With the imminent release of a new animated series, Gilbert Shelton’s legendary underground comix heroes find a new crash pad at Fantagraphics. The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers are the most iconic and enduring underground comix characters ever created, having sold over 45 million comics in 16 languages. Fantagraphics is proud to announce that it is collecting all their drug-addled adventures in a new series of four volumes. Created in 1968 by Gilbert Shelton, widely recognized as one of the funniest cartoonists who ever lived, the Freak Brothers’ rollicking and hilariously self-destructive escapades are comedic masterpieces of farce and satire.
The first volume leads off with “The Idiots Abroad,” a relentless, novel-length tour de force of slapstick and screwball humor, showcasing Shelton’s gift for weaving together an intricate plot with droll dialogue and pitch-perfect visual timing. The Brothers — Freewheelin’ Franklin, Phineas, and Fat Freddy — embark on a trip to Colombia to score some cheap dope (their guiding principle) but, as always, things go awry, and they are separated and scattered around the world — to Scotland, Moscow, Africa, South America, and the Middle East — where they encounter nuclear terrorists, slavers, pirates, and religious fanatics, yet somehow never seem to make it to Bogotá.
