The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers

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Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
Freak Brother No 1.jpg
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers #1, Feb. 1971 by Gilbert Shelton
Publication information
Publisher Rip Off Press
Publication dateFebruary 1971 – 1997
No. of issues14
Creative team
Created by Gilbert Shelton

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers is an underground comic about a fictional trio of stoner characters, created by the American artist Gilbert Shelton. The Freak Brothers first appeared in The Rag , an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas, beginning in May 1968, and were regularly reprinted in underground papers around the United States and in other parts of the world. Later their adventures were published in a series of comic books.

Contents

The lives of the Freak Brothers revolve around the procurement and enjoyment of recreational drugs, particularly marijuana. The comics present a critique of the establishment while satirizing the counterculture. [1]

Fat Freddy's Cat appears in many of the stories, spinning off his own cartoon strip (which appeared as part of the Freak Brothers comic page, in the manner of older comic strip double features) and later some full-length episodes.

An animated TV series adaptation, The Freak Brothers , was released on Tubi on November 14, 2021.

Publication history

The Freak Brothers first appeared in The Rag , an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas, beginning in May 1968. [2] Their debut was in an advertising flyer for a winter 1968 film short called The Texas Hippies March on the Capitol. [3] Freak Brothers strips soon became popular and, thanks to the Underground Press Syndicate, were regularly reprinted in underground papers around the United States and in other parts of the world.

The Freak Brothers' first comic book appearance was in Feds 'n' Heads , self-published by Shelton in the spring of 1968 (and later re-issued in multiple printings by Berkeley's the Print Mint). [4] They also appeared in the first two issues of Jay Lynch's Bijou Funnies . In 1969 Shelton and three friends from Texas founded Rip Off Press in San Francisco, which took over publication of all subsequent Freak Brothers comics. [5] The first compilation of their adventures, The Collected Adventures of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, had its first printing in 1971 and has been continually in print ever since.

A weekly Freak Brothers comic strip was syndicated by Rip Off Press to underground and student publications in the 1970s, along with the related strip Fat Freddy's Cat . [6] In addition to those strips, new adventures appeared in magazines such as Playboy , High Times , and Rip Off Comix ; these too were collected in comic book form. Shelton continued to write and draw the series until 1992, in collaboration with Dave Sheridan (1974 – 1982) and Paul Mavrides (1978 – 1992).

The majority of the comic books consist of one or more multi-page stories together with a number of one-page strips; many of the latter have a one-row skit featuring Fat Freddy's Cat at the bottom of the page. Issues #8-10 contained only the long-form story "The Idiots Abroad", which The Comics Journal listed as #44 of the "100 Greatest Comics of the Century." [7] The UK newspaper The Guardian said of a 2003 reprint of the story that, "The graphic quality is, even in slightly muddy reproduction, astonishing. Depictions of various European cities recall Hergé in their accuracy and detail ... As for the subject matter, considering the dates of composition, it has hardly dated." [8]

Characters

The Freak Brothers are not siblings. They are a threesome of freaks (similar to, but distinct from, hippies) from San Francisco.

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, from left to right, Phineas, Fat Freddy, and Freewheelin' Franklin FreakBrothers.jpg
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, from left to right, Phineas, Fat Freddy, and Freewheelin' Franklin
Fat Freddy's Cat
FatFreddiesCat.jpg
Publication information
First appearance 1969
Created by Gilbert Shelton
In-story information
Species Tabby cat
Place of origin San Francisco
Team affiliations The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
Partnerships Fat Freddy Freekowtski

Other recurring characters include:

Fat Freddy's Cat is a fictional orange Tabby cat, nominally belonging to Fat Freddy Freekowtski, one of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers , a trio featured in Gilbert Shelton's underground comix. [9]

While the Cat is usually featured in a small 'topper' strip below a Freak Brothers strip, he has had independent appearances and storylines of his own. His two running jokes are Fat Freddy is too lazy to name him, and he suffers neglect and abuse from the Brothers' lifestyle.

Single line segments appeared in student newspapers in Australia in the 1970s. [10] [11]

Fat Freddy's Cat first appeared in 1969 in underground newspapers as a character in The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers strip. He soon gained his own small spin-off topper strip, in imitation of the early Krazy Kat strips below The Family Upstairs by George Herriman. Some full-size stories also featured Fat Freddy's Cat.

Many of these strips have been collected in comic book form by Rip Off Press in a series of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers compilations and later The Adventures of Fat Freddy's Cat, which ran for four small size issues in the 1970s. Fat Freddy's Comics and Stories (one-shot, 1983) also included several stories about the Cat.

The Adventures of Fat Freddy's Cat were reprinted and expanded (starting over from #1) in six comic book size issues in the 1980s. They included new longer stories about the Cat. A seventh edition was released (in the US only) in 1993. After the demise of the underground newspaper, the Cat continued to appear in various comic books. His last appearance to date was in a 1990 strip reprinted in The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers #12.

The Cat is much smarter than Freddy, and while sharing many of his preoccupations such as drugs, food, sleep and sex, his stories also feature a fair amount of defecation. Like Garfield (whom he predates) he is laid back, but in his personal habits and outlook he is more like the Freak Brothers. However he tends to regard the Freak Brothers with amused contempt, frequently expressed by defecating in inappropriate and inconvenient places, such as stereo headphones. [12] [13]

Like Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes he has a fertile imagination. He is apt to tell tall stories to his three "nephews". One storyline features him playing the role of "F. Frederick Skitty", an undercover agent sworn to stop the distribution of "Tee Hee Hee", a drug that turns people into homosexuals. Another story involves a scheme by Fat Freddy to replicate Dick Whittington's success and sell the Cat to the (fictional) small, oil-rich nation of Pootweet to deal with mice. [14]

The New Zealand band Fat Freddy's Drop, whose debut album won the 2005 Gilles Peterson Worldwide Winners Award, were named after the comic. [15] The band's debut single was recorded under the influence of LSD that had been printed with blotter art of Fat Freddy's Cat, [16] and the band liked the name.

The popular 8-bit computer game Jet Set Willy has a room named "We Must Perform a Quirkafleeg" in honour of this strip.

Fat Freddy's Restaurant in Galway, Ireland, described as "Galway’s favourite restaurant", [17] is extensively decked out with arcana and other memorabilia relating to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Fat Freddy's Cat.

The science fiction novel Scam Artists of the Galaxy (2020) contains a location named Fat Freddy's Restaurant with a supercilious mostly orange cat. This novel's sequel, Election Matters: Life on Universityworld (2022), sees the cat and one of its kittens appear.

Fat Freddy's Cat is voiced by Tiffany Haddish in the animated series The Freak Brothers , which debuted in 2020, and is commonly called Kitty by Fat Freddy. [18] This version of the character is female and is capable of conversing directly with the Freaks whom she once again has a habit of insulting and belittling. She can apparently handle weed much better than them, though this did not prevent her from having the ultimate high that sent them from 1969 to 2020.

There have been more than a hundred small comic strips about the Cat, most of which have been reprinted in various formats, but there have only been eight stories longer than one page:

The Cat also appears as a key character in:

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Storylines and themes

Fat Freddy, with his cat Keedspills.jpg
Fat Freddy, with his cat

Drug use is the predominant theme that runs throughout all volumes of this title. The protagonists "live in a state of blissful torpor relieved only by bursts of paranoia or stimulant-induced frenzy." [19] Marijuana is the most frequently mentioned, but numerous other stimulants and hallucinogens are mentioned as well. Heroin is usually missing from the list. In one adventure, Franklin is shown to turn down an offer of "smack" when hitching a ride.[ volume & issue needed ]

Food is a recurring subject. These stories most often involve Fat Freddy and his marijuana-induced "munchies" (increased appetite). The squalor engendered by the Brothers' indolence is often highlighted; several strips feature the household's cockroach population, ruled over by a fascist monarchy. Several stories satirize governments, particularly the U.S. government. These stories invariably show politicians and their agents as corrupt, incompetent, or both. The theme of foreign travel is sometimes explored, most notably in the three-part Idiots Abroad series.

It is common for the storylines to begin with an air of realism, but rapidly descend into comic pantomime.

Classic Freak Brothers stories include:

Film and TV adaptations

Still from Grass Roots. Truckin.jpg
Still from Grass Roots.

In 1978, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers appeared in the full-length pornographic film Up in Flames . The story involves the brothers' attempts to raise cash to make their rent deadline (the trio being in danger of being evicted from their apartment). Fat Freddy gains employment at a local food store run by graphic artist Robert Crumb's character Mr. Natural. [23]

In 1979, Universal Studios paid Shelton and Rip Off Press $250,000 for the rights to make a live-action Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers film. Shelton received the bulk of the money, which enabled him to live part-time in Europe. Meanwhile, the Universal-produced Freak Brothers film never made it to the production stage. [6]

In 2006, the company Grass Roots Films began production on a feature-length clay animation film based on the series, called Grass Roots , co-produced by German distribution company X Filme. In 2013, work on the film stopped.

An animated television series adaptation titled The Freak Brothers , based on the characters and set in modern San Francisco, was released on Tubi on November 14, 2021. [24] The series was preceded on May 6, 2020, by a mini-episode titled "Kentucky Fried Freaks". [25] The series features Woody Harrelson, Pete Davidson, John Goodman, and Tiffany Haddish as voice actors for the three Freaks and the cat respectively. [26] Courtney Solomon and Mark Canton serve as executive producers, with Jeffrey Scott Edell serving as Co-Executive Producer, alongside Adam DeVine and Blake Anderson who also provide voice acting. [27] The series is animated by Pure Imagination Studios and Starburns Industries studio, which also worked on Rick and Morty . In May 2022, the series was renewed for a second season. [28] The series will be released on digital on April 17, 2023 by Lionsgate. [29]

Fat Freddy's Drop, formed in the late 1990s, is a Wellington, New Zealand, band that took its name from the Freak Brothers comics. According to the band, individual doses of a certain type of LSD popular in Wellington at that time had the image of Fat Freddy's Cat printed on it. Dropping — common slang for taking LSD — Fat Freddies became the inspiration for the band's name. [30]

Director Paul Thomas Anderson said the look of Joaquin Phoenix's lead character, Larry "Doc" Sportello, in Anderson's 2014 adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel Inherent Vice , was based in part on Freewheelin' Franklin Freek:

"[T]here's this documentary on Daniel Ellsberg, called The Most Dangerous Man in America . There's a great picture of a buddy of his who has this great set of glasses, a floppy hat and these mutton chops. I took a still frame from that and I sent it to [Phoenix], along with the omnibus collection of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic, by Gilbert Shelton—and that's probably the most we really talked about [Phoenix's portrayal of the character]". [31]

Sports

The ultra supporters of Serie B Italian football (soccer) team Ternana Calcio, from the Italian Umbrian city of Terni are called "The Freak Brothers". Like many Italians ultras, they are linked with the political left. [32]

Places

Fat Freddy's Restaurant, in Galway, Ireland, has arcana and other memorabilia relating to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Fat Freddy's Cat. [33] There is also an inn in Olongapo, Philippines, called "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Stagger Inn".[ citation needed ]

Science

At the Le Havre Normandy University, Claire Bowen analysed the timeless appeal and current relevance of the Freak Brothers comics in the American couter culture of the 1970s [34] Chiara Polli at the University of Messina conducted semiotic studies of a selecton of Italian translations of the Freak Brothers Comics, using isotopies as a key tool in the analysis of comics in translation. [35]

Bibliography

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers series

Almost all of the titles in the series have a title in words. Issues #0–7 and #12–13 are in black and white; issues #8–11 were produced in both color and black-and-white editions.

Compilations and collections

Several compilation titles have been published that merge several of the original titles into one book.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Underground comix</span> Comics genre

Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality, and violence. They were most popular in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, and in the United Kingdom in the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gilbert Shelton</span> American cartoonist, born 1940

Gilbert Shelton is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground comix movement. He is the creator of the iconic underground characters The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Cat, and Wonder Wart-Hog.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunt Emerson</span> English cartoonist

Hunt Emerson is an English cartoonist. He was closely involved with the Birmingham Arts Lab of the mid-to-late 1970s, and with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s. His many comic strips and graphic novels have been translated into numerous languages.

Paul Mavrides is an American artist, best known for his critique-laden comics, cartoons, paintings, graphics, performances and writings that encompass a disturbing yet humorous catalog of the social ills and shortcomings of human civilization. Mavrides worked with underground comix pioneer Gilbert Shelton on The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers from 1978 to 1992. Mavrides has been noted for "adding new dimensions to the political comic" in the underground comix press of the 1970s and '80s.

Frank Huntington Stack is an American underground cartoonist and fine artist. Working under the name Foolbert Sturgeon to avoid persecution for his work while living in the Bible Belt, Stack published what is considered by many to be the first underground comic, The Adventures of Jesus, in 1964.

Knockabout Comics is a UK publisher and distributor of underground and alternative books and comics. They have a long-standing relationship with underground comix pioneer Gilbert Shelton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wonder Wart-Hog</span> Comics character

Wonder Wart-Hog is an underground comic book character, a porcine parody of Superman, created by American cartoonist Gilbert Shelton and first published in 1962. Over the years, Shelton has worked on the strip in collaboration with various writers and artists, including fellow UT Austin alums Tony Bell, Bill Killeen, and Joe E. Brown Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rip Off Press</span> Comic book mail order retailer and distributor

Rip Off Press Inc. is a comic book mail order retailer and distributor, better known as the former publisher of adult-themed series like The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Rip Off Comix, as well as many other seminal publications from the underground comix era. Founded in 1969 in San Francisco by four friends from Austin, Texas — cartoonists Gilbert Shelton and Jack Jackson, and Fred Todd and Dave Moriaty — Rip Off Press is now run in Auburn, California, by Todd.

Jay Kinney is an American author, editor, and former underground cartoonist. Kinney has been noted for "adding new dimensions to the political comic" in the underground comix press of the 1970s and '80s.

<i>Rip Off Comix</i> Underground comix anthology

Rip Off Comix was an underground comix anthology published between 1977 and 1991 by Rip Off Press. As time passed, the sensibility of the anthology changed from underground to alternative comics.

<i>Grass Roots</i> (film) Clay animated film

Grass Roots is a proposed British-American adult clay film based on the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers underground comic strip created by Gilbert Shelton.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rand Holmes</span> Canadian artist and illustrator

Randolph Holton Holmes was a Canadian artist and illustrator probably best known for his work in underground comix. His work was of a higher level of quality than was seen elsewhere in the field, and is considered comparable to such creations as Gilbert Shelton's The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Robert Crumb's Mr. Natural.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Sheridan (cartoonist)</span> American cartoonist (1943–1982)

Dave Sheridan was an American cartoonist and underground comix artist. He was the creator of Dealer McDope and collaborated with Gilbert Shelton and Paul Mavrides on The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. As creative partner with fellow underground creator Fred Schrier, using the name "Overland Vegetable Stagecoach," they worked on Mother's Oats Funnies, published by Rip Off Press from 1970 to 1976.

<i>Bijou Funnies</i>

Bijou Funnies was an American underground comix magazine which published eight issues between 1968 and 1973. Edited by Chicago-based cartoonist Jay Lynch, Bijou Funnies featured strong work by the core group of Lynch, Skip Williamson, Robert Crumb, and Jay Kinney, as well as Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton, Justin Green, and Kim Deitch. Bijou Funnies was heavily influenced by Mad magazine, and, along with Zap Comix, is considered one of the titles to launch the underground comix movement.

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<i>God Nose</i>

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<i>Feds N Heads</i> Underground comic book by Gilbert Shelton

Feds 'N' Heads is an underground comic book, created and self-published by Gilbert Shelton, which introduced the world to the Shelton characters Wonder Wart-Hog and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. In the spring of 1968, cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, already somewhat known in college humor and underground comix circles for his Superman parody Wonder Wart-Hog, self-published a 28-page one-shot, Feds 'N' Heads Comics, much of the material of which had previously appeared in the Austin, Texas, underground paper The Rag. Feds 'N' Heads was later reprinted an additional 13 times by the Bay Area underground publisher the Print Mint, selling over 200,000 total copies by 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snoid</span> Underground comix character created by Robert Crumb

The Snoid, occasionally referred to as Mr. Snoid, is an American underground comix character created by Robert Crumb in the mid-1960s. A diminutive sex fiend and irritating presence, the Snoid often appears with other Crumb characters, particularly Angelfood McSpade, Mr. Natural, and Crumb's own self-caricature.

<i>The Freak Brothers</i> 2021 American TV series or program

The Freak Brothers is an American adult animated sitcom based on the underground comic The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers by Gilbert Shelton. The first season aired from November 14 to December 26, 2021 on the streaming service Tubi, and featured the voices of Pete Davidson, Woody Harrelson, and John Goodman as the titular Freak Brothers, with Tiffany Haddish voicing the brothers' cat. In May 2022, the show was renewed for a second season, which aired on June 25, 2023.

References

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