Product Description: An early classic from the author of Black Hole.
Meet El Borbah, a 400-pound private eye who wears a Mexican wrestler's tights and eerie mask. Subsisting entirely on junk food and beer, El Borbah conducts his investigations with tough talk and a short temper. He smashes through doors and skulls as he stalks a perfectly realized film-noir city filled with punks, geeks, business-suited creeps and mad scientists.
El Borbah features five science-fiction and true-detective episodes: In "Robot Love," rebellious kids in nightclubs replace their "parts" with mechanical substitutes as part of a new fad, only to find that their parents have been automating themselves all along; in "Love in Vein" a mad visionary sperm donor plans a master race and turns "his" kids against their parents; "Bone Voyage" details the exploits of a cult called the Brotherhood of the Bone, a kind of cross between the Masons and the Mansons. The fantastic plots take up the weird fears of a scientific society, but the action is pure pulp. Charles Burns effortlessly spins yarns with gritty punchlines and pictures so perfect they must have existed in some collective memory of junk drama. And through it all crashes El Borbah, trying to make an honest buck from dishonest people.
Burns is the author of Black Hole, the acknowledged masterpiece of the form that Fantagraphics serialized through the 1990s and will be collected into a massive graphic novel in 2005 by Pantheon Books. El Borbah is Burns' earliest work, created in the early 1980s, though the work remains eerily contemporary. Steeped in a "sci-fi-noir" aesthetic informed by Burns' steadily childhood diet of B-movies and comic books, but with a sophisticated sense of humor that is often as disturbing as it is funny, El Borbah is comics as its most entertaining.
!Me Gusta El Borbah! The wonderfully bizarre adventures of El Borbah, a Mexican wrestler type detective. El Borbah is a strange character in even stranger stories, collected in this book.It has a sort of pulp/noir meets science fiction feel that makes for a really entertaining read. !Muy Bueno!
Blah His later work is far superior. While the style is luscious, the content is lacking. The so-called "humor" is very pathetic. Not amusing in the least, even for demented fans of El Santo and mexican wrestling. Pass!
Absolutely Fantastic Production! It's great to see Charles Burns' work get the treatment it deserves, this is one beautifully-made book with hilarious, pulpy stories starring the mad wrestler-detective El Borbah. Well worth the price!
Viva El Borbah! Burns has always been a consistently excellent artist. No one knows how to put black on paper better than him. This collection contains some great artwork and entertaining writing. I can't wait until the next collection....
Viva El Borbah! Years before bands such as Southern Culture on the Skids and Los Straightjackets began to pay homage to masked Mexican wrestlers, Burns gave us El Borbah. The mask wearing Private Dick chain smokes, swills beer and gets into fist fights with just about everyone. Bizarre and beautiful. For those who love B-Grade Sci-Fi, Mexican wrestlers and Film Noir, this is a must have.
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