Real Stuff – fantastic 90s comic book, serialized on Boing Boing

"The amount of violence and fighting Eichhorn has been involved in is, in itself, astonishing to one such as me. But he is also gifted with a good sense of humor, irony and self criticism, so that he has been able to turn his life experiences into good stories." – Robert Crumb

One day in 1990 I was scanning the racks of my local comic book store in Boulder Colorado, and I came across the first issue of a comic book called Real Stuff. The cover was drawn by Peter Bagge, who was the creator of a comic book series called Neat Stuff. I assumed Real Stuff was a new comic written and illustrated by Bagge, so I pulled it off the shelf without scrutinizing it further, and added it to the other comics I'd selected to buy that day.

When I got home, I sat down to read it. It turned out not to be a new comic book by Peter Bagge, but a series of autobiographical short stories written by a man named Dennis Eichhorn.

From the very first story, I knew I was going to love Real Stuff. Dennis has had some of the strangest life experiences you can imagine, and he comes across as a person who is adventurous, compassionate, curious, and enjoys laughing at himself. Best of all, he is a terrific storyteller.

Real Stuff is one of my favorite comics of all time, and I have some good news to share. Boing Boing is going to run the amazing stories from the pages of Real Stuff, once a week. I'm immensely excited that a new audience is going to be able to read Real Stuff on Boing Boing, free of charge. I hope you'll enjoy reading, or re-reading them.

This week, we are running the cover from Real Stuff #1 (Fantagraphics, December 1990), along with two one-page stories from the inside front cover and page 1. Next week, we'll run a four-page story called "The Great Outdoors."

(Listen to my new interview with Dennis Eichhorn on the latest episode of Gweek.)