And thus we begin the next phase of this countdown, the comics that got two votes in the poll for favorite ’90s indie comic. For those of you new to this thingie I’m doing, I just want to remind you that only getting one or two votes isn’t a knock on the quality of the book, but simply an indicator of how many good indie books were coming out during that period of time. In fact, today’s pick is one of my favorites as well! I had such a wide variety of submissions from readers I was wondering if I’d see any sort of consensus. (SPOILER: eventually I did!)
So here we go, today’s beloved comic series:
DORK! (Slave Labor Graphics, 1993-2006)
Absolutely one of the greats. I was already a big Evan Dorkin fan due to Pirate Corp$/Hectic Planet and, of course, those incorrigible dairy products Milk & Cheese. The series still lives large in my head, to the point where someone the other day was asking at the shop for a trade paperback collection of the new Image Comics series D’Orc, and I immediately reached for the most recent book reprint of Dork! (more about that book later). No offense to the good folks on D’Orc doin’ a popular comic, but I think Dork! is the superior choice for the discerning comics aficionado.
These eleven black and white comics are compilations of mostly original material (with some reprints from other sources), usually short humorous pieces, including Milk & Cheese. Of particular note are his newspaper “funny pages” parodies, featuring a virtual onslaught of multiple strips, varying from purposefully dumb, to very dark, to observational, to sometimes vulgar and violent (but hilariously so). One recurring strip is “Myron the Living Voodoo Doll,” who is shown wandering the streets and getting some form of damage inflicted on him, with the final panel showing a person experiencing the same damage while declaring “I’ve got to find that doll!”
Here’s a small sample of another of the strips, picked for perhaps obvious reasons to long-time readers of the site. This is one of those observational, yet still funny, ones:
Also included in this run of books is a reprint of the “Murder Family” strip from Marvel’s Epic Lite #1, along with new stories featuring those characters, as well as the “Kyle and Evan Critics at Large” music review strips that ran in Reflex Magazine, co-produced with Kyle Baker. His material from an earlier Dark Horse Comics anthology, Instant Piano, is collected here as well, along with strips he did for a book called Generation Ecch. Oh, and just flipping through my stack of Dork! here, I noticed that a cover he did for the UK version of Deadline magazine gets reprinted on one of the back covers.
Perhaps most famously are several installments of the “Eltingville Club,” stories about a group of friends who are comic book/fantasy/sci-fi/role-playing/etc. fans, and, shall we say, are not shown in the most favorable light. It’s here that Dorkin gets to unleash every critique of fandom behavior (and the exploitation thereof), and you can just feel his vitriol and/or pity and/or personal experience through every bit of ink crammed into each hilarious panel. “There but for the grace of God, I hope” sez I. Here’s a cover featuring those gentlemen:
And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Eltingville Club animated pilot, which did not go to series because, alas, the world was not prepared for such beauty.
This just barely scratches the surface of the amount of material present in these comics. And not an inch of space is wasted…every page is almost Kurtzman/Elder MAD-esque in its need to fill every space with something, and it’s just a pleasure to drink it all in.
Material meant for the never-published issue #12 ended up running in Dark Horse Presents (2011 series) #10-#12. That material was reprinted in turn in the 2012 House of Fun one-shot from the same company, making that, more or less, the 12th issue.
Now…to the reprints! Look, I’m just gonna cut to the chase and tell you that all the Dork! material, the House of Fun stuff, all the extra Eltingville Club stories, every Milk & Cheese strip, can be found in this one, currently-in-print, giant volume of cartooning called Nerd Inferno:
No need to chase down out-of-print collections. It’s all here! Waiting for you! Watching your every move!
There were previous collections, like the Dork! hardcover in 2018, which contains, I think, everything except the Eltingville Club stories. Those get reprinted in their own Eltingville Club hardcover from 2016, including their first appearance from Instant Piano, as well as the two-issue mini-series from 2014 that wraps up that particular saga. (And just to be complete about it, there’s also a Milk & Cheese: Dairy Products Gone Bad hardcover from 2018.) But like I said, it’s all there in Nerd Inferno.
Look, I admit it may not be for everyone. It can be a little abrasive at times, but that’s a feature, not a bug. Those with sensitive constitutions may not want to read more than a few pages at one sitting. Me, I’ll park in my Egg Chair and read the entirety of Nerd Inferno cover to cover if I could make the time, and I’m a guy who’s already read all this stuff. It is top quality hilarious cartooning that I just adore. Evan Dorkin has been a favorite of mine ever since I picked up that one comic because I wanted to know why that weird alien was wearing a Fishbone t-shirt, and his comics never disappoint.
Dorkin deserves every accolade and then some. I still have fond memories of him hilariously holding court at one of the UKCAC conventions, over 30 years ago.
Merv Griffin!
I’m so glad to see this appreciation for his work, and Nerd Inferno is a nice, deep collection of it. What has surprised me over the last ten years is how much I’ve come to appreciate his writing without his art, his 21st century work on Beasts of Burden, and both his Thing mini-series from ages ago as well as his Human Torch one-shot from a half-decade ago. It’s more serious stuff, affecting and suspenseful. But it’s so great to have this big fat book of his bitter gags at last!
I totally forgot Dorkin wrote Beasts of Burden (with gorgeous art by Jill Thompson, of course). That series seems to have petered out.
I should bust out some old Milk & Cheese. One of the few strips that makes me laugh every time I revisit it.
Dork was my second choice, by a hair. Or maybe I voted for it? Anyway, I loved the comic, especially the gag strips. The standout issue, however, was Dork 7. Dorkin got serious, and wrote a raw, heartbreaking confessional comic. I hadn’t read another like it- some of Steve Gerber’s work comes close, as well as some issues of the Maxx- and it affected me deeply.
Mike Sterling writing about Evan Dorkin is why I pay for internet access. I only just found out! Anyway, Evan Dorkin is one of the greats and when I die and my kid throws out my comic book collection, every Evan Dorkin comic I ever bought will still be in it.
Evan Dorkin’s ‘serious’ writing is vastly underrated. Ahis Beasts of Burden comic on the surface is a cutesy story of a group of dogs (and one kitty) solve and investigate supernatural goings on. If you’ve never read any of it, don’t let that fool you. I think it’s the only comic series I actively loved, but a particular story disturbed me so much I just can’t pick up the comic anymore. It left that much of a feeling of dread and despair I can’t contemplate getting the series up again. It’s not gory or exploitive – it’s just so not what you expect from the setup. Now that’s horror. Marvel should be knocking on his door for their Midnight line.
I’ve got to say though, that I have never laughed so hard at a comic than the strip he did on Marvel’s Grey Gargoyle in Dork. World’s Funnest which he did for DC comes pretty close though.
Dorkin is the best
Good stuff!!!
Dorkin’s Bluesky account casts a rather depressing image of his current state; he seems to believe he’s a washed up cartoonist and that his punk style is forever out of date.
what? Dude’s like a legend!
Dork is a great pick, and your MAD-esque description of every inch of the page being filled is spot on. I had forgotten the Eltingville Club pilot existed; the world really was not ready for it.