Graphic Story Monthly #6
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeGraphic Story Monthly #6 (June 1990) holds a firm place in alternative comics history as the verified debut of Bitchy Bitch — Midge McCracken — the short-tempered everywoman created by Roberta Gregory who would go on to anchor the 40-issue Fantagraphics series Naughty Bits and become the longest-running solo alternative comic by a female cartoonist. The issue also stands as one of the only pre-2017 English-language appearances of André Franquin's beloved Belgian strip Gaston Lagaffe, here translated by Fantagraphics editor Kim Thompson under the English title Gomer Goof, making it a rare point of transatlantic cultural crossover for Anglophone readers. Together, these two features make a single anthology issue carry an outsized significance for both feminist underground comics and the reception history of Franco-Belgian cartooning in North America.
"Professor Cucumber and His Stereotyped Assistants" is a delightfully absurd entry in the eclectic lineup of Graphic Story Monthly #6, a 1990 Fantagraphics offering that leans into surreal humor with a deadpan delivery. The issue’s standout feature is its quirky, typeset lettering and a striking cover by Roger Langridge, whose distinctive style brings the title’s offbeat premise to life. With promotional pages for other titles like "Lust of the Nazi Weasel Women" and "Peter Kuper's New York New York" tucked within, the issue feels like a snapshot of a bold, boundary-pushing era in alternative comics—offbeat, bold, and unmistakably its own.
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Graphic Story Monthly was Fantagraphics' second general-purpose comics anthology, launched as a direct successor to Prime Cuts, with many of the same contributors carried over and a fresh number-one to reset the series. Kim Thompson, co-owner of Fantagraphics and a devoted fan of European comics, served as the editorial force behind the translated material in the anthology, writing introductions and personally translating Franquin's Gaston Lagaffe strips as Gomer Goof. Roberta Gregory had relocated from California to Seattle in 1989 to work as a production artist at Fantagraphics, and it was in this environment — embedded in the publisher's operations — that she contributed the strip introducing Bitchy Bitch, roughly a year before the character received her own dedicated series.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Bitchy Bitch (Midge McCracken), created and drawn by Roberta Gregory — the character who would headline the 40-issue Fantagraphics series Naughty Bits (1991–2004).
- Published June 1990 by Fantagraphics Books as part of their general alternative-comics anthology series Graphic Story Monthly.
- Graphic Story Monthly was Fantagraphics' second anthology series, following Prime Cuts, and maintained a true monthly schedule through this sixth issue before the series effectively ended after a seventh and final issue.
- Gomer Goof appearing in this issue is the English-translated incarnation of Gaston Lagaffe, the gag-a-day Belgian strip created by André Franquin in 1957 for the magazine Spirou — a strip enormously popular across Europe but almost entirely unavailable in English at the time.
- The Gomer Goof translations were the work of Kim Thompson, Fantagraphics co-owner and editor, who was an enthusiast of Franco-Belgian comics and rendered several Franquin strips across both Prime Cuts and Graphic Story Monthly.
- Fantagraphics' Gomer Goof appearances in the early 1990s remained among the only English-language presentations of Franquin's Gaston until Cinebook began publishing full English-language album editions in July 2017, retaining Thompson's 'Gomer Goof' character name.
- Bitchy Bitch later received animated adaptations: shorts titled Bitchy Bits aired on the Oxygen Network's X-Chromosome anthology starting in 2001, followed by the spin-off series Life's a Bitch on Oxygen (U.S.) and The Comedy Network (Canada).
- Roberta Gregory's Naughty Bits, which grew directly from this debut, became the longest-running solo alternative comic book series by a female cartoonist, earning Gregory multiple Eisner nominations and an Inkpot Award (1994).
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Reprints
Reprinted in God's Bosom and Other Stories: The Historical Strips of Jack Jackson #[nn] (1995), As Naughty As She Wants to Be! #[nn] (1995)
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