Legendary underground cartoonist Gary Panter's comics are typically anarchic and fun, but they also delve deeper. Drawn in 1983, printed in 2001 and released for the first time, Cola Madnes stars Jimbo, Panter's enduring punk everyman, sharing billing with a cast of idiosyncratic characters. Originally conceived for a Japanese audience, Panter utilises a simple two-panel per page layout and employs an unusually accessible style to tell the story of a mysterious tribal figure named Kokomo, who dreams a wild, picaresque interlude starring Jimbo and Bob War.
"Panter delivers a visionary response to contemporary American life viewed through the wrong end of some cosmic telescope. This delightfully inane story offers a selection of Panter's themes: humanity's troubled relationship with nature and technology; the tension between restraint and the uncontrollable urge; family relationships; and Jimbo's endearing, comical self-doubt. Panter's black and white "ratty line" drawing style offers great economy while suggesting a broad range of graphic style from art brut to bathroom graffiti, and calls to mind the works of legendary cartoonists Jack Kirby and Osamu Tezuka." — Publishers Weekly
212 page black and white hardcover Funny Garbage, 2001
