Fantagraphics and comiXology bring you a delight for children and adults of all ages, Barnaby by Crockett Johnson. Barnaby revolved around a precocious five-year-old named Barnaby Baxter and his fairly godfather Jackeen J. O'Malley. Yet O'Malley, a cigar-chomping, bumbling con-artist and fast-talker, was not your typical protector. His grasp of magic was usually specious at best, limited to occasional flashes, often aided and abetted by his fellow members in The Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society. Hilarity and confusion often ensue all couched within the setting of World War II. Edited by Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds and Philip Nel, this beloved comic strip is finally given the Fantagraphics treatment.
Barnaby's deft balance of fantasy, political commentary, sophisticated wit, and elegantly spare images expanded our sense of what comic strips can do. With subtlety and economy, Barnaby proved that comics need not condescend to readers. Its small but influential readership took that message to heart.
So get this first volume that collects 1942-1943 of the newspaper strip for only $29.99 via comiXology! (Strip reformatted below so you can read it on our FLOG)
"I think, and I'm trying to talk calmly, that Barnaby and his friends and oppressors are the most important additions to American arts and letters in Lord knows how many years." –Dorothy Parker
"Johnson combined low-impact serialized adventure with some gentle comedy based around the ways that adults and kids diverge in their perspectives. The result is a compulsively readable strip with a winningly off-kilter point-of-view-and a cultural treasure that's been long-overdue for this kind of prestige archival project… " –Noel Murray, The A.V. Club