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46-463: Yummy Fur may refer to: Yummy Fur (comics) , an alternative comic book series by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown The Yummy Fur , an indie rock band from Glasgow, formed in 1992, and disbanded 1999 Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Yummy Fur . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

92-407: A gulag camp. Leo Tolstoy 's War and Peace depicts fifteen major characters involved in or affected by a war. Though many people equate protagonists with the term hero and possessing heroic qualities, it is not necessary, as even villainous characters can be protagonists. For example Michael Corleone from The Godfather (1972–1990) film series (1978–1983). In some cases, the protagonist

138-422: A hero (masculine) or heroine (feminine) protagonist is typically admired for their achievements and noble qualities. Heroes are lauded for their strength, courage, virtuousness, and honor, and are considered to be the "good guys" of the narrative. Examples include DC Comics' Superman (hero) and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games (heroine). An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine

184-504: A self-published minicomic which ran for seven issues, the contents of which were reprinted in the first three issues of the Vortex Comics series which started publication in December 1986. The series switched publishers to Drawn & Quarterly in 1991 until the end of its run in 1994, when Brown started on his Underwater series. Yummy Fur came at a time when alternative comics

230-490: A 48-page, digest-sized compilation of the first six issues, with an extra one-page strip called "Fire with Fire". Brown filled up the first four issues with material that he had produced since 1980, putting out one issue per month. After the fourth issue, his backlog ran out. He had to start producing new material, and Yummy Fur 's frequency dropped. All issues had black-and-white contents printed on newsprint , with colour outer covers on heavier stock paper. The Ed

276-521: A brush, became more and more sparse in an attempt to move away from the style of Ed the Happy Clown , which Brown had grown uncomfortable with. Most of the shorter stories, like "Helder", "Showing Helder" and "Danny's Story", took place not long before they were written, but the longer graphic novels took place mostly in Brown's adolescence in the 1970s. Narrated by a winged, not-so-angelic version of himself,

322-460: A character who could not stop defecating , and whose anus was a gateway to another dimension ; then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan 's head attached to the end of the protagonist 's penis ; and a beautiful female vampire, who is out to get revenge on the boyfriend who murdered her, and who usually appears entirely naked . Later, in The Playboy , Brown would detail his adolescent obsession with

368-415: A day job in a photography shop. Brown published the series under the "Tortured Canoe" imprint. Brown had pitched his work to Vortex Comics publisher Bill Marks before 1986, but at the time, Marks was not prepared to publish an ongoing series. In 1986, at the urging of Mister X artist Seth , Marks finally contacted Brown with a contract to publish three issues, which would reprint the entire contents of

414-445: A few thousand. The book was dropped by a printer in the province of Ontario after the printer had used discarded pages of the fourth issue of Yummy Fur to pack boxes of a feminist publication. The issue included a nude scene from the Ed the Happy Clown serial in which the character, Chet, stabs his girlfriend, Josie, while they had sex. The feminist publisher lodged a complaint, and

460-433: A lot of dark religious imagery and potentially offensive imagery— nudity , sex, graphic violence and body horror . Ed was intended to be a character Brown would use throughout his career, but after the first dozen issues, he grew dissatisfied with the direction the story had taken, and also wanted to change his drawing style. Inspired by the autobiographical comics of Julie Doucet and Joe Matt , Brown decided to bring

506-423: A poet named Thespis introduced the idea of one actor stepping out and engaging in a dialogue with the chorus. This was the invention of tragedy, and occurred about 536 B.C. Then the poet Aeschylus , in his plays, introduced a second actor, inventing the idea of dialogue between two characters. Sophocles then wrote plays that included a third actor. A description of the protagonist's origin cited that during

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552-559: A supporting protagonist appears, the story is told from the perspective of a character who appears to be minor. This character may be more peripheral from the events of the story and are not as involved within the "main action" of the plot. The supporting protagonist may be telling the story while viewing another character as the main influence of the plot. One example is Nick in The Great Gatsby . Euripides ' play Hippolytus may be considered to have two protagonists, though one at

598-432: A time. Phaedra is the protagonist of the first half, who dies partway through the play. Her stepson, the titular Hippolytus, assumes the dominant role in the second half of the play. In Henrik Ibsen 's play The Master Builder , the protagonist is the architect Halvard Solness. The young woman, Hilda Wangel, whose actions lead to the death of Solness, is the antagonist. In Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet , Romeo

644-586: Is a main character in a story who lacks conventional heroic qualities and attributes such as idealism, courage, and morality. Examples include Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye , Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind , Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby , and Walter White from Breaking Bad . A tragic hero is the protagonist of a tragedy. Examples include Oedipus from Oedipus Rex and Prince Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet . The protagonist

690-488: Is his own antagonist). Sometimes, a work will have a false protagonist , who may seem to be the protagonist, but then may disappear unexpectedly. The character Marion in Alfred Hitchcock 's film Psycho (1960) is an example. A novel may contain a number of narratives, each with its own protagonist. Alexander Solzhenitsyn 's The First Circle , for example, depicts a variety of characters imprisoned and living in

736-476: Is not always conventionally good. Contrasting the hero protagonist, a villain protagonist is a protagonist who is a villain , driving the story forward regardless of the evil qualities the main character has. These traits can include being cruel, malicious, and wicked. Examples include Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Richard III in the eponymous play by William Shakespeare . When

782-464: Is the character whose fate is most closely followed by the reader or audience, and who is opposed by the antagonist . The antagonist provides obstacles and complications and creates conflicts that test the protagonist, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist's character, and having the protagonist develop as a result. The term protagonist comes from Ancient Greek πρωταγωνιστής ( prōtagōnistḗs )  'actor who plays

828-419: Is the protagonist. He is actively in pursuit of his relationship with Juliet, and the audience is invested in that story. Tybalt, as an antagonist, opposes Romeo and attempts to thwart the relationship. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet , Prince Hamlet, who seeks revenge for the murder of his father, is the protagonist. The antagonist is the character who most opposes Hamlet, Claudius (though, in many ways, Hamlet

874-513: The Ed story to an end in issue #18 of Yummy Fur and spent the next few years focusing on revealing autobiographical stories. Brown's straight-faced cartoon adaptations of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew , started as Brown, who had been raised in a strictly Baptist household, tried to find out for himself what Christ was all about, and what he really believed. The Gospel of Mark began in

920-539: The Playboy Playmates in Playboy magazine, including explicit scenes of his teenage self masturbating and ejaculating . In the short "Danny's Story", Brown had himself picking his nose , and finished with him biting his neighbour. The book was often wrapped in plastic with an "adults only" label on it, although it is not known if any issues of Yummy Fur were ever banned from any comic shop . The edgy content of

966-620: The Yummy Fur title was no longer appropriate for the direction the book had taken, and Brown chose to publish his next major story, Underwater , under its own title. The last issue of Yummy Fur was #32, and was an issue-long instalment of his adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew , which would continue in the pages of Underwater . Most issues were eight pages long, and were photocopied on sheets of 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 " x 11" paper , folded in half and stapled together. In February 1985, Brown put out

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1012-571: The 25th issue of Yummy Fur . Brown did not want to leave Marks up the creek, and so allowed Vortex to publish a second, "definitive" edition of Ed the Happy Clown in 1992, with a different ending from the one that had appeared in Yummy Fur . Drawn & Quarterly, however, published in the same year the collected version of The Playboy , which had appeared in the Vortex-published issues #21–23 of Yummy Fur , and they have continued to publish all of his work since. Oliveros convinced Brown that

1058-592: The Happy Clown storyline has been reprinted in a number of formats since: a 1989 book collecting material from the first 12 issues of Yummy Fur; a 1992 "Definitive Ed Book" , which leaves out much of the later material and also provides a completely new ending; and a nine-issue Ed the Happy Clown series from Drawn & Quarterly with new covers, unpublished artwork and extensive commentary by Brown. The autobiography work has been reprinted as The Playboy: A Comic Book in 1992 and I Never Liked You in 1994, with The Little Man: Short Strips 1980–1995 collecting

1104-423: The Happy Clown , which Brown originally did not intend to have an ending; towards the end, he serialized two works, The Playboy and I Never Liked You , which were conceived from the start as self-complete works. Brown would thereafter make the production of graphic novels the main focus of his output. Yummy Fur quickly gained a reputation for taboo -breaking— Ed the Happy Clown 's plot revolved around

1150-807: The Happy Clown in a tradition that included Dan Clowes ' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron , Max Andersson 's Pixy and Eric Drooker 's Flood! , works in which symbols appear with such frequency and importance to suggest significance, while remaining symbolically empty. He finds predecessors for these works in German Dada and the Theatre of the Absurd . The following are awards or nominations for Yummy Fur or collections of work that first appeared in it: Protagonist A protagonist (from Ancient Greek πρωταγωνιστής prōtagōnistḗs  'one who plays

1196-498: The book was contrasted with his straight adaptations of the Gospels which appeared in most issues of Yummy Fur —albeit, adaptations that took a "warts and all" approach, in which characters pick their noses and Jesus is going bald. Yummy Fur had been a catch-all title for Brown's work, but since bringing the series to an end in 1994, he has published new stories, like Underwater and Louis Riel , under their own titles. Much of

1242-552: The chief or first part', combined of πρῶτος ( prôtos , 'first') and ἀγωνιστής ( agōnistḗs , 'actor, competitor'), which stems from ἀγών ( agṓn , 'contest') via ἀγωνίζομαι ( agōnízomai , 'I contend for a prize'). The earliest known examples of a protagonist are found in Ancient Greece . At first, dramatic performances involved merely dancing and recitation by the chorus. Then in Poetics , Aristotle describes how

1288-555: The difficulties Yummy Fur presented—in the context of the " high art / low art " split in alternative comics in the 1980s, best represented by division of visions in Art Spiegelman 's Raw and Robert Crumb 's Weirdo , the combination of Brown's grotesque adventures in Ed the Happy Clown and the straight renditions of the Gospels seem to straddle this line. Chris Lanier, writing in The Comics Journal , placed Ed

1334-503: The earliest issues of Yummy Fur . The story follows the large-headed, childlike Ed, a children's clown, who, after being submerged in the faeces of a man who can't stop defecating , finds the head of his penis has been replaced with the head of a miniature Ronald Reagan . The story makes use of a wide variety of media and comic-book tropes and clichés , such as vampires , werewolves , Frankenstein's monster , aliens , alternative dimensions and cannibal pygmies , as well as

1380-466: The early period of Greek drama, the protagonist served as the author, the director, and the actor and that these roles were only separated and allocated to different individuals later. There is also a claim that the poet did not assign or create the protagonist as well as other terms for actors such as deuteragonist and tritagonist primarily because he only gave actors their appropriate part. However, these actors were assigned their specific areas at

1426-669: The fact that Diamond Comic Distributors had dropped the book —purportedly for low sales, despite the fact that Yummy Fur had been getting more orders than many other Vortex titles that hadn't been dropped. It was suspected that the book had actually been dropped due to its potentially offensive content. The Comics Journal had begun to investigate the incident, but a few issues later, Diamond started including Yummy Fur in its catalogue again, and sales started to rise, eventually reaching 7000 copies per issue. Drawn & Quarterly publisher Chris Oliveros had been courting Brown for his newly established Montréal -based company, but Brown

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1472-449: The final days of Brown's mother when he was 17. Brown is a difficult son, and has trouble expressing his affection for her. She has schizophrenia and dies in the hospital after falling down the stairs. Originally titled Fuck , the story was retitled I Never Liked You when collected. In the early 1980s, Brown had been trying unsuccessfully to get his work published by publishers such as Raw , Fantagraphics Books and Last Gasp . He

1518-403: The first part, chief actor') is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot , primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a story contains a subplot , or is a narrative made up of several stories, then each subplot may have its own protagonist. The protagonist

1564-534: The fourth issue of the Vortex series, which was the first issue of new material. The Gospel of Matthew started in issue #15 of Yummy Fur and continued in most issues through the end of the series, and in all but the first issue of Underwater . Matthew is unfinished and has not continued since 1997. After completing Ed , Brown moved on to a series of personally revealing autobiographical stories, starting with "Helder" in Yummy Fur #19. The drawing style, done with

1610-449: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yummy_Fur&oldid=718486715 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Yummy Fur (comics) Some of Brown's best-known comics were first published in Yummy Fur , including

1656-487: The printer informed Vortex that they would not handle Yummy Fur anymore. In 1989, the bindery Packaging Services & Supplies of Wisconisin refused to bind the first Yummy Fur collection and an Omaha the Cat Dancer collection, citing that employees found the content offensive; a spokesman for the company called them "worse than pornography". Sales saw their lowest point with issue #9, at 1673 copies, largely due to

1702-495: The remainder, along with other miscellaneous short works from other sources. Brown decided not to reprint the early Yummy Fur stories which had borrowed from other works. The Gospel adaptations also remain unfinished and uncollected. The series was recognized by his peers early on, such as Seth , who recommended to Bill Marks to pick it up as a Vortex title; and got good reviews from publications like The Comics Journal as early as its minicomic days. Joseph Witek wrote of

1748-538: The seven issue minicomic series. The contract would be renewed depending on sales. The December 1986 first issue received preorders of 12,000 copies, a considerable number for a small-press, black-and-white comic book. The large number of orders was due in part to the black-and-white comics explosion of the mid-1980s, spearheaded by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird 's breakout Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . The boom soon imploded, however, and Yummy Fur 's sales dropped to

1794-419: The stage with the protagonist always entering from the middle door or that the dwelling of the deuteragonist (second most important character) should be on the right hand, and the tritagonist (third most important character), the left. In Ancient Greece, the protagonist is distinguished from the term "hero", which was used to refer to a human who became a semi-divine being in the narrative. In literary terms,

1840-503: The story details Brown's experiences as an adolescent obsessed with the Playmates in Playboy magazine, while wracked with guilt over his obsessive masturbation , and later his difficulty relating to women as an adult. The story is the source of some controversy, as it graphically depicted a minor masturbating and ejaculating and was also seen by some women to defend pornography . The story appeared in issues #21–23 of Yummy Fur and

1886-418: The surreal, taboo-breaking Ed the Happy Clown and the comics from his autobiographical period, which included the graphic novels The Playboy and I Never Liked You . Also notable were the eccentric gospel adaptations that ran in most issues. The series and its collected volumes have won a number of awards, and have had a lasting influence on the world of alternative comics. Yummy Fur started as

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1932-527: The work from the series has been republished in book form—the short work in The Little Man —but the Gospel stories and most of the later instalments of Ed the Happy Clown remain uncollected. The story that first drew attention for Brown's work—a surreal, scatological tale of dark humour . The story was improvised for the most part, and grew out of a number of completely unrelated short comics that appeared in

1978-547: Was comfortable where he was, and felt loyalty to Bill Marks for giving him his big break. While Marks had a poor reputation for his treatment of other cartoonists, Brown felt that he had been treated well. In 1991, just as his contract with Vortex had come up, Oliveros offered Brown an enticing deal—a 25% royalty, as compared to 13% at Vortex. That, combined with the fact that Julie Doucet and Seth had jumped aboard Oliveros' ship, convinced Brown join Drawn & Quarterly, starting with

2024-420: Was convinced by his then-girlfriend, Kris Nakamura, to take the work he had piled up and publish them himself as photocopied minicomics , distributing them on the streets of Toronto . Sales got off to a slow start, but eventually picked up. "Sales were brisk", with some issues topping 1000 copies, as Brown sold the books on consignment in bookstores, local comic shops , and through mail order, while working

2070-459: Was originally titled Disgust and later The Playboy Stories . The story was collected in 1992 under the title The Playboy . Another tale of Brown's adolescence. Brown has trouble relating with the opposite sex, even when they are the ones trying to connect with him. He is an awkward teenager who never swears , which is picked up by some of the other boys in his school, who constantly pick on him and try to get him to swear. The story also depicts

2116-439: Was still young, and is considered one of its defining titles. It was one of the earliest examples of a comic that would have its first success as a self-published mini . It started in an era when comic books and their characters were generally considered to be ongoing, and finished when the self-contained stories of the graphic novel had begun to come into prominence. Brown's ambitions changed in step, Yummy Fur started with Ed

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