Bughouse [Paperback]

Steve Lafler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1996

BugHouse is cartoonist Steve Lafler's graphic novel about the life of a jazz band of the same name. Set in an "insect noir" Manhattan of the early fifties, BugHouse is built on an ensemble of characters, who are essentially human beings with bug-like features. Tenor saxophone maestro, Jimmy Watts, leads his talented band of bugs from the swing era into the uncharted maelstrom of Bop. And as he and his band mates claw their way to the top of the jazz world, they must fight the temptation to be consumed by addiction to a substance known as "bug juice" (users of bug juice cook the drug over flames and suck it in through their antennae). Never has a more "human" portrait of drug addiction been portrayed, and never before has the art of music felt more alive and real on the printed page.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Like the characters of Art Spiegelman's Maus (1986), Lafler's are humanoid except for their heads, which are those of insects. Whereas Spiegelman's story is his father's life, Lafler's is realistic fiction. In an alternative America in which 1945^-75 is condensed to a decade, young tenor saxman Jimmy Watts wins a scholarship to City Music College in Bugtown. There he meets pianist Slim Watkins, who is as gone on progressive jazz as he is. A midweek duo gig for beer leads to playing in a hot band to forming a quartet to becoming the cutting edge in jazz. The gig also leads Jimmy to curvaceous Julie Blanchette and her turn-on, bug juice, to which Jimmy and Slim become addicted. A teaser reveals that Slim never gets straight, and a flash-forward, that Jimmy does. Having settled those big issues, Lafler concentrates on developing the familiar theme of a jazzman's demimonde life in terms of character. With dialogue and line, he individuates his buggy personae and leaves the reader eager for Bughouse, volume two. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1 pages
• Publisher: Regent Pr (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1889059005
• ISBN-13: 978-1889059006
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,071,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, memorable, and spooky., September 22, 2010

By 

Cilly (Eastern WA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bughouse (Paperback)

I first read Bughouse about eight years ago, and I never forgot it. I thought it was great on several levels. When I bought a copy recently, I was worried that it wouldn't hold up to my memories, but I'm happy to say that it did.

For the most part, Bughouse is a fairly straightforward story about several guys who want to make it as jazz musicians. They go to school, study traditional music, play the nontraditional music that they actually love, have affairs, play in bars for free beer and try really damn hard to get their foot in the door. This is entertaining of course, and all these events strike a clean balance between excitement and plausibility. If the book were not illustrated with painstaking drawings of suit-wearing, sax-playing bugs, you would think it was a jazzman's memoir. It feels very relatable and real. After awhile, you start seeing the bugs as people; I swear I know a guy who looks and acts like the mosquito-ish drummer Ralph. So, you feel a connection to these characters when they strive, and cut deals, and start fiddling around with addictive drugs, or abstain but keep a cautious eye on the ones who aren't, evade the cops and tap-dance on the edge of really screwing up their lives and careers--not just once, but multiple times, and with the risk of dragging their friends down with them.

I'd like to point out that the author doesn't play up the drug use to manufacture buckets of angst. It might not even be the most important aspect of the story, though it has a strong effect on most events. Some characters escape disaster, others go down for the count, and when the dust has cleared, the author seems to shake the hands of all contestants with affection and equanimity. Good job, too bad, you gave it your best shot, here's what you win. It's not sugarcoated, just fairly low-key about how things tend to end up.

And you may need that low-key for later, because at points in this book, the author just hauls off and throws you for a loop. Things get wildly surreal in Bughouse, every once in awhile. It's hard to describe to a prospective reader, because I'm not sure what to say, except that it's awesome. The occasional weirdness is my favorite aspect of the book, and I want to tell you all about it, but that would ruin the surprise. I'll have to stay vague and say that the author dabbles in spirituality and plays fast & loose with time and space, in order to tell a better story. Sometimes he's telling the story to you, sometimes he's telling the story to the characters themselves. It's not quite Castaneda and it's not quite Twilight Zone, and with any luck it'll make your hair stand on end. It's both beautiful and spooky.

Oh, just read it; it's a hoot. It's one of those rare books that makes you feel like you experienced something yourself. I can't give higher praise than that.

4.0 out of 5 stars Gimme some Bug Juice!, April 17, 2001

By 

Raymond W. Neal (Jacksonville, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bughouse (Paperback)

This graphic novel is great! The Booklist reviewer above compared Lafler's anthropomorphism to that of Maus. Not a bad sound bite, but while this book lacks the gravitas of Maus, it is thoroughly enjoyable as a Jazz age tale of addiction and redemption. Lafler's dialogue is spot-on, and his drawings are fantastic. He really sucks you into this alternate world and leaves you wanting more. The storyline(s) are nothing novel (substitute heroin or alcohol for bug juice and almost any addicted musician for the bugs and you get a familiar true life story) but his telling of the tale is fantastic. Once again, Top Shelf has given us something really worthy of addition to any collection of alternative comix. Buy this!