Yummy Fur
Cover to issue #20 ofYummy Fur, featuring the story "Showing Helder"
Publication information
Publisher	Self-published (mini #1–7) Vortex Comics (#1–24) Drawn & Quarterly (#25–32)
Schedule	irregular
Genre	Alternative comics
Publication date	(mini) July 1983–September 1985[1] December 1986–July 1994
No. of issues	32
Creative team
Created by	Chester Brown

Yummy Fur (1983–1994) was a comic book by Canadian cartoonistChester Brown. It contained a number of different comics stories which dealt with a wide variety of subjects. Its often-controversial content led to one printer and one distributor refusing to handle it.

Some of Brown's best-known comics were first published inYummy Fur, including the surreal, taboo-breakingEd the Happy Clown and the comics from hisautobiographical period, which included thegraphic novelsThe Playboy andI Never Liked You. Also notable were the eccentricgospel adaptations that ran in most issues. The series and its collected volumes have won a number of awards, and have had a lasting influence on the world of alternative comics.

Yummy Fur started as aself-publishedminicomic which ran for seven issues, the contents of which were reprinted in the first three issues of theVortex Comics series which started publication in December 1986. The series switched publishers toDrawn & Quarterly in 1991 until the end of its run in 1994, when Brown started on hisUnderwater series.

Yummy Fur came at a time whenalternative comics was still young, and is considered one of its defining titles. It was one of the earliest examples of a comic that would have its first success as a self-publishedmini. It started in an era when comic books and their characters were generally considered to be ongoing, and finished when the self-contained stories of thegraphic novel had begun to come into prominence. Brown's ambitions changed in step,Yummy Fur started withEd the Happy Clown, which Brown originally did not intend to have an ending; towards the end, he serialized two works,The Playboy andI Never Liked You, which were conceived from the start as self-complete works.^[2] Brown would thereafter make the production of graphic novels the main focus of his output.

Yummy Fur quickly gained a reputation fortaboo-breaking—Ed the Happy Clown'splot revolved around a character who could not stopdefecating, and whoseanus was a gateway toanother dimension; then-U.S. PresidentRonald Reagan's head attached to the end of theprotagonist'spenis; and a beautiful female vampire, who is out to get revenge on the boyfriend whomurdered her, and who usually appears entirelynaked. Later, inThe Playboy, Brown would detail hisadolescent obsession with thePlayboy Playmates inPlayboy magazine, including explicit scenes of his teenage selfmasturbating andejaculating. In the short "Danny's Story", Brown had himselfpicking his nose, and finished with him biting his neighbour. The book was often wrapped in plastic with an "adults only" label on it,^[3] although it is not known if any issues ofYummy Fur were everbanned from anycomic shop.

The edgy content of the book was contrasted with hisstraight adaptations of theGospels which appeared in most issues ofYummy Fur—albeit, adaptations that took a "warts and all" approach, in which characters pick their noses andJesus is going bald.

Yummy Fur had been a catch-all title for Brown's work, but since bringing the series to an end in 1994, he has published new stories, likeUnderwater andLouis Riel, under their own titles. Much of the work from the series has been republished in book form—the short work inThe Little Man—but the Gospel stories and most of the later instalments ofEd the Happy Clown remain uncollected.

The story that first drew attention for Brown's work—a surreal,scatological tale ofdark humour. The story was improvised for the most part, and grew out of a number of completely unrelated short comics that appeared in the earliest issues ofYummy Fur. The story follows the large-headed, childlike Ed, a children's clown, who, after being submerged in thefaeces of a man who can't stopdefecating, finds thehead of hispenis has been replaced with the head of a miniatureRonald Reagan.

The story makes use of a wide variety of media and comic-booktropes andclichés,^[4] such asvampires,werewolves,Frankenstein's monster,aliens,alternative dimensions andcannibalpygmies, as well as a lot of dark religious imagery and potentially offensive imagery—nudity, sex,graphic violence andbody horror.

Ed was intended to be a character Brown would use throughout his career, but after the first dozen issues, he grew dissatisfied with the direction the story had taken, and also wanted to change his drawing style. Inspired by theautobiographical comics ofJulie Doucet andJoe Matt,^[2] Brown decided to bring theEd story to an end in issue #18 ofYummy Fur and spent the next few years focusing on revealing autobiographical stories.

Brown's straight-faced cartoon adaptations of theGospel of Mark and theGospel of Matthew, started as Brown, who had been raised in a strictlyBaptist household, tried to find out for himself whatChrist was all about, and what he really believed. TheGospel of Mark began in the fourth issue of the Vortex series, which was the first issue of new material. TheGospel of Matthew started in issue #15 ofYummy Fur and continued in most issues through the end of the series, and in all but the first issue ofUnderwater.Matthew is unfinished and has not continued since 1997.

After completingEd, Brown moved on to a series of personally revealingautobiographical stories, starting with "Helder" inYummy Fur #19. The drawing style, done with a brush, became more and more sparse in an attempt to move away from the style ofEd the Happy Clown, which Brown had grown uncomfortable with. Most of the shorter stories, like "Helder", "Showing Helder" and "Danny's Story", took place not long before they were written, but the longergraphic novels took place mostly in Brown's adolescence in the 1970s.

Narrated by a winged, not-so-angelic version of himself, the story details Brown's experiences as an adolescent obsessed with thePlaymates inPlayboy magazine, while wracked with guilt over his obsessivemasturbation, and later his difficulty relating to women as an adult. The story is the source of some controversy, as it graphically depicted aminor masturbating andejaculating and was also seen by some women to defendpornography.

The story appeared in issues #21–23 ofYummy Fur and was originally titledDisgust and laterThe Playboy Stories. The story was collected in 1992 under the titleThe Playboy.

Another tale of Brown's adolescence. Brown has trouble relating with the opposite sex, even when they are the ones trying to connect with him. He is an awkward teenager who neverswears, which is picked up by some of the other boys in his school, who constantly pick on him and try to get him to swear.

The story also depicts the final days of Brown's mother when he was 17. Brown is a difficult son, and has trouble expressing his affection for her. She hasschizophrenia and dies in the hospital after falling down the stairs.

Originally titledFuck, the story was retitledI Never Liked You when collected.

In the early 1980s, Brown had been trying unsuccessfully to get his work published by publishers such asRaw,Fantagraphics Books andLast Gasp. He was convinced by his then-girlfriend, Kris Nakamura, to take the work he had piled up and publish them himself asphotocopiedminicomics, distributing them on the streets ofToronto. Sales got off to a slow start, but eventually picked up. "Sales were brisk", with some issues topping 1000 copies,^[5] as Brown sold the books onconsignment in bookstores, localcomic shops, and through mail order,^[6] while working a day job in a photography shop. Brown published the series under the "Tortured Canoe" imprint.

Brown had pitched his work toVortex Comics publisherBill Marks before 1986, but at the time, Marks was not prepared to publish an ongoing series. In 1986, at the urging ofMister X artistSeth, Marks finally contacted Brown with a contract to publish three issues, which would reprint the entire contents of the seven issue minicomic series. The contract would be renewed depending on sales. The December 1986 first issue received preorders of 12,000 copies, a considerable number for a small-press, black-and-white comic book. The large number of orders was due in part to the black-and-white comics explosion of the mid-1980s, spearheaded byKevin Eastman andPeter Laird's breakoutTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The boom soon imploded, however, andYummy Fur's sales dropped to a few thousand.

The book was dropped by aprinter in theprovince ofOntario after the printer had used discarded pages of the fourth issue ofYummy Fur to pack boxes of afeminist publication. The issue included a nude scene from theEd the Happy Clown serial in which the character, Chet, stabs his girlfriend, Josie, while they had sex. The feminist publisher lodged a complaint, and the printer informed Vortex that they would not handleYummy Fur anymore.^[7][8] In 1989, the bindery Packaging Services & Supplies of Wisconisin refused to bind the firstYummy Fur collection and anOmaha the Cat Dancer collection, citing that employees found the content offensive; a spokesman for the company called them "worse than pornography".^[9]

Sales saw their lowest point with issue #9, at 1673 copies, largely due to the fact thatDiamond Comic Distributors had dropped the book^[10]—purportedly for low sales, despite the fact thatYummy Fur had been getting more orders than many other Vortex titles thathadn't been dropped. It was suspected that the book had actually been dropped due to its potentially offensive content.The Comics Journal had begun to investigate the incident, but a few issues later, Diamond started includingYummy Fur in its catalogue again, and sales started to rise, eventually reaching 7000 copies per issue.^[11]

Drawn & Quarterly publisherChris Oliveros had been courting Brown for his newly establishedMontréal-based company, but Brown was comfortable where he was, and felt loyalty to Bill Marks for giving him his big break. While Marks had a poor reputation for his treatment of other cartoonists, Brown felt that he had been treated well. In 1991, just as his contract with Vortex had come up, Oliveros offered Brown an enticing deal—a 25% royalty, as compared to 13% at Vortex. That, combined with the fact thatJulie Doucet andSeth^[12] had jumped aboard Oliveros' ship, convinced Brown join Drawn & Quarterly, starting with the 25th issue ofYummy Fur.

Brown did not want to leave Marks up the creek, and so allowed Vortex to publish a second, "definitive" edition ofEd the Happy Clown in 1992, with a different ending from the one that had appeared inYummy Fur. Drawn & Quarterly, however, published in the same year the collected version ofThe Playboy, which had appeared in the Vortex-published issues #21–23 ofYummy Fur, and they have continued to publish all of his work since.

Oliveros convinced Brown that theYummy Fur title was no longer appropriate for the direction the book had taken, and Brown chose to publish his next major story,Underwater, under its own title. The last issue ofYummy Fur was #32, and was an issue-long instalment of hisadaptation of theGospel of Matthew, which would continue in the pages ofUnderwater.

Most issues were eight pages long, and werephotocopied on sheets of8+1⁄2" x 11" paper, folded in half and stapled together. In February 1985, Brown put out a 48-page, digest-sized compilation of the first six issues, with an extra one-page strip called "Fire with Fire".^[14][15]

Brown filled up the first four issues with material that he had produced since 1980, putting out one issue per month. After the fourth issue, his backlog ran out. He had to start producing new material, andYummy Fur's frequency dropped.

All issues had black-and-white contents printed onnewsprint, with colour outer covers on heavier stock paper.

TheEd the Happy Clown storyline has been reprinted in a number of formats since: a 1989 book collecting material from the first 12 issues of Yummy Fur; a 1992"Definitive Ed Book", which leaves out much of the later material and also provides a completely new ending; and a nine-issueEd the Happy Clown series fromDrawn & Quarterly with new covers, unpublished artwork and extensive commentary by Brown.

Theautobiography work has been reprinted asThe Playboy: A Comic Book in 1992 andI Never Liked You in 1994, withThe Little Man: Short Strips 1980–1995 collecting the remainder, along with other miscellaneous short works from other sources.

Brown decided not to reprint the earlyYummy Fur stories which had borrowed from other works. The Gospel adaptations also remain unfinished and uncollected.

The series was recognized by his peers early on, such asSeth, who recommended to Bill Marks to pick it up as aVortex title; and got good reviews from publications likeThe Comics Journal as early as itsminicomic days.

Joseph Witek wrote of the difficultiesYummy Fur presented—in the context of the "high art/low art" split inalternative comics in the 1980s, best represented by division of visions inArt Spiegelman'sRaw andRobert Crumb'sWeirdo, the combination of Brown's grotesque adventures inEd the Happy Clown and the straight renditions of theGospels seem to straddle this line.^[17]

Chris Lanier, writing inThe Comics Journal, placedEd the Happy Clown in a tradition that includedDan Clowes'Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron,Max Andersson'sPixy andEric Drooker'sFlood!, works in which symbols appear with such frequency and importance to suggest significance, while remaining symbolically empty.^[18] He finds predecessors for these works in GermanDada^[19] and theTheatre of the Absurd.^[20]

The following are awards or nominations forYummy Fur or collections of work that first appeared in it:

• Autobiographical comics
• Eightball (comics)

• Yummy Fur at the Comic Book DB (archived fromthe original)
• DissectingYummy Fur #19

• Comics publications
• 1983 comics debuts
• 1986 comics debuts
• Drawn & Quarterly titles
• Canadian black comedy comics
• Defunct comics
• Horror comics
• Comics by Chester Brown
• Vortex Comics titles
• Canadian comics titles

• Pages using worldCat with unknown parameters
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• CS1 Swedish-language sources (sv)