Joshua Quagmire

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Joshua Quagmire (sometimes shortened to JQ) is an American cartoonist for underground and more commercially popular comic books, best known for his creation Cutey Bunny.

Quagmire's biographical information is a bit sketchy. It is not known whether or not "Joshua Quagmire" is a pseudonym. He was raised in the Los Angeles area, though he has remarked that his grandfather served in the Canadian Forces in World War I; Quagmire has dedicated a story, "The Last Time I Saw Tommy", to his grandfather. On the few occasions he has drawn himself into a story, he has never shown his own face. He is a frequent guest at the San Diego Comic Convention.

Cutey Bunny, a furry superheroine and a pastiche of Go Nagai's Cutey Honey, first appeared in the self-produced underground comic Army Surplus Komikz in 1982 as well as in Cerebus' Unique Story section. The story, writing, and art style recall not only manga, but the madcap MAD Magazine and syndicated comic strips of the 1940s and 1950s, together with a burlesque sense of both humor and sexuality. Quagmire uses an "ensemble cast" of characters who will tend to show up no matter what the situation or genre; along with Cutey, they include:

  • Vicky Feldhyser, a sadomasochistic switch lesbian fox and sometimes-rival secret agent to Cutey, whom she lusts after
  • Taffy, Cutey's little sister
  • Fatty Tubbins, a cat, and Cutey's friend and companion (who is also frequently credited at Quagmire's inker)
  • The Space Gophers, a quintet (or sometimes more) of not exceptionally bright interplanetary-traveling gophers, all of whom are named "Al"
  • Pandora, a Scottish-brogued female robot who travels with the Gophers
  • Gran'ma Phooby, Cutey's "grandmother", of indeterminate species and dreadful cooking skill
  • Heidi and Etsuko, a pair of German and Japanese (respectively) scantily clad female elves, typically involved in some nefarious espionage plot
  • The Purple Puffle, an odd creature who appears mainly as a background ornament

There are a few projects which Quagmire has done outside this ensemble, such as the more serious CyberFox or the more overtly sexual Bronco Bunny.

Quagmire is also fond of introducing caricatures of real personalities to his comics. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, in character as they were in the popular "Road to..." movies, frequently appear to help Cutey Bunny. A frequent adversary is "Uncle Joe" - quite obviously Joseph Stalin - and his marionette henchman, "Howdy Ivan". And Cutey, as an American secret agent, is often shown taking orders from a doddering Ronald Reagan or a sinister George H. W. Bush. Even fellow comic book writer Chris Claremont appeared in one issue, helping unmask a villain who turned out to be Adolf Hitler in disguise.

Although politics was never taboo in Quagmire's comics, they have been more emphasized in his recent works. Typically, he has been even-handed in his treatment - he recounts the tale of a socialist friend of his, who, upon reading an Uncle Joe story, couldn't determine whether it was for or against socialism and said that it seemed to be "anti-every ideology". However, Quagmire has become more pointed in his criticism of George W. Bush and other contemporary leaders based on Quagmire's opposition to war and the current state of world economics and the environment. For example, in a 2004 story, Heidi and Etsuko join the Department of Homeland Security, and are dispatched to the Middle East to search for weapons of mass destruction - and remove the stickers on them which read "Made in U.S.A." However, they succeed only in finding weapons in practically every country in the area except Iraq.

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