Who Likes Mister Boffo?

I grew up with two of Joe Martin's comic strips in my paper, "Mr. Boffo" and "Willy 'n Ethel". I was thinking about them recently as I read two very good strips in my Long Beach local paper.

"Get Fuzzy" is always good, but the two that have (relatively) recently caught my attention are Tony Carillo's "F Minus" and the award winning "Cul de Sac" from Richard Thompson.

I first noticed "Cul de Sac" while living in Texas. It was a weird and twisted and starred kids, and then I noticed that one of the kids' friends was named Loris Slothrop, and I was hooked. Anyone who'd name a character "Slothrop" was going to be a fan of mine.

I noticed "F Minus" while living in Brooklyn, and it appeared in the Daily News. One strip remains one of my  all time favorites: a woman is in bed and she's telling her fella "Be careful if you go out this late honey; there's a strangler on the loose," while he's got a hat low on his brow, his jacket's collar turned up and he's holding a length of rope.

The off-beat style of "F Minus" had me thinking of "Mr. Boffo" and the comics I grew up with. I started looking up information in Joe Martin, and found that he still writes three daily strips and appears in many, many papers.

"Mr. Boffo" and "Will 'n Ethel" are the ones I know of, while the third is "Cats with Hands", a strip depicting a world where cats have opposable thumbs. There are some classic examples in the "Cats with Hands" archives.

I then heard about the strangest and rarest of the appearances of Mr. Boffo. Joe MArtin and his son Jay got together and produced a comic book adventure, half drawn by Joe and half drawn by Jay, an aspiring comic book illustrator. In it, Earl, the name usually associated with the main character in "Mr. Boffo", turns into a huge superhero while his little dog, Weederman, gets turned into a big heroic werewolf type creature.

I was able to locate, and procure a copy of this rarity. The seller must not have had any idea what he had. But with this weird thing, does anyone really have an idea?

Earl Boffo and Weederman go to hell. Well, not really...a thing from another dimension falls to earth and gives them special powers, and a marauding trio get their due from the newly minted super Boffo and his lovable dog-monster. It is really something else.

This is the kind of comic book I collect nowadays: weird, random shit that means something to me.

There are no ads inside, and the black and white artwork from Jay looks a little amateur, but it is still something that I'd never imagined.

Here's the back cover, with one of Joe Martin's oldest variant jokes, the "I think he's quitting", with people looking out onto another person making an 'F' in grass or snow.

One of my favorite "Mr. Boffo" strips from when I was a kid had a little banner in the upper corner that said "The Award for the Laziest Man in the World", and we see Earl sitting up in bed saying to himself "Didn't I do this yesterday?"

For those uninitiated, you might want to check out Joe Martin's site.