The Adventures of Eustacia H. Cow
and
Superheroes I Have Known
by Noah Berlatsky
I have no idea how much these cost, but you can get copies by contacting Noah Berlatsky. They're also available at Quimby's in Chicago.
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I know I'm opening a huge can of worms by reviewing these books, so I'd like to state, for the record, that we'd rather not review everyone's hand-drawn comics/zines/stories. No offense, but we've simply got to draw the line somewhere. I'm reviewing Superheroes I Have Known and The Adventures of Eustacia H. Cow for two reasons: first, they've been represented as legitimate "products", available for purchase in a store (Quimby's in Chicago, although I haven't gotten around to actually checking), and second, because their creator, Noah Berlatsky, was one of the guys behind Johnny Monomyth, a comic/zine/discourse so heady and strange and sexually perverse that it's still one of my all-time favorite zine-as-art type things.
Basically, these two ultra-slim volumes are short stories -- hand-written and hand-illustrated on white general-purpose printer paper, then photocopied and stapled together. The only way to make the experience cruder (in a purely technical sense) than it already is would be to read the originals -- or, perhaps, to force Berlatsky to redraw them with one of those super-thick pencils that are typically the province of kids who are only twelve or thirteen letters into the whole alphabet concept. For all I know, these are the only copies -- Berlatsky may well have woken up one Sunday morning, decided, "Hey, let's fuck with the Splendid guy!", and whipped these up in thirty minutes (although the cover to Super Heroes I Have Known must have taken at least fifteen on its own).
In tone, content and quality, these zines are similar to the sort of stuff most fifth-grade boys draw in their notebooks; Superheroes' cover in particular boasts a "war" drawing full of crude guys, planes and tanks, so dead-on authentic that it includes a handy legend -- bad guys marked with a "B", good guys marked with a "G". Sure, it's violent, but simplistically so, embodying a child's fascination with gore and complete lack of awareness of its consequences.
In both books, the writing is terse, employing the sort of cultural shorthand that only works when your world is very, very small. For example, in Superheroes -- which, as its title implies, is an overview of certain esoterically super-powered individuals of whom the author is aware -- we learn that when "The American Robot with wheels and tentacles rolled up" loses his glasses, he becomes confused and kills stormtroopers. Are these Nazi stormtroopers? Star Wars stormtroopers? Good guys or bad guys? Real people or action figures? We don't know, although as the remorseful robot replaces his victims' heads with superglue, there's apparently no long-term damage done.
Superheroes' childlike logic can be as brilliant as Lynda Barry's best work. We also meet Matzah the Magic User, about whom Noah writes,
Nobody likes to hear me talk about him. He is not Jewish he just likes Matzah I think. Also he is insane and has a castle in wonderland where the Mad Hatter is though that didn't really work out how I had hoped. He makes spells that use matzah like instead of a fireball he will make a matzahball which crushes people.
Then there's a nameless guy from "one of a world in a drop of water" whose special power involves liking reptiles -- he keeps small alligators in his shoes and a variety of snakes about his person. There's also the Hooded Yoga -- a skinny, naked, turban-wearing contortionist whose legs are tangled in the lotus position, so he moves by walking on his hands. "One power is his parents watch him when he does things," the book explains. "One day he got too old and had to wear pajama bottoms." And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Vlad the Coal Miner and his mule, Mr. Snortman, who has a "super-pressure" stomach that allows him to eat coal and crap diamonds, or the inexplicably nude and Caucasian Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek, who likes to wear high heels and lipstick "and not clothes". ("Superheroes are sometimes embarrassing," the book explains, at once excusing and embracing its sniggering grammar school sexuality.)
The Adventures of Eustacia H. Cow is a more straightforward, traditional narrative, detailing the adventures of the titular bovine and her friend/lover/appliance, a toaster named Cthulu. (That's right, a sentient toaster named after one of the Elder Deities -- a largely gratuitous reference, despite the brief mention of an "evil secret button" on Cthulu that unleashes slimy tentacles of death, after which Eustacia apparently disposes of all the bodies.)
One day, Eustacia and Cthulu decide, as animal/appliance couples are wont to do, to head down to Antarctica for a bit of shopping. They purchase an igloo made of boogers (remember what I said about fifth grade humor?) and a moose -- two items that cause a great deal of trouble back home. I won't describe the problem, except to say that it isn't world-threatening, and that Eustacia's solution to it involves a charming collision of real and fantasy worlds, and that everyone lives happily ever after, although the moose doesn't get much in the way of closure. The whole expansive, continent-hopping tale plays out in something like 300 words, accompanied by predictably simplistic illustrations.
The magical thing about these books is that they get the mood just right. There's no veiled social commentary -- at least, none that I found obvious -- and no crude or cruel adult humor between the lines; both zines are childlike in a way that's very hard to capture properly, but utterly engrossing when it's pulled off. Of course, I've been described as childlike myself on a number of occasions, so I may be a better-than-average audience for Superheroes and Eustacia, but that's fine.
I have no idea how much these little zines cost; as I said, the whole thing may have been an elaborate and extremely perverse practical joke. I don't care. I was charmed. If you're willing to drop a buck or two in service of revisiting your childhood, Superheroes I Have Known and The Adventures of Eustacia H. Cow are a safe bet.
(But for Christ's sake, please don't all send us hand-drawn comics! Thank you.)
-- George Zahora
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