The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers are the heroes of a comic series of the same name (1968–1992) by the American illustrator Gilbert Shelton . The stories illuminate the everyday life of three dropouts (or hippies or freaks ) and the alternative scene in San Francisco from the late 1960s to early 1990s in a humorous and satirical way.
Creation and publication
The underground comic series The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers started in 1968 in the underground magazine Rip Off Press. Signatories of the series, the adventures of three long-haired members of the hippie - and drugs - subculture had to content, the American was Gilbert Shelton . The publication of the individual stories, the length of which varied from one page to several dozen, was scattered in different journals and magazines after the Rip Off Press was discontinued. New Freak Brothers stories and repetitions of old ones have appeared in Playboy , High Times magazine and the Rip Off Comix series , among others . Author Shelton developed adventures with his three main characters until 1992. Also involved in the series were Dave Sheridan (1974 to 1982) and Paul Mavrides (since 1978); In addition, the German comic artist and book author Gerhard Seyfried . As a sub-series of the Freak Brothers, the series Fat Freddys Kater was published for a time .
The series appeared in various editions and was reissued in various compilations. The animated film Grassroots , a cinematic summary of some of the Freak Brothers adventures, was shown at the 2006 Berlinale . As a German cooperation company, the distributor X Films has added production to its range.
content
The focus of the series, which is mainly set in San Francisco in the 1970s, is the three hippies Phineas, Freewheelin 'Franklin and Fat Freddy, whose daily routine is mainly about getting drugs of almost any kind, getting food or financing their livelihoods General turns. The avoidance of conventional work in the bourgeois sense is a principle in life of the three freaks , they therefore also be in permanent need of money. Mostly wasting the day in their rather shabbily furnished flat share , their everyday life also often revolves around the tightly militarily organized "cockroach army" based in the kitchen and bathroom, which in turn is owned by the very idiosyncratic pet Fat Freddy's cat , who in the course of the series has its own adventure in one was allowed to experience own sub-series, is fought; furthermore about television , general, sometimes justified paranoia as well as often about surreal-personal experiences, which in the end turn out to be “just dreamed”. However, different from the main series, there are also several longer stories that take place during some of the travels of the three protagonists . The anti-heroes , depicted in the typical, sometimes slapstick-like, but sometimes lovingly worked out underground comic style of the sixties, show different traits in character despite their common predilection for drugs, sex and as little work as possible:
- Phineas , arguably the most intelligent of the group, acts as a “chief theorist” or cadre and marks the typical dropout scene intellectual. He is originally from Austin , Texas , where he fled his ultra-conservative home. In contrast to his cronies, he is artistically and culturally educated and quite interested in the pleasant side of life. Phineas' beard, hair and eyebrows blend seamlessly into one another. He wears octagonal glasses and mostly dungarees .
- The - comparatively - clear-thinking man of action Freewheelin 'Franklin, on the other hand, is the heart of the group. His appearance with jeans, boots, mustache and cowboy hat reflects the motorcycle rocker mentality à la Easy Rider . He is an orphan who never met his real parents for sure. His nickname means "the carefree".
- Probably the most popular freak brother, however , became the stocky clumsy clumsy Fat Freddy from Cleveland , who, in addition to his general predilection for cannabis products, is primarily interested in excessive eating and drinking. He usually only wears jeans and an undershirt and has protruding blonde curls that go straight into a whisker. Fat Freddy is the most intellectually inexperienced of the three. Over time, he develops a distinct personality. Freddy hardly has any qualms about getting his money's worth, but he does not exceed certain limits. He and the flat share hangover are linked in a kind of love-hate relationship in several adventures.
- With Fat Freddy's Cat , the range of comedy of the work was gradually expanded considerably. Due to Shelton's more and more sophisticated drawing style, the cat received a consistently pantomime expression. It is used in many comic situations, initially only as decoration, later also in the form of your own strips.
In addition to the characters listed, other typical exponents and enemy images of the subculture appear in the series: the notorious Norbert as the undercover spy of the local drug squad, who is almost as paranoid as the three freaks; Freewheelin 'Franklin rural commune -Vetter Country Cowfreak , dealer McDope and others. While in the first years of the series a coarsened, woodcut-like parody style dominated both in terms of content and drawing, the series became somewhat more "established" over the years, both in terms of the thematic content and the design of the comics. The decline of the hippie culture and the emergence of other, in part oppositely oriented, dropout and youth cultures such as punk and disco ultimately also led to upheavals in the comic scene: Even the classic underground comic artists had to realize that unconventional comic strip artists Rows at the beginning of the 1980s were no longer automatically assigned to the subculture , but rather belonged to the everyday life of many young (and also older) adults.
Publications in Germany
In the Federal Republic of Germany the first volumes with stories of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers were published by the UPN Volksverlag based in Nuremberg . The Volksverlag publications contained both individual booklets and anthologies with a larger volume of around 100 pages. Between 1975 and 1979, the publishing house Zweiausendeins , which belongs to the chain of stores of the same name, published two anthologies with different consequences and episodes by the Freak Brothers. From 1987 the Berlin Rotbuch Verlag re- edited the series and published a total of five paperback volumes in the following years. In 2003, BSE Verlag , located in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, started a systematic attempt, including additional information on the genesis of the series , which was aiming for a gradual edition of around 4 volumes per year.
The Freak Brothers as well as the works of other American underground illustrators and authors such as Robert Crumb ( Fritz the Cat , Mr. Natural ) and Bill Griffith ( Zippy the Pinhead , The Toad / Der Kröterich ), especially by Gerhard Seyfried and , have been translated into German Harry Rowohlt ; Seyfried's work has, as usual, a greater ability to naturally sounding German vernacular to produce, and it has better expertise of the German common technical terms related drugs and other activities of the anarchist or autonomous scene during Rowohlt translations are particularly strong, as soon as high-level language, for example in the form of literary quotations or legal formulations, comes into play.
Main series
- Freak Brothers (1971, Rip Off Press)
- The 128 Pages of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers & Their Friends (1975, Two Thousand One)
- The 7th Journey of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (1979, Two Thousand and One)
- Comics for Adults Volume 5: The Freak Brothers (1982, Volksverlag)
- The Freak Brothers (1982, Volksverlag)
- The Freak Brothers Clean Up (1982, Volksverlag)
- The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (1987–1993, Rotbuch, 5 volumes)
- The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in Chaoten auf Fahrt , (1987, Rotbuch, ISBN 3-88022-723-3 )
- The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (1989, Gutenberg)
- The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Wunderwarzenschwein and other stories from the sixties (1989, Rotbuch)
- The Best of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (1992, Rotbuch)
- The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (from 2003, BSE Verlag)
Fat Freddy's hangover
- Fat Freddy's Hangover (1978, Two Thousand and One)
- Fat Freddys Kater (1983, Volksverlag)
- Fat Freddys Kater (1986/1990, Rotbuch, 2 volumes)
- Fat Freddy's Kater and the Pied Piper of Hameln (1993, Rotbuch)
Compilations with different series
- Mixed Pickles (1988–1989, Semmel-Verlach, 2 volumes)
Web links
- Rip Off Press American Freak Brothers Publishing House (English)