips
Rick Altergott's The Doofus Omnibus
By Leroy Douresseaux

January 31, 2004 - 14:07

Publisher(s): Fantagraphics Books
Writer(s): Rick Altergott
Penciller(s): Rick Altergott
Inker(s): Rick Altergott
Cover Artist(s): Rick Altergott
ISBN: 156097494-X; $16.95 (soft cover)


Doofus-Omnibus.jpg
For nearly two decades, Rick Altergott has been entertaining select comics enthusiasts with his character Doofus, a short, pudgy, weirdo and jerk who lives in Flowertown, U.S.A. and hangs around with a group of retarded friends who are almost as despicable as he is. THE DOOFUS OMNIBUS is the first book collection of the mostly one-page strips that have appeared in the STRANGER (a Seattle weekly newspaper), Peter Bagge’s HATE, and several comics anthologies. Altergott is the cartoonists’ cartoonist, and has earned many admirers with his alluring comic art – a realist cartooning style that combines 1950’s advertising art with Mort Drucker and the masterful Wally Wood. Any cartoonist whose list of fans includes Daniel Clowes, R. Crumb, Jim Woodring, and Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez is worth noticing.

Doofus, as a character, is hard to take in large does, and at over 100 pages, this book is too much Doofus. Still, it’s hard to stop looking at this fabulous little trade paperback. Doofus is like the car wreck that you have to stop and admire, and Altergott’s work is funny in the vein of work by R. Crumb, such animated TV series as “Family Guy” and “The Simpson,” and the crude but cogent humor of Dave Chappelle. I sincerely hope that I don’t have to wait another 20 years for the second omnibus of Doofus and Altergott.
[DRECK, DULL, READABLE, VERY GOOD, EXCELLENT]

Editor: Kim Thompson


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