I like her bed…
Lewd, vulgar and hilarious. This is one of the best comics that I think has ever come out of Canada. Published in 1973, All Canadian Beaver Comix is the product of Canadian underground comix geniuses Brent Boates, Rand Holmes and Falcioni. The comic book is a collection of their work that was originally published by the controversially left newspaper the Georgia Straight, in Vancouver, BC and was distributed in both the US and Canada. The paper is also the publisher of this comic as well as comics by other artists and more of Holmes’ work.
Along with its already bawdy nature, one of the more notable comics in the book is Holmes’ humourous criticism of the controversial excerpts on homosexuality from the book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Too Afraid to Ask). The progressive comic aggressively uses both comedy and satire to break down barriers about sexuality while also just being very comfortable with the topic.
The contents are:
- Hold Hard (Inside Cover intro) features character Emmanual Cunt by Falcioni
- Vito Yaruntski in The Fatal Orgasm by Brent Boates
- “Now How Did That Grab Ya” filler by Falcioni
- Harold Hedd’s Bike Song* *As sung to the tune of the…”Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” by Rand Holmes
- Introducing Quantum Quackster in “Quantum Pulls a Fast One!” by Falcioni
- The Origins of Beaverman by Brent Boates
- The Continuing Adventures of Harold Hedd by Rand Holmes
- Kuolu Kala by Tapani Knuutila
- Buckets of Saliva by Brent Boates
- Beaver Comix add (Back cover).
Sadly the comic only lasted one issue, perhaps as just a stand alone collection. For further reading of Holmes’ work see the book The Artist Himself: A Rand Holmes Retrospective which includes both biographical information and some reprinted comics.
All the stuff in this comic originally appeared in the Georgia Straight. The story where Harold comments on Dr. Reuben’s book was censored in its original publication — yep, big black blotches covering everything except the words. More stuff from these artists appeared in a collection called Fog City that went three issues. One of these issues and an issue of Heavy Metal were the focus of a Vancouver Comic Shop bust after the North Shore Women’s Association made a complaint to the police. (In Heavy Metal the offending strip was the Italian The Ape; in Fog City it was a story by Holmes where mice try to steal an opium suppository from where it was, ah, ensconced.) The upshot was that these two comics could no longer be sold there.
I actually read the first issue of Fog City, and I believe the story you’re referring to is called “Nip an Tuk in Anal Antics”, I was, ah, drawn to it BECAUSE of the content. Rand Holmes is easily one of my favourite artists/writers. Kin, the manager of the Silver Snail in Ottawa was telling me about the scandal, and may or may not have been working in the shop at the time. Thanks a lot for the info, do you know what issue of Heavy Metal that was?