Terr'ble Thompson - Softcover

Deitch, Gene

3.38

16 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560977728 ISBN 13: 9781560977728

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books, 2006

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In 1955, Gene Deitch embarked on a daily comic strip for King Features Syndicate that he hoped would become his life's work. One of the most unusual strips of the decade, Terr'ble Thompson was about a very odd little boy who had his "Werld Hedd Quarters" in a tree house and was regarded far and wide as "the bravest, fiercest, most-best hero of all-time." This book collects the entirety of Deitch's short-lived inspiration for Tom Terrific, and a new generation will discover what could have been one of the great comic strips of all-time had it continued. The strip is drawn in a simple, modernist style that served as an antidote to the ubiquitous Disney look that had spread into all facets of popular culture. Terr'ble Thompson was a visual and verbal feast of fun that blended time and space, with Terr'ble going on adventures with great historic figures like Columbus, George Washington, and Davy Crockett. This collection features annotations for the entire run of the strip by Deitch himself, as well as introductory essays by Deitch, his son Kim, and historian Dan Nadel (The Ganzfeld). The book collects both the dailies and Sundays, with many of the latter newly re-colored by Deitch.

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About the Author:

Gene Deitch has lived in Prague for the last 30 years with his wife. He is the father of underground cartoonist Kim Deitch.

From Booklist:

While still directing the UPA animation studio's New York operation in 1955, Deitch night-jobbed a comic strip based verbally on his two boys' endearing solecisms (the elder, Kim, who grew up to be a major underground cartoonist, was then 11 and presumably beyond saying cute things, but his father's memory was fully, affectionately functional). Marrying a love of history to the concept, Deitch came up with a seven-and-a-half-year-old boy who inexplicably time travels to solve problems for the likes of Columbus, Cleopatra, and Washington, who acknowledge him the greatest hero ever. Parents, classmates, and older kids just think he is screwy. Deitch packed the strip with kiddisms (e.g., "reckionize," "boom" as an all-purpose exclamation) and the spontaneous-looking line work and "unnatural," designer's coloration of UPA cartoons (e.g., the Mr. Magoo series). Cleanly reproduced here, with spot-on registration in the Sunday color installments, it's delicious, high-quality eye candy. But it wasn't funny, the plots were flimsy, and Deitch's wife hated his constant working. It ran only six months, though its star reemerged, slightly restyled, as made-for-TV cartoon hero Tom Terrific. Ray Olson
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