Synopses & Reviews
In This Issue: Sex! Drugs! Kosmic Trooths! And a Comic Book Rebel Named Looby!
In his earlier novels, Funny Papers and Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies, Tom De Haven embarked on a dazzling tour of twentieth-century America, revealed through the world of the comic strips and their creators. Now in Dugan Under Ground, he transports us to explosive underground comics scene of the sixties.
It's 1967, the Summer of Love. Roy Looby, a gifted young cartoonist, deserts his mentor, the legendary strip man Ed Biggs, and heads to join the drop-outs and musicians in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury. In the reckless spirit of the times, Looby creates "The Imp Eugene," a libidinous comic book character who is a far cry from Biggs' signature figure, Derby Dugan--the cheerful icon of a more optimistic generation. Just like his real-world counterpart, hippie cartoonist R. Crumb, Looby is soon celebrated and vilified for his creation. And then he disappears, rumored to have lost his mind during the drug-fueled creation of a cartoon masterpiece.
A fabulous, strange trip across a wildly changing America, Dugan Under Ground is a rich, inventive tale about the suffocations of jealousy, the regrets that kill the spirit, and the mythic qualities of American popular culture.
Review
“De Haven is an expert milieu man, getting every last detail right.” —
The New York Times Book Review“A wild ride in appropriately nonlinear style, playing creative games with fictional form and function.” —The Boston Globe
“Delightfully inventive...[with] dialogue that snaps, crackles, and pops...A fast-moving romp through the 60s that churns up the emotions like a Waring blender, bounces complex ideas around like Ping Pong balls, and manages to keep a dozen or more disturbing questions in the air all at the same time.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
Synopsis
The final installment of De Haven's dazzling tour of twentieth-century America, revealed through the world of the comic strips and their creators. In 1967, the Summer of Love, Roy Looby, a gifted young cartoonist, deserts his mentor and joins the drop-outs of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury. There Looby creates "The Imp Eugene," a libidinous comic book character who is a far cry from his mentor's signature figure, Derby Dugan--the cheerful icon of a more optimistic generation. Celebrated and vilified for his creation, Looby soon disappears, rumored to have lost his mind during the drug-fueled creation of a cartoon masterpiece, and it's to his long-suffering brother, Nick, to find him. A long, strange trip across a wildly changing America,
Dugan Under Ground is a rich, inventive tale celebrating the mythic qualities of American popular culture.
About the Author
Tom De Haven is the author of several novels, including D
erby Dugan's Depression Funnies (winner of the 1997 American Book Award) and
Funny Papers. A frequent contributor to
Entertainment Weekly and
The New York Times, he also teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University. He lives in Midlothian, Virginia.