HISTORY
Desert Peach The Peach is dead. Long live the Peach – in the afterlife. He's AFTERDEAD, with a cyborg speech-permission card. He's living in a barracks with Tudans and halfhorses – one of them a major named Stinz. The Peach is not happy at first to discover our Afterlife looks like a combination of The Third Reich and a Japanese garden, until he finds out that, as a dead guy, nobody has any control over him. They give him a handsome wounded pilot to nurse back to health. Life is finally fun. No, wait – is that Rosen? Here? Doing THAT??? The Reich has conferred a huge honor upon Stinz, and his wife is so proud – but he's horrified at the thought of breeding for the Reich. Includes 64 pages gorgeous full color. AFTERDEAD 1.2 If he wants to save his children, Stinz has to breed for the Reich – but Rosen saves the day. Also, the Peach goes to a wedding for the brother of Leutnant Voorhees, the pivot for the unit's Roller Derby Team, the Hell Marys. The boy is getting married to a tribal leader – but not in a conjugal way – and the Peach is just plain confused. Voorhees asks him to come along, because only 'Dead people seem to understand these things. The Peach is dead. Long live the Peach – in the afterlife. He's AFTERDEAD, with a cyborg speech-permission card. He's living in a barracks with Tudans and halfhorses – one of them a major named Stinz. The Peach is not happy at first to discover our Afterlife looks like a combination of The Third Reich and a Japanese garden, until he finds out that, as a dead guy, nobody has any control over him. They give him a handsome wounded pilot to nurse back to health. Life is finally fun. No, wait – is that Rosen? Here? Doing THAT??? The Reich has conferred a huge honor upon Stinz, and his wife is so proud – but he's horrified at the thought of breeding for the Reich. Includes 64 pages gorgeous full color. AFTERDEAD 1.2 If he wants to save his children, Stinz has to breed for the Reich – but Rosen saves the day. Also, the Peach goes to a wedding for the brother of Leutnant Voorhees, the pivot for the unit's Roller Derby Team, the Hell Marys. The boy is getting married to a tribal leader – but not in a conjugal way – and the Peach is just plain confused. Voorhees asks him to come along, because only 'Dead people seem to understand these things. Collections
#1 Who Is This Man?
The very first issue, introducing The Desert Peach in the most frivolous manner possible -- nobody could possible see what was coming.
"Donna Barr has achieved a large cult following, and "The Desert Peach" should soon join the ranks of books like "Cerebus" and "Yummy Fur," books that became first-rank sensations on the strength of word-of-mouth alone. It certainly warrants it. Do yourself a favor and get on the bandwagon now." -- Robert Rodi, The Comics Journal
#2 The Bar Fight.
A surreal introduction to Big Brother Erwin Rommel's attitude toward intrusive authority. Pfirsich Rommel's orderly, Corporal Udo Schmidt, treats his commanding officer to a visit to the enlisted men's bar. It's a glorious fight.
"If you hear 'Gay Nazi' and switch off, you're a fool. Donna Barr comics are so insightful they're criminal." -- Stephen Notley, Bob The Angry Flower
#3 The Nude Surfing Issue
The author went down to the Bremerton Naval museum to get inside-and-outside photo references of American submarines for this issue. But she used a lifetime of practice drawing real human bodies to illustrate the antics of her characters, including a beautifully nude Peach, and an innocently-nude Field Marshal Rommel. The bathing costumes -- nothing but their hats -- is a factual representation what the Afrika Korps didn't wear when they got the rare chance to bathe in the Mediterranean. The author began her tradition of blithely intending to extrapolate the barely possible from the known when she put the characters on coffin-lids to go surfing, being convinced that this was impossible -- and later being informed by a surfing friend that you CAN surf on a coffin-lid. So much for impossibility.
#4. Is There A Nazi In the House?
The first of the actually-titled episodes. The author was beginning to really see what she could do with this series. Nazi big-wigs are flying in from Berlin. The Peach views them with mild annoyance -- until he realizes that there are no Nazis in his unit, and that this may be reason enough for some old enemies to trap his brother, the Desert Fox. Corporal Dobermann lends Udo some of his "pain-killers," and then Udo takes a lot more than he needs. What he does with scrambled quotations of "Mein Kampf" is a cautionary tale. Here is the first appearance of Leutnant Kjars Winzig, as the camp Nazi who isn't even a party member. He's just a foil in this episode, but he soon gets better parts. Oh, there is a Nazi in the unit. Guess who?
#5 Flight of Fancy
The Desert Peach is trying to fly in his little Storch reconnaisance plane to meet his brother, when he finds his pilot and himself with a Spitfire on their ass. Meet the Peach's in-your-face sex-on-a-stick lover, the flying fool Leutnant Rosen Kavalier (yes, an assumed name; the boy has a nasty personal history, and there's nothing like Nazis for using your background against you). Pfirsich spends most of the fight hanging off one of the wheels of the Storch, when he's not trying to take careful crease shots at their British antagonist.
#6. A Day Like Any Other.
New man in the unit, a doctor named Victor Eddsel (the publisher of Aeon Press is named Edd Vick -- like so many of the DP characters he's based on a friend or associate of Frau Barr). Major Doktor Eddsel meets an assortment of people typical to the 469th Halftrack, Support and Gravedigging Battalion, including Field Bishop Stange, the cigar-smoking, driving-glove wearing Catholic Chaplain to a mostly Protestant unit, and Captain Jeff Holz, the American prisoner who writes the camp newspaper, "der Kauz.". Udo and friends lay out a really bad set of ethnic recognition jokes ("How do you know who's in the other trench? Hold up a hat on a stick -- If they shoot a few times, and miss, it's the British. If they shoot a whole lot of times and miss, it's the Irish. If they shoot once, miss and quit, it's the Scottish." You get the drift). Don't blame Frau Barr: Herr Barr thought 'em up himself during one late-night trip home on the Bremerton ferry.
#7. Spoiled Fruit.
Remember those bad little "pain-killers" that Corporal Dobermann carries around with him to keep his head straight? Leutnant Winzig gets his hands on them, and is the catalyst he was born to be, so that the pills end up in the Peach's cup of tea, and that fierce soldier temper that the Peach keeps strangled tight breaks loose -- as does all hell. People get killed, people get hurt -- and one of them, much to the surprising distress of the camp Nazi, Leutnant Winzig, is Captain Holz, who shares a tent and a lot of squabbling with the Leutnant, and who ends up in the sobbing terrified Leutnant's arms. The author had been playing about with a computer imaging program; the crude machine-like line that results is a perfect representation of a mind and a small society gone off its track.
#8. Dressing Down
Erwin Rommel professes to despise spies -- but that doesn't prevent him from working it so that his brother Pfirsich, and Pfirsich's orderly Udo Schmidt, end up going to England posing as refugees to try to find some stolen plans for a new tank. But the two original German spies who disappeared, and who they are replacing, happened to be women. The Peach looks as lovely as one could in the latest (1940's) French-based (hat and all) German fashion. Udo looks like a dumpy little school-teacher. Guess who looks more convincing. They both get a medal when it's over. By the way, this is not the original cover. Before the book was printed, Edd took the original art to a show for promotional purposes -- and somebody swiped it! I got a last-minute panic call, begging I get the cover done and out in the Federal Express -- in the next two hours. Did it. To whomever swiped the first cover-art: I'm very flattered that somebody would steal my art -- but could you at least wait until we PRINT it first?
#9.Scourge of Love
Udo falls in love. With a nice little German girl? No, with the firey exotic Tuareg princess who comes around selling eggs and Arrack to the troops who all want to get to know her. The frightening thing is that she encourages him, and honestly sees a rich and hopeful future with him; why not? Udo's convinced her he's a high-bred German officer, and to the camel-raiding Tuaregs, the Germans seem like the better warriors. Before it's over, he's stealing first-class female war-camels for his lady's bride-price. And then things get scary. The Peach ends up the owner of a purebred Arab war-mare.
#10. Two-Timers.
The Desert Peach is a tolerant man. He even tolerates the British soldier he discovers in his unit who has infiltrated in an attempt to assassinate the Desert Fox. But the Peach doesn't leave it be; he scares the spy out of his unit, then puts on a British officer's uniform and hunts down the spy in his own camp -- not to kill him, but to convince him never to try to come back. In the meantime, to keep the Enemy from discovering the 469th is leaderless, Leutnant Winzig is prevailed upon to take on the role of the Peach himself. Who else could take the job? Nobody else is as blonde, blue-eyed and long-legged as Winzig, and that's a requirement.. Did you know he doesn't get along with Udo Schmidt? Everybody knew it, but nobody knew it went THIS deep.
#11.Straight and Narrow
The Peach himself doesn't care if other people know he's a Waermer, at least out here in the desert, where not even the Third Reich seems to care. But his men feel guilty by association. They go down to the local brothel -- yes, there is one here -- and hire Babette to turn their commander around. Babette is one of the nicest pieces in the place, and knows it, and is darn proud of it, and she hardly needs the money, not when she could have the fame and advertisement of having "cured" the most notorious Queer on the African front. And he's pretty beyond words -- this is going to be the most fun job she's ever taken on. The boys of the 469th pile up in the hallway to listen and peep through the bedroom keyhole. Everybody's panting over the results, and waiting for their commander to come out of that bedroom as the biggest stud in the place. And the biggest keyhole-hog in the place is the Peach's lover, Leutnant Rosen Kavalier.
#12. Child Of The World (Menschenkind).
For the past nine months the Peach has refused to talk to Rosen or Udo. But when they get him down to the brothel, and a little squalling piece of his own life is handed into his arms, his heart breaks -- and opens up to include everybody in the place.
#13. Nobody
Corporal Dobermann gets too close when a PAK blows up. He goes back to a hospital in Germany. The SS needs men -- it's hard to get anybody to volunteer -- and come around scoooping people out the hospitals closest to their jurisdiction, even Army men like Dobermann. The war has let them get away with more than just grabbing Army personnel; they're grabbing anybody they please, and making them disappear, for everything from fun to profit. Dobermann's own broken craziness is too much even for them, and when he gets back to the desert, he starts trying to tell his comrades what he's known and what he's seen. Nobody believes him, of course -- everybody knows that Dobermann's damaged. But what about those numbers he's got tattooed on his arm?
#14. Surprise, Surprise
The Peach didn't believe what Dobermann told him, either. But when he finds out where Udo really came from, and who he is, and what he knows -- who can get them both out of a deadly compromise but the Rosen Kavalier? They need a Nazi, and he's a prime bull Nazi -- once he gets rid of their compromise, they'll have nothing to fear. God help their Compromise, and his stomach.
#15. The Triangle Trade.
The Peach insults a bad commander -- who saddles him with two very bad officers. In the course of an action -- not a battle, which the Peach cleverly manages to stave off -- he wins the deep respect of his own pilot, Hauptmann Zeichner, who goes out of his way to channel special tokens to this admirable officer. Rosen's never been jealous of his lover, until now, and it's a fearsome jealousy. The two bad officers -- modern boys altogether -- think they can get away with anything with such a dainty commander as the Peach, but they make the modern mistake of thinking that a man with manners is a weak man, instead of a man who can be deadly cold in control of himself.
#16. Plight of the Phoenix
The Peach's beautiful white war-mare is anything but well-trained. But she's a princess of her breed, and the North African Arab tribes make a religion of knowing the bloodlines of their horses. They'll stop a tribal war so that a stallion belonging to the one tribe can be bred to a mare in heat in the other tribe, if that mare and stallion are due by their bloodlines to combine. The Peach wakes up to find stallion after screaming stallion lined up horny enough to fight the base of the 469th's escarpment, all vieing for the proper attention of the highest pure-white princess in the land, and every one of them attached to a different touchy warlike tribal leader.
#17. Culture Shock
Remember the Tuareg Princess that Udo got himself engaged to? It's time for the wedding. Can you imagine what happens when the Desert Peach's weird little corner of the Afrika Korps and its Field Bishop chaplain comes togther with the tribal drum-chiefs and high Mufti of a local Berber-Tuareg nomad tribe? The Desert Fox shows up just to kick up his heels -- one of his hobbies was dancing, and he's not going to miss a chance, even if his Moslem hosts forbid men dancing with women. He's always used his brother as a dance-practice partner -- and this time he gets to show off with him in style! Wait 'till you see Erwin Rommel jitter-bugging -- and Kjars "Human Swastika" Winzig succumbing to the addictive blandishment of forbidden hot voodoo jazz.
#18. Desert Peach Play Program Book
If you were there, you felt the magic. If you weren't you'll probably never have a chance of seeing it again. It cost $30,000 to put on, used 10 top-class singers, including Julianna Rambaldi, who has been reviewed in New Yorker magazine, used 75 backdrop slides and 80 costumes for the 70-some parts, killed the composer, drove everybody crazy -- and broke even. If somebody else wants to produce it, you can contact me, but I've had all the theater I can stand. Left to right standing: Colin C. Stewart Brett Austin Richard Hesse Jon Winston Hauer Jonathan Frank Juliana Rambaldi. Seated: David Aldridge, Bill Funt Not Pictured: Dirk Foley, Garren Read
#19. Self-Propelled Target.
The Peach isn't feeling very well. That's all you need for the 469th Support, Halftrack and Gravedigging Battalion to go straight to hell. Pfirsich accidently gives his orderly, Udo Schmidt, the permission to play horrible practical jokes on the camp Nazi, Leutnant Kjars Winzig. This sets off a fierce competition that never quite finds its target -- and the Peach is too sick to help wandering into the line of fire.
#20. Fever Dreams
The last of the bad practical jokes set off the day before lands the Peach in a sick-cot for serious. While he lies there trying to win the back memories of beautiful pre-war paris, he can't remember anything of his beloved Paris except that last time he saw her -- wearing the uniform of the occupation forces, ashamed to enter his favorite cafes. He can't help but focus on the early-war Paris, becasue that is where he met the love of his life, the brutal and simply irresistable Leutnant Rosen Kavalier, who blows into his life and makes of the Peach an unwilling and melting conquest. Ah, Paris, ah, d'lamour.
#21. The Good Uncle.
A new medical officer arrives in the 469th. He's a pediatrician. Can he help the Peach find out who is abusing and slaying the local tribal and village children? A tale of horror, murder and revenge.
"Donna Barr has the focus and energy and most of all, the artistic gift, to be able to turn her stories into a visually believable universe, from North Africa to the Geiselthal to realms I’m not so sure I’d want to visit!" ----- Roberta Gregory, Winging It, Artistic Licentiousness.
#22. Lady Luck.
A new soldier is assigned to the 469th -- a female telegraph operator. You'd think that a new soldier do her duty -- but no man would let a woman just settle in and do her job, especially if he thinks that a man should be doing it, and that her job is to lie down under him for his pleasure.
#23. Visions.
The Peach, a trained military engineer, can think of no better project for his aimless frustrated men than to build a bridge.
"Now I know why Donna Barr is a maniac -- there's a lot going on 'twix her ears! Comics like hers are so far ahead of their time -- the price you pay for truth and originality... I think I'm going to start bragging to my friends that that I kinda know the person who draws 'The Desert Peach!' -- Mary Fleener, Fleener!
#24. Ups and Downs.
Both Rommel and the English are prevented from fighting in the region of the 469th's encampment by a deep wide rift. Neither of them can get a jump on the other, neither can surprise the other, simply because they can't get to each other over the rift. And then they hear about the bridge. Leutnant Winzig is the only man in the 469th with legs as long and stride as swift as the Peach's -- a fact that he will learn to rue.
"Donna Barr's flawless knowledge of military protocol, the historical setting around both of the 'great' wars, German culture, and (strangely enough) her profound insight into the soul of men (no matter how hard 'we' as men try to deny its existence) really make 'The Desert Peach' true masterpieces of the medium." ---- Chris Staros, The Staros Report.
#25. Beautiful.
In 1917, Erwin Rommel served in Transylvania against the Russians. Pfirsich, who was born in 1900, and is thus the same age as the century, serves with him. The handsome confused young man is lost in the dark full-moon woods, and meets the ghosts and spirits of the Land Beyond The Forests. His brother is lost tracking the white stag that might be only a beast -- and might be something more. A truly beautiful, sensuous issue, whose scenery is based on so many of the places that the author has seen in the course of a lifetime growing up in and turning to the woods, as a place of dark refuge.
#26. Miki.
At the end of World War Two, Hauptmann Kjars Winzig and Sergeant Udo Schmidt are just trying to stay alive, and to keep their little squad alive. Mike is a refugee girl, who has desperately hooked up with Winzig as a lover and protector, as primates do when they are reduced to their most primitive and desperate condition.
"That’s the haken crux, (that) each character in Pfirsich Rommel’s battalion is just a soldier in the field; he might be a dog-face, fed, reb, tommy, poilu -- he happens to be a kraut. These guys are not political, nor even particularly patriotic -- they’re regular bewildered zchlubs, trying to survive in a situation nobody would choose." - Daniel Pinkwater, Young Adult Novel.
#27. New and Different.
Under the influence of the hot African sun, Pfirsich Rommel gives in to his true nature, and Udo is there to witness it. Where he got that scarf, and why he has a ribbon on his riding crop.
"What we have seen so far is enough to assure us that good taste and decorum will at least be attempted, that Donna Barr will continued to show us events, through an arrangement of mirrors so elaborate that we can never know for sure at whom we are looking, never be sure at whom we are pointing when we say 'Ecce homo!'" -- Daniel Pinkwater, Young Adult Novel
#28. Tongue.
Nearly a year after the end of World War Two. The Peach desperately hopes Rosen may still be alive, and cuts himself off from his family to find him. Befriended by a rubble-wise German orphan, he manages to survive a very cold time.
"Donna Barr shows herself to be one of the heralds of the forthcoming age -- doing her comicbook in such a way as to satisfy her own insight, awareness and inspiration." -- Dave Sim, Cerebus.
#29. Out Of The East.
Sergeant Udo Schmidt disappeared at the end of World War Two. In thirty years, the man who used to be called the Desert Peach has never stopped hoping to find his former orderly alive. Udo is discovered in far Siberia. How he got there is part of a story that America has not wanted to face -- Operation Keelhaul. (A note to Lee Hester of Lee's Comics, who has been volunteering for five years to be a Desert Peach character. He said he wanted to be a deal-maker and conniver, quick on his feet, and fearless in a scam. Meet Lisa Hester, with her friend Potzi von Stuart.)
#30 Headaches.
All day long, Pfirsich Rommel, the German commander of a supply unit in North Africa during World War Two, fills out little file cards, and no one who knows him thinks he’s doing it for any other reason than to keep busy. But he’s got other reasons for keeping names on file -- as becomes apparent when his brother, Erwin Rommel, The Desert Fox, shows up to demand what he thinks he’s been getting away with.
Bread and Swans
The Desert Peach Prose novel. His story, from his childhood to his death. Fills in so much of the story, including the story of his disastrous engagement, and the gay friend he lost to a concentration camp.
AFTERDEAD 1
"The Desert Peach is a real-world story, but in its own way it's just as mythic as Stinz. Pfirsich Rommel, the Peach of the title, is Rommel's little-known gay younger brother, but Barr's stories go way beyond Funny Nazis. Barr's comics are distinguished by the artist's well-researched knowledge of World War 2 and all things German, and by her ability to draw easier than most people can write." - From The Great Women Cartoonists by Trina Robbins
#31. Pithed.
Francois Peneaud, of The Gay Comics List, says:
"The bad descendant and his shoulder angel Donna Barr's The Desert Peach is back at last for a very weird story, probably one of her strongest: Pithed - that's something done to frogs (look it up, it's not nice). Pfirsich, Rommel's prettiest (and fictional) brother is dead, and in Hell. How he ended up there is part of the story, and as usual, Barr manages to make us think and laugh at the same time - and no, it's got nothing to do with him being gay. He often chats with his also dead grandson, a 20th-century neo-nazi who really can't stand his faggot, Jew-lover grand-father. Then, there's the distant descendant of Pfirsich, a young man named Oiseau (that should remind something to long-time readers), who lives on a spaceship above Earth, in a future where the planet is devastated, people have to buy capsules of air to survive, and white people are mostly extinct. Oiseau, not a particularly nice person, is an air dealer. Pfirsich will find himself reappearing at that future time as a "shoulder angel", for the (possible) benefit of his grand-grand...-grand son. If all that sounds crazy, wait until you read the whole 64-page comic. The dark humor, the biting satire of the behavior of white people toward the rest of the world (and each other) throughout history (for that's what that whole Hell-bound story revolves around) will make you cringe, laugh, maybe weep, and, if you're the least bit informed about the history of France/England/Germany/USA/etc., nod with despair. The art is as engrossing as usual, with for the first time color added. Vibrant, warm colors, ranging from (almost) realistic to expressionist. As if Barr needed anything to heighten the energy of her pages. There are no sacred cows in Donna Barr's world, but that doesn't mean she's a Nihilist, far from it. The theme of the acceptance of others, of respecting differences and the world we live in, present in all of her stories, should be of interest to any queer reader."
Dave Sanders, of Northern Ireland, when asked who he thought was whom on the final paste, answered:
"It's not the Hawaiian with the helmet, that would be too obvious. I think that one's Udo, she's got the same attitude and she's saying (translated) "Cheers, gay bro'." My guess is the whip and leather girl; being a Jehovah's Witness did him no good at all and this time he's cutting loose from his inhibitions. Similarly, Winzig is the girl refusing to take the pledge, having been entirely too blinkered for the worse with his loyalties last time. Which one is the Peach (if not all of them)?"
Collections.
#1. Beginnings. Issues 1,2,3.
In "The Desert Peach: Beginnings," the reader is introduced to the fine linework, engaging characters, and the by turns wacky and touching storylines from Donna Barr’s first three issues of The Desert Peach. Behind the capering surfers and retiring pilots and flamboyant fighters lies of world of knowledge, irony and wit. Knowledge: about the status of gays, soldiers, and gay soldiers; both in World-War-II era Germany, and right here and now. Irony: in the certain foreknowledge of Germany’s impending doom, and the more personal tragedy awaiting Erwin Rommel. Wit: look no further than the surfing soldiers, the wisecracking bar regulars, and the oh-so-carefully placed shadows on certain portions of the surfers’ anatomies
2. Pilots, Puppies and Politics. Issues 4 through 6, AND a Rosen PAPER DOLL.
The best issue with which to get your unsuspecting friends hooked on the 469th Halftrack, Support and Gravedigging Battalion. Includes "Outfoxed," a story original to this collection, wherein we see Erwin Rommel as boy and man. And father, with a kid as smart as he is.
#3. Foreign Relations (Issues 7,8,9)
New to this collection was the five-page "Home is Where...," with an aged Pfirsich tracing one of his men’s careers after the war.
#4. Baby Games (Issues 12, 11, 12)
The fourth Desert Peach collection focuses on humor, drama, and the dubious benefits of mistaken intentions.
#5. Belief Systems (Issues 13-15)
Bad news sometimes travels with glacial slowness. The news in question concerns Germany’s treatment of Jews. Are they really being interned? Branded? Killed? It would be a comfort not to accept the news, especially when the tale-teller is unreliable.
#6. Marriage and Mayhem (Issues 16 through 19)
Stay for the wedding -- with its two ceremonies -- and you get a rousing set of dance numbers, an attempted murder, and photos by the camp’s newsletter editor-cum-POW. Paper dolls in this issue.
Seven Peaches -- The First Seven Episodes.
Desert Peach Songbook.
All the songs from the Desert Peach musical! Originally sung by a superior group of professional singers, among them Juliana Rambaldi and Jonathan Frank.
Peach Slices.
Short subjects, including the grimly beautiful "Peach On Earth:" Pfirsich trying to survive the miserable Christmas of 1945, with a rubble-wise kid named "Hans." Udo gets lessons in horseback riding and in reining in his own homophobia. And when he's cleaned up, in riding breeches and boots, he's darned cute! Includes "Wet Dreams," where Rosen learns to Take as well as Give. Ersatz Peach Almost everyone but me, from Roberta Gregory's rowdy cover to Daniel Pinkwater's energetic rejection letter, does their take on the Peach. Dave Sim's dizzy intro is not to be missed. No matter what I was sent, it was not edited or cut. Personal opinions were left in place. It had only to be lively, opinionated and entertaining. The artwork runs the gamut from wild scribbling to sharply-lined labors of love, from a cartoon with a deeply (pun iintended) heterosexual Peach, by Bob Delaney, whose cartoon is the first one he'd ever done; a good job, too! Barb Rausch and Holoise Warne's early Life Of Rosen was the inspiration for the collection. Peter Oakley's highly original techno-band approach is the most original piece in the book. John Blackburn's hot raw two-pager got the book banned in Britain (NOT our intent, since this was for charity!). And John MacLeod's elegant viewing of the moon caught the spirit of the Peach more than anyone else. The Desert Peach inspires a lot of opinions, from glee to terror to utter confusion, and this is a typical collection. Regardless of the viewpoints, all these artists and writers are generous people They were happy to donate a percentage of the profits to Seattle AIDS-comfort charity, The Chicken Soup Brigade.
"Dear Temptress: Oh, sure, like your invitation to do a page of Desert Peach isn’t one straight from Hell. You know I take works of art seriously, and yours are as complicated, hair-breadth, razor-edge, Eifel-high, lunatic-fringe, balancing-act, tragi-comic, real-surreal, historical-fantastical, romantic-polemic, Katzenjammer as any ever undertaken." -- Daniel Pinkwater, Slaves of Spiegel
The Sno-Buni-Peach Jam The perfect German gentleman meets Jeff's bouncy buxom bunny-girl. This mix of talents, styles and worldviews should not have worked, but Jeff's and my readers thought otherwise. Still in demand -- which still confuses the hell out of us.
STINZ
Andri's Christmas Shoes.
The first appearance of Stinz in a story, based on a post-card design that showed Stinz getting a pair of shoes. Stinz promises his young colt Andri his first pair of steel shoes for Christmas. Andri is all excited about it, until the neighbor's colt Veit tells him that the nails will hurt, and the shoes will burn. This was a hand-bound book, whose style more resembled an illuminated manuscript than a drawn book. There were about 25 of these books produced, no more.
The Dreamery Series.
How the Dreamery issues originated
Back in 1986, Donna Barr attended a small Science-Fiction/Fantasy Convention. I had put together a little hand-bound book that was drawn and written more in the style of a children's book, or a medieaval manuscript -- pictures accompanied by text, all done by hand -- than in the style of a modern drawn book (Kirby Grid, panel gutters, etc). I met a local artist and publisher, Steve Gallacci, of Thoughts and Images. He was charmed by the books, and bought two of them. One of them he sent to a fellow editor, Lex Nakashima. Lex wa so delighted by the books that he promoted them to Eclipse Comics. Eclipse published "Andri's Christmas Shoes" as the first issue of the Dreamery series, which went on for 15 issues. My Stinz stories from the series were later collected by Eclipse as Horsebrush and Other Tales.
Volume 2 1. Draft Horse
Stinz has adventures just getting to the army. He has to convince a bunch of two-legger city boys that he's not going to put up with this.
2, Breaking To Harness
To the average civilian, the military life is mysterious and alien enough. To the young Stinz Loewhard, a half-horse drafted into a wholly two-legger army, it’s like being dropped onto the moon. Why zum Teufel have they issued him boots? Stinz toughs it out all day, but he’s very young, and by the time he goes into his bed -- two of ‘em shoved together -- he’s hungry and scared. And no one can see tears in the dark... If these kids only knew what their sergeant was thinking...
3. Breaking in
Stinz is deep into the army training that is bound to make a soldier to him. Whether it's true or no, he's convinced he's already managed to turn Drill-Sergeant Leopold Kirschen into a vindictive and opportunistic enemy. Stinz must learn to care for his rifle and to shoot -- in that order -- and to make it through an obstacle course meant for two-leggers. One obstacle in particular is standing in his way. Can he get over it in time for the battalion games?
4. Sorting Things Out
Steinheld Löwhard is settling into his role as the only fourlegger in a twolegger army. He’s been promoted to squad-leader, and he’s quickly discovering that all that shouting makes the little extra pay he receives barely cover the cost of all the cough-drops he’s obliged to buy. Then he gets the letter from his fiance back home, and learns that the few passionate minutes they were alone before he galloped off for the army has borne fruit -- and she hopes it will be as strong and tall as its sire. How the panicky young STINZ gets leave to go home, and confronts both his relatives and his future in-laws is the story in "Sorting Things Out."
5. Wedding Hell
Stinz gets married -- but not without a little bit of near murder between friends.
Volume 2b
1. On a Pale Horse
The need to put down one of his old horses takes Stinz back to the first time he saw death in the army.
2. Freed Elections
After The War, Stinz is running for councilman in his village -- and ends up getting into a fight that changes his plans entirely.
3. Pipe Dreams
Stinz is sharing a pipe with another old soldier down at the tavern -- and tells those around him the story of where he got his favorite pipe.
Volume 3.
1. Family Values.
Meet Stinz's two other children, a shy angry girl named Siim and a rowdy strong filly named Reet.
2. Old Man Out.
Kindness to a poor girl during the harvest season.
3. Bobwar
How keeping secrets from Stinz's own childhood nearly kills his own kid.
4. Bum Steer.
The return of Captain -- now Sergeant Gift!
5. A Stranger To Our Kind.
A smartalecky young soldier woos Stinz's daughter Reet, now grown to lusty young womanhood.
6. A Marvelous Resistance.
How the war came to an end and what it did to Stinz.
7. A Dog's Life
How the changes happened and whose fault they were.
8. Playthings.
Children should not be allowed to play with either magic or bullets.
AFTERDEAD 1
Horsebrush
A collection of all of the STINZ stories originally included in the Eclipse Comics "The Dreamery" series. There are 15 stories. They are not printed in the order they were published in the original series, but in the order in which they happened in Stinz's life.
Chapter One: YOUNG STINZ.
"The Last Horselaugh." Stinz and his buddies playing a trick on a neighboring half-horse farmer, and getting caught.
"A Breathing Spell." Stinz at the market fair, embarrassing himself trying to dance with his girlfriend.
"Animal Attraction." Nobody would ever think of a half-horse and a two-legger getting together -- but there are moments of fascination, and Stinz finds himself an object of one of those moments.
"The Proving Grounds." Stinz and the young mare Bruena aren't talking to each other -- until she and her arthritic sire are surrounded in the snow by a starving and confused pack of bachelor wolves.
Chapter Two: STINZ & SON "Andri's Christmas Shoes.
" From the first issue of "The Dreamery." Stinz promises his little son Andri a first pair of shoes, but doesn't realize how afraid a child might be of hot steel and horseshoe nails.
"The Carp Of Easter." Stinz and Andri go out to catch a tame carp for Easter dinner, and Stinz nearly gets drowned under the pond ice. "Woman, thou has hit me with a fish!"
"Nothing Like Gone." The Baron's idiot soldiers get caught teasing little Andri. By Stinz, who teafches them not to frighten children.
"Sprunghack Hans." Stinz protecting his little son from the spectre of an evil ancestor."
"Blooming Affections." Andri picks his sire's prize hollyhocks as an offering to a rough young filly. Chapter
Three: STINZ
"Chicken" The two-legger valley blacksmith has a strange black rooster. He's older than he looks. The rooster, that is.
"Not My Problem." The Baron's useless soldiers hit an eagle with an arrow. Stinz makes sure the man pays for the damage, with the Baron's approval. The original editor, Lex Nakashima, loves birds of prey -- this was done for him. "Horsebrush." Stinz and the neighbor's big black Friesian stallion have a difference of "words" -- in equine body language.
Chapter Four: THE WOLVES.
"Smoked Out." Rauchl Schorsche is Stinz's moonshining uncle. That pack of fool wolves shows up and go into business with him.
"Hair Of The Wolf." Rauchl gets another employee, who has a wolfish appetite for alchohol and a wolfish reason for the appetite. "Pack Ice." Rauchl's new employee can't get along with the other workers, until he saves them from an infuriated and frightened Stinz. If anyone has a copy of the cover art of the following collections, please contact Donna Barr
Wartime and Wedding Bells (Prior Engagements, Vol. 1 #1 to # 4)
Warhorse (Vol. 1 #5, Vol. 2 #1 to #3)
BOSOM ENEMIES
"Bosom Enemies is a book about ‘social class, the nature of freedom, blind stubbornness, ignorance, and the treatment of animals.’ Allegory in the tradition of the best fairy tales but with the sharp teeth and claws of the originals. Barr’s art is both direct and highly decorative while still organic. Each page seems to have grown from a single panel, the lines edging their way across the page like vines covering a wall. Barr seems like one of those folks who have to draw, it’s in their blood, there are stories that have to be put to paper.” -- Katherine Keller, Sequential Tart
Issue #1, Losing Our Bearings.
A German officer captures an American sergeant during WW II. Their confusion and squabbling is cut short when people show up who don't even recognize their differences. To them, the two men are just two available -- and saleable -- pieces of horseflesh. Stewart, the American, who was taken away from home as a young man, and thrust into a brutal war, can't help but prefer the comparative quiet of his new life. Stephan, the German, was older when the war ripped him away from his wife and kids -- and he wants to go home! When Stewart and Stephan aren't fighting with their masters, they're at each other's throats Eric Schneider, a reader who wanted to see the continuation of the story of Stewart and Stephan, did all my readers the favor of covering printing costs for this issue.
Issue #2, Bearing Our Loses
An American Sergeant and a German Leutnant Leutnant have been turned into "horses." Now that they're animals, they can be shipped to the frontier, where they're ridden in a government campaign against the stubborn and independent natives. Nobody ever intended that this many people and ponies should die.
"No one will ever accuse Donna Barr of pandering to the masses. This offbeat, intriguing book would be suitable for adults and teenagers, though it might be disturbing to some people. But Bosom Enemies does an excellent job of shaking up our preconceptions about many things. And isn't that what good literature is supposed to do?" --- Aviva Rothschild, Rational Magic.
Issue #3, All Turned Around (Stinz, New Souls).
Originally published as webcomics at Moderntales.com
The boys as tribal horses -- and meeting an American soldier from Vietnam.
Issue #4, Bridgework
Originally published as webcomics at Moderntales.com
German Leutnant Stephan Egger and American Sergeant Stewart Harrow stagger ashore dry as bones on the beach outside San Francisco. In 1970. They’re as young as they were when they lost their rear ends to horse butts, years before during World War Two. They can’t remove their uniforms -- they can’t even pry off their hats. They’re packing the same old grime and sweat. They’re thrown in jail for fighting under the bridge at the Presidio -- and to Stephan’s enduring shock, it’s his granddaughter who bails them out. A culture clash across time and place. As long as there are still hobnails left in his high leather boots, no antique officer should ever be clueless enough to get on a skateboard.
“Barr’s Bosom Enemies makes me queasy. Here are soldiers from different wars that have been altered. One day they took a wrong turn and ended up with a human torso, equine legs. They are kept as horses/slaves by men smaller than themselves, with horse heads and human everything else." -- Mark Simpson, Page 45 Reviews (We lost Mark in 2005 -- he was a true light to this form of art and to the people who love it. He will be very sorely missed).
Ringcat
Illustrated prose Novelette and E-Book. A young SS officer on his first out-of-town assignment bites off more than he can chew. A social fantasy, in a Third Reich that never existed. Yet.
"Ringcat" is one of the most well-crafted, infectious and horrifying stories I've read in years....You've woven a yarn as effortlessly as if you'd lived it yourself." --Ted Deiker, Jambooks.com
Permanent Party.
Prose novel and ebook.
In 1971, “Permanent Party” in the U.S. Army meant assigned to a final duty station. Where the troops could get all the alcohol they could afford, and nobody checked an I.D. card for age. One woman soldier, illegally pregnant, has a miscarriage and is accused of murder. The white girls say the black girls helped her do it. The boyfriends start getting mixed up in it. All the booze in the world doesn’t help.
The Grandmothers Hive. Full-color Children's Book.
Hader and the Colonel
Hader and the Colonel is a picaresque tale of a hapless rabbit granted intelligence and hands by a meddling witch. To win full humanity, he must harvest body parts from a menagerie of hideous creatures, including the harpy who - impressed with his bravery - takes Hader under his wing.
The Totally Socially Unacceptable Alphabet
Written by Dan Barr. Illustrated by Donna Barr.
A is for Arsenic. It cures the sick.
B is for Bloat. It keeps us Afloat.
C is for Catheter. Granny’s was found in her.
Edmund Gorey meets Noël Coward.
Barr Girls.
Life in an hermaphroditic world. Just because everyone is one sex doesn't mean they're any more together than we are.
Skunk
Mostly sex, and some downright scurrilous language. Roberta Gregory, Colin Upton and I did a wildly satirical take on Not-So-Funny Animals. Colin Upton’s rendition of a fearful encounter with customs officials in France was so word-for-word accurate it’s painful. The title is an abbreviation. Tom Verre did the beautiful cover.
Bottom Lines
Originally from Greenery Press
Poems by H. Andrew Swinburne. Illustrated by ("the fearless") Donna Barr.
Funny and heartwarming, clever and poignant and just plain hot. Andy must stay mostly in the closet -- this probably won't change in his lifetime or in mine. But someday, I hope, this book will be a curio, an odd little momento of a bygone era when adult lovers were censured for consensual erotic practices."
Bits n Pieces.
Xerox Minis. What I was doing when I wasn't doing everything else.
