Created by Gilbert Shelton, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers was a popular underground comix that presented the wacky, drug-fueled (or at times, drug-seeking) adventures of three unrelated hippies living together in San Francisco. Freewheelin’ Franklin Freek is the most laid-back of the trio. He wears a cowboy hat and boots, has long brown hair and a mustache, and has a pronounced nose and chin. Phineas T. Phreak is the most politically active. He has black hair and beard and a prominent nose that looks like a joint. Fat Freddy Freekowtski is the most hedonistic and the dumbest. He has curly blonde hair and a mustache. Fat Freddy’s Cat was spun-off into in his own strips.
Buy The Idiots Abroad and Other Follies (Vol. 6)Fantagraphics is collecting Shelton’s work in a new seven-book series, Freak Brothers Follies. Each deluxe hardcover features a special die-cut cover. The Idiots Abroad and Other Follies (Volume 6, although the first to be released) features a three-part story of globetrotting adventures, co-written and co-drawn by Paul Mavrides, that was first serialized in Rip Off Comix #11 (1982) and #12 (1983) and later appeared in their self-titled book, issues #8 (1984), #9 (1985), and #10 (1987). The Fat Freddy’s Cat story appeared in Fat Freddy’s Cat #6 (1986). The authors make appearances in single-page meta strips.
Seemingly starting like a typical adventure of theirs, Part 1 opens with the trio planning to go to Bogota, Colombia to get some smoke from the source; however, they split up at the airport, heading in different directions. The start of their journeys is well executed graphically as one page is divided into three columns with each man’s story moving vertically down the page.
Fat Freddy meets international terrorists posing as Scottish soccer fans in the airport bar. He ends up in Glasgow airport before passing through numerous European cities, including the drug haven Amsterdam. He unintentionally runs off with Andre’s nuclear weapon and in Moscow meets artist/inventor/anarchist Pablo Pegaso.
Franklin flies down to Central America with a woman to drop unspecified shipments in middle of night to a group of survivalists and local Indians. He escapes them and right-wing death squad leader Colonel Gallito by boarding a luxury liner, only to be shanghaied by pirates.
Months and months go by, with both ending up in an African prison and sold into to slavery to…Phineas. He left the airport and went to Mecca. With his computer hacking skills, he forged a passport and siphoned money from oil sales. To launder the money, he created a religion called “fundaligionism” and became a worldwide televangalist, “earning billions of dollars a week,” which led to him becoming the richest person in the world. But Phineas won’t free them. Meanwhile, Colonel Cornbelt is seizing control of every government with the help of terrorist Andre the Hyena and plans to install Phineas as Emperor of Earth.
Occurring during their trip away, the Cat has to deal with a roach-infested apartment. He tells his fellow cats about the war that occurred between the capitalist and communist cockroaches. This story also allows for commentary on political themes as well as commentary on Hollywood because the Cat digresses in the middle suggesting the events were almost turned into a movie but it’s all narration so he may be making it up.
With “The Idiots Abroad,” Shelton and Mavrides have moved on from finding comedy in heady topics such as looking to score grass and chicks and are using the Brothers to explore and comment upon a variety of cultural, societal, and political themes about the state of the world in the 1980s, which still seem relevant today. They have a lot to say, and some times too much. For example, the pages covering Freddy and Franklin’s education has so much text in the captions and word balloons, it requires straining and a magnifying glass to take it all in. Yet with all they are dealing with, they do a great job of tying together all the plotlines and characters in a satisfying way.
The art is very colorful and the panels well detailed as it accurately depicts the different international locales. The intricate two-page spread of Franklin waking up in the jungle is impressive as are a lot of the larger panels that are fun to pore over. The art for the Cat’s story is black ink on white with many panels just dealing with pertinent foreground details over empty backgrounds. And for the faint of heart, there are a lot of cockroaches throughout the story.
