Pulpatoon Pilgrimage

By Joel Priddy

Three friends - a minotaur, a goldfish in a robotic human body, and ahumanoid plant - meander through empty vistas on a gradually revealed quest, talking about life, nature, sex, parents, and much more. Will they ever say whatthey left behind in favor of this uncharted pilgrimage?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0972179402
• ISBN13: 9780972179409
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Adhouse Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.2"
• Age Range: 16 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 11 and higher

Customer Reviews

A Fast Read, With a Lot To Think About

Reviewed by: Brady Russell. This review posted courtesy of the Underground Literary Alliance Book Review Blog. The problem with writing about comics is that you can't pretend like you aren't writing about comics. Comics have their own baggage that come around with them. Polite people say things like "I'm just not into comics," but that's just a way to prevent talking about their prejudices. Lots of art forms come with prejudices. Symphony music is thought of as boring. Theater is thought of as pretentious. Modern Dance is incomprehensible. Come to think of it, I don't really disagree with many of those prejudicial statements. Maybe that's why I wrote them. Comics, though, I give comics free reign. Comics are in the middle of an historical moment right now. Once upon a time, the novel was simply a vehicle for bosom heaving love stories, but then writers came along who broadened its scope and depth and now very boring people in very expensive buildings sit around unpacking the layers and layers locked within novels and bringing different theoretical formulas to bear on ripping them apart, which is thought of as serious, and important work. Which is part of how you can tell an art form is dying: when boring people in expensive buildings become deeply, deeply interested in it. Well comics aren't anything like that. Boring people in expensive buildings want no more to do with comics than they want anything to do with rock-and-roll, and both art forms are very much alive, changing and well. The difference is that the public has a pretty good handle on what rock-and-roll is, even when it gets pretty strange (such as when groups like The Cure and The Decemberists come along). Comics, though, people think comics are a vehicle for superhero stories, that's it, that's flat, baby - done. If you get out there and have a look, though, the comic underground is really moving the form in new places. Take Pulpatoon Pilgrimage. I'm in part so excited about this book I can't quit thinking about it and also afraid to invite anyone I know to look at it for fear that they just aren't prepared for it, that their prejudices will get in the way and they won't like it and they'll insult it and then that will force me up onto a high-horse where I'll say something condescending that I'll regret such as, "Well clearly you just don't get it or even understand how to enjoy it." See, when you've got comics you have this crazy marriage of the visual and the narrative. Painting, you know, is pretty much all visual. We forgive painting for all kinds of quirks. Its a one shot deal. It's one image. I almost never have any clue what a given painting is trying to tell me, but it's cool. It's cool because I like the colors or the line or I think the thing has an interesting impact on my subconscious. Then stories are even cooler when you get into them. They really grab you. They work just like our brains work. Well, with comics you can do a lot of both (where as you can just

AN ODE TO SMALL PRESS DAYS

Pulpatoon Pilgrimage is one of those little, fascinating comics that takes me back to the days of small press and self-published titles in the 1980's. There were a lot of very talented cartoonists doing outstanding books which never saw the light of day outside of the small press community. But thanks to companies like Ad-House books, great titles like Joel Priddy's Pulpatoon Pilgrimage are available to a mass audience. You won't find scantily clad women in tights or lasers shooting out of someone's eyes, but you will find a talented cartoonist producing a thoughtful and bittersweet strip that really captures the essence of small press. Pulpatoon Pilgrimage tells the tales of three traveling friends: a robot sailer named RowBot, a Minotaur named Bull, and the walking plant-man, Delaware Thistle. These three friends are on a pilgrimage through the wilderness, each in search of a specific goal. Along the way they discuss life and relationships, as well as relating their various pasts and how they met. The graphic novel is told out over a series of smaller chapters as Priddy relates more and more about this eclectic collection of characters, but like any good quest he keeps the readers in suspense, wondering what's over the next hill or beyond that river. The most interesting and tragic chapter dealt with Delaware's mother, who fell asleep outside against the warnings of her parents and found herself cross-pollinated by a bee in a subtle barb at racism and even mixed marriages. Priddy has a cartoon style that compares favorably to Jeff Smith's with a very clean, crisp style while maintaining an attention to detail in the character's expressions and reactions. A truly wonderful and insightful little graphic novel by a very talented cartoonist.