BugHouse: Book One

by Steve Lafler

Overview

Tenor saxophone maestro Jimmy Watts leads his talented band of bugs from the swing era into the uncharted maelstrom of Bebop. As he and his band mates claw their way to the top of the jazz world, they must fight the temptation to be consumed by addiction to a substance known as "Bug Juice".

Inspired by the postwar explosion of Bohemian cultural styles from artists as diverse as jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and Beat avatar William Burroughs, cartoonist Steve Lafler delivers his indigo-tinged masterwork graphic novel, BugHouse.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781734108736
Publisher:	Cat-Head Comics
Publication date:	04/01/2021
Series:	Bughouse
Edition description:	Book Trade ed.
Pages:	194
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.41(d)

About the Author

Steve Lafler has maintained his status as a loose cannon on the deck of Alt/Underground movement comics for decades.
Ever the maverick marching to his own beat, Lafler enjoyed long runs of his improvised Dog Boy comic books as well as the jaunty, unhinged Buzzard anthology. From there the self-styled maestro settled into the BugHouse trilogy of graphic novels, a history of Bebop jazz realized with an all-insect cast.
Subsequently, the artist decamped to Oaxaca, Mexico with his family for a decade, where started a country punk band, Radio Insecto.
Lafler's graphic novel "Death Plays a Mean Harmonica" is his fictional report on the sublime city of Oaxaca.

Editorial Reviews

This is a comic that transports you to a very singular and spectacularly-realized place and time and holds you fast to the point where you quite literally don't want to leave. I felt absolutely privileged to pay a return visit to Lafler's world, and envious of those who will be having the pleasure of experiencing it for the first time. Now more than ever, this stands out as one more the most purely enjoyable comics that I've ever read in my life.

• Ryan Carey, Four Color Apocalypse

You'll see that jazz motif bebop around. You'll see some hard luck hound dogs-or bugs. And you'll definitely see a lot of that joie de vivre thing we all want some of. You find it all wrapped in a bow in Lafler's BugHouse, albeit tinged with the harsh realities of life in the big city.

• Henry Chamberlain, Comics Grinder

From the Publisher