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El Borbah (The Complete Charles Burns Cartoon Library , No 1)
 
 

El Borbah (The Complete Charles Burns Cartoon Library , No 1) [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

~ Charles Burns (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)


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  Hardcover, Illustrated -- $20.00 $17.49
  Paperback, December 20, 2005 $14.49 $9.82 $9.62

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An early classic from the author of Black Hole.

Meet El Borbah, a 400-pound private eye who wears a Mexican wrestler's tights and eerie mask. Subsisting entirely on junk food and beer, El Borbah conducts his investigations with tough talk and a short temper. He smashes through doors and skulls as he stalks a perfectly realized film-noir city filled with punks, geeks, business-suited creeps and mad scientists.

El Borbah features five science-fiction and true-detective episodes: In "Robot Love," rebellious kids in nightclubs replace their "parts" with mechanical substitutes as part of a new fad, only to find that their parents have been automating themselves all along; in "Love in Vein" a mad visionary sperm donor plans a master race and turns "his" kids against their parents; "Bone Voyage" details the exploits of a cult called the Brotherhood of the Bone, a kind of cross between the Masons and the Mansons. The fantastic plots take up the weird fears of a scientific society, but the action is pure pulp. Charles Burns effortlessly spins yarns with gritty punchlines and pictures so perfect they must have existed in some collective memory of junk drama. And through it all crashes El Borbah, trying to make an honest buck from dishonest people.

Burns is the author of Black Hole, the acknowledged masterpiece of the form that Fantagraphics serialized through the 1990s and will be collected into a massive graphic novel in 2005 by Pantheon Books. El Borbah is Burns' earliest work, created in the early 1980s, though the work remains eerily contemporary. Steeped in a "sci-fi-noir" aesthetic informed by Burns' steadily childhood diet of B-movies and comic books, but with a sophisticated sense of humor that is often as disturbing as it is funny, El Borbah is comics as its most entertaining. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.


About the Author

Charles Burns lives in Philadelphia, PA, with his wife, the painter Susan Moore, and his two daughters. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 96 pages
  • Publisher: Fantagraphics Books; illustrated edition edition (August 20, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1560973269
  • ISBN-13: 978-1560973263
  • Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.3 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,147,632 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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El Borbah (The Complete Charles Burns Cartoon Library , No 1)
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Fantastic Production!, August 28, 1999
By A Customer
It's great to see Charles Burns' work get the treatment it deserves, this is one beautifully-made book with hilarious, pulpy stories starring the mad wrestler-detective El Borbah. Well worth the price!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars !Me Gusta El Borbah!, January 15, 2001
The wonderfully bizarre adventures of El Borbah, a Mexican wrestler type detective. El Borbah is a strange character in even stranger stories, collected in this book.It has a sort of pulp/noir meets science fiction feel that makes for a really entertaining read. !Muy Bueno!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Viva El Borbah!, July 27, 1999
By A Customer
Burns has always been a consistently excellent artist. No one knows how to put black on paper better than him. This collection contains some great artwork and entertaining writing. I can't wait until the next collection....
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Blah
His later work is far superior. While the style is luscious, the content is lacking. The so-called "humor" is very pathetic. Read more
Published on January 4, 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars Viva El Borbah!
Years before bands such as Southern Culture on the Skids and Los Straightjackets began to pay homage to masked Mexican wrestlers, Burns gave us El Borbah. Read more
Published on May 30, 1999 by onikaiju@aol.com

5.0 out of 5 stars Sick Thrills from the Master of the Razor Line!
Fans of Burns know him to be one of the two or three (let's include Gary Panter and Chris Ware) geniuses of the form at work today. Read more
Published on November 2, 1998

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