DOOFUS
doofus
Fantagraphics 1997
When I first ran across Rick Altergott’s DOOFUS OMNIBUS, I wondered exactly what a duo of panty-sniffing creeps had to offer me. The unlikely answer is: quite a bit! Sure, this may look like lowbrow material… well okay, it is, but there’s so much more here. The adventures of the repulsive Doofus (a dumpy unshaven man with bizarre fashion sense) and his even-more-repulsive pal Henry Hotchkiss (a dopey vagrant) occur in Flowertown USA, which looks like a pleasant place until you see the other goons who make up the town’s seedy underbelly. In fact, combined with other losers such as the mulleted Relief Erickson, greasy Stink-Hair Stu, and the buxom trailer-trash Miss Juniper, it appears that the realm occupied by Doofus and Henry is the real Flowertown, with the handsome businessmen, upper-crusts, and joggers being part of a thin veneer.Not completely sold on this, if we had more Fantagraphics in the pipeline I might have held off on it.