The Biologic Show

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The Biologic Show

Cover of The Biologic Show #0
Publisher Fantagraphics Books
Publication date 1994 - 1995
Number of issues 2
Creative team
Writer(s) Al Columbia
Artist(s) Al Columbia
Cover of The Biologic Show #1
Cover of The Biologic Show #1

The Biologic Show is a comic book series written and drawn by Al Columbia and published by Fantagraphics Books. The first issue, #0, was released in 1994, and a second issue, #1, was released a year later. An issue #2 was solicited in Previews and announced in the pages of other Fantagraphics publications but was never published.

The comic's title is taken from a passage in the William S. Burroughs book Exterminator! (in the chapter "Short Trip Home"). The passage is briefly quoted at the beginning of the story "The Biologic Show" in issue #0, one of several references to Burroughs in Columbia's early work.

Each issue of The Biologic Show contains several short stories and illustrated poems. #0 introduces three of Columbia's recurring characters: the hapless, Koko the Clown-like Seymour Sunshine in the opening comic "No Tomorrow If I Must Return" and the brother/sister duo Pim and Francie in "Tar Frogs" (a story which first appeared in the UK magazine Deadline). Issue #1 is dominated by the 16-page "Peloria: Part One", intended as the first installment of a never-completed graphic novel. It introduces a third character, Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy, who reappears in Columbia's later comics.

Much of the material in The Biologic Show deals with unsettling subject matter such as mutilation, incest, and the occult. Kieron Gillen has characterized the series as "comics transgression in its purest form."[1]

Reactions to the series were mixed. One critic memorably lambasted it as "an array of senselessness ... transparent as a ghost and feigning substance";[2] another called it "a big, visceral, messy masterwork".[3] It was also highly praised by other alternative comics creators including Mike Allred and Jim Woodring.

Along with his stories printed in Zero Zero and BLAB!, the two issues of The Biologic Show comprise Columbia's best-known and most-acclaimed solo works. They are also among his most readily obtainable comics due to multiple reprintings.

[edit] Contents

[edit] Issue #0

  1. "No Tomorrow If I Must Return Starring Seymour Sunshine"
  2. "Self-Titled Instructional Version" (aka "The Biologic Show")
  3. "Grinding Larry"
  4. "Over"
  5. "Extinction"
  6. "The Low-Born Peacock"
  7. "Li'l Saint Anthony"
  8. "Bruja"
  9. "Tar Frogs: A Pim and Francie Adventure"

[edit] Issue #1

  1. "Peloria: Part One (A Pim and Francie Adventure)"
  2. Seymour Sunshine Debris
    1. "Slow Machine"
    2. "Castigian"
    3. "The Hellbound Bellydancer"
  3. "Ersatz (A Family Name)"

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Gillen, Kieron. "Everybody Be Cool: Crossing the Line". Ninth Art. Accessed November 3, 2007.
  2. ^ Aliberti, Vincent. Review of The Biologic Show No. 0. Crash: The Quarterly Comic Book Review Volume 1 #2, Winter 1995, 62.
  3. ^ Pryor, Marshall. "Young Cartoonist Profiles: Al Columbia", The Comics Journal #205, June 1998, 80.

[edit] External links