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.)
